Markit, the leading provider of independent data, portfolio valuations and OTC derivatives trade processing, today announced changes to its equities division. Markit Equities provides dividend research and index management services to buy-side and sell-side institutions and derivatives exchanges.
The Markit Equities team is now led by Philippe Rivet, director and head of Equity Products in charge of sales, business development and client services and Paul Hodge, director and head of Equity Production, who takes responsibility for operations including dividend research, index management and reference data. Hodge joined Markit recently from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund where he was coo. Both Rivet and Hodge report to Niall Cameron, executive vice president and Global Head of Equities and Indices.
Markit Equities comprises two fast-growing services: Markit Dividends, the benchmark for independent dividend forecasts and Markit Index Management, a service which collates, validates and publishes official data on any commercially available equity index or ETF in a single feed and format.
The new team aims to expand the Markit Dividends universe to cover additional indices such as the Russell 3000 index, a U.S. small-cap index. It also aims to extend its index management service to other asset classes in order to offer a single point of reference for official index composition data.
Niall Cameron, executive vice president and global head of Equities and Indices at Markit, said: "With the rise of dividend investing, the need for independent forecasts has never been greater. By combining Markit’s dividend expertise with an enhanced index management business, we are able to offer our clients a unique insight into the global equity markets. We also see the calculation and distribution of banks’ proprietary indices as an area where there is significant potential for growth."
John Price, managing director and founder of Markit Equities (formerly DaDD) now manages NTC Economics, a provider of global macro-economic indicators that Markit acquired last week.
