TransUnion Plans $515M Acquisition of Verisk Financial Services

TransUnion is planning a $515 million acquisition deal for the financial services business unit of Verisk — Verisk Financial Services — which offers competitive studies, predictive analytics, models and advisory services for financial institutions, payments providers and retailers worldwide.

Argus Information & Advisory Services, Verisk Financial’s leading business, offers proprietary portfolio performance insights that complement TransUnion’s capabilities in understanding consumer behavior through a “full wallet view.” Argus also has tools that deal with merchant fraud, regulatory compliance and consumer bankruptcy.

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“Verisk Financial is a distinctive business with authoritative, differentiated data — particularly from Argus’s consortium of lender-contributed data and analytics. TransUnion’s broad range of data, analytics and technology enhances Verisk Financial’s existing data set and expands their addressable market while delivering valuable innovation to members of the consortium,” Chris Cartwright, president and CEO of TransUnion, said in a press release on Tuesday (Feb. 22).

Verisk Financial posted $143 million of revenue last year and $41 million of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) before corporate allocations and one-time discrete costs, or 29% margin. The company is forecasted for low-single-digit revenue growth this year, but TransUnion anticipates it will “accelerate to high single digits in 2023 and into the low double digits in 2024 as part of the combined company.” TransUnion is also expecting to achieve an adjusted EBITDA margin of about 40% by 2026.

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“As consumers continue to digitize their financial behaviors, the addition of Verisk Financial will augment our existing data and analytics capabilities, deepening customer partnerships and complementing our insights and benchmarking solutions,” said Steve Chaouki, president of U.S. markets and consumer interactive at TransUnion.

“Together, our enhanced capabilities will help our respective customers accelerate their growth by allowing them to make better — and faster — decisions driven by a holistic ‘full wallet view’ of how consumers are using their accounts,” Chaouki added.