Morningstar Australasia to acquire Aegis Equities Research

Morningstar Australasia has continued its acquisition drive, announcing it would acquire Aegis Equities Research from Aegis Equities Holdings.

The transaction was likely to be completed within the next few weeks, a statement from Morningstar said. The chief executive and founder of Aegis Equities Research, Peter Leodaritsis, will continue to run the Aegis businesses until the acquisition is completed, and will then serve in a part-time consulting capacity for six months.

Aegis Equities Holdings will continue to operate its other businesses such as Aegis Corporate Research and Aegis Property Research.

The transaction follows Morningstar's acquisition of Intech, now called Ibbotson Associates, in June last year and its recent purchase of the Huntley's Your Money newsletter.

Morningstar Australasia chief executive Andrew Bird said Morningstar and Aegis had "highly complementary businesses, research styles and market coverage in equity research".

"The combination of our offerings and the creation of a larger analyst team will enable us to broaden and deepen our coverage of Australian listed companies, provide Australian clients with more robust independent research, and give us the potential to expand our services in multiple delivery channels," he said.

Aegis Equities Research operates a web-based research platform that includes proprietary equities research and market commentary on more than 200 ASX-listed companies for institutional, adviser and retail clients.

Aegis also operates ShareAnalysis.com, a subscription-based website for individual investors, and publishes the ShareAnalysis weekly e-newsletter. The Aegis business also provides model equity portfolios that can be licensed as a sub-advisory service for managed accounts or in 'buy lists'.