AllianceBernstein Closes Autonomous Research Acquisition

In order to further expand its global reach, AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. AB has completed the acquisition of U.K.-based global financial service provider, Autonomous Research. The deal was announced in November last year.

Seth Bernstein, AllianceBernstein's President and CEO said, “AB's commitment to fundamental research is unwavering. We are very pleased to have Autonomous join forces with Bernstein, already a leader in institutional equity research and trading, to provide our clients worldwide with the highest quality independent research.”

In November 2018, AllianceBernstein had inked an agreement to buy all partnership interests and shares of Autonomous Research. However, the transaction value was not disclosed. At that time, AllianceBernstein had projected the deal to be marginally accretive to earnings by 2020 in lieu of modest up-front investment.

The acquisition will further strengthen the company’s scale and global reach with offices across Europe, Asia and the United States. It is also expected to lead to improvement in AllianceBernstein’s revenues and profitability.

Over the past year, shares of this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company have rallied 11.4% against the industry’s decline of 11.5%.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Globally, the asset management industry has been facing tough operating backdrop and regulatory upheaval following the introduction of Markets in Financial Instruments Directive or Mifid II in Europe. This has led to a rise in consolidation in the industry.

Over the past month, two announcements on this front were made. These were Brookfield Asset Management Inc’s BAM deal to acquire nearly 62% stake in Oaktree Capital Group, LLC OAK and BlackRock’s BLK binding offer and an exclusive agreement to buy eFront from the latter’s employees and Bridgepoint.

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