Couple scoop £2bn Blackrock deal as husband and wife dump financial data firm Preqin

The husband and wife team behind data group Preqin are set to join the ranks of Britain’s richest people after agreeing to sell to Blackrock for £2.55bn.

Mark and Lindy O’Hare, who own 80 per cent of the business through a family holding company, will make a £2bn windfall when the deal is completed.

This alone would make the couple richer than Blackrock boss Larry Fink, who has a net worth of £1.3bn and founded the money manager in 1988.

The takeover will also make the O’Hares richer than F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and Hargreaves Lansdown founder Peter Hargreaves, who are both worth around £1.8bn.

Some of Preqin’s 300 employees also own a stake in the group and will become billionaires as a result of the deal.

Founded in 2003, Preqin tracks the performance of private equity firms and hedge funds.

The British group has nearly 50,000 clients and 16 offices around the world, according to its website.

It is expected to post revenues of £190m by 2024. Cambridge-educated O’Hare was chief executive before stepping down in 2022, while his wife worked at the company until 2008.

She sits on the company’s board of directors and “represents the O’Hare family’s interests in the business.”

The acquisition comes as Blackrock looks to expand its technology division and as a growing number of its clients seek granular information on financial markets.

The US giant recently agreed to buy data group Global Infrastructure Partners in January for £10bn.

Blackrock Chief Operating Officer Rob Goldstein said: “As clients increasingly evolve their focus from product selection to portfolio construction, this shift requires technology, data and analytics.”

Blackrock said Preqin would complement its Aladdin portfolio management software, which offers investors a way to view and manage investments on a daily basis.

Mark O’Hare will join Blackrock as a Vice Chairman after the deal closes.

He began his career at the Boston Consulting Group before moving into business in the 1990s.

In 1993 he created Citywatch, a shareholder information service, before selling it to Reuters five years later.

Lindy O’Hare is South African and studied English at the University of Natal and Contemporary Art at Goldsmiths College.

As well as business, the couple made headlines during the pandemic when they built an open-air theatre on the grounds of their Suffolk estate.

The 350-seat theatre, which cost £70,000 to build, is situated inside a crater left by a World War II bomb.

Thorington Theatre is now in its third season of music, drama, opera, comedy and poetry, but has become one of Britain’s best-known open-air theatres.

In an interview with the BBC in 2022, Lindy O’Hare said: ‘Profit was not the driving force; as long as it’s not a burden on the farm, we’re happy.’

The theatre is open from June to August.

Takeover frenzy sees UK companies sold for £31bn

By John Paul Ford Rojas

A “feeding frenzy” has seen UK-listed companies worth more than £31bn succumb to takeover bids in the first half of this year.

Figures from broker Peel Hunt yesterday showed there have been 30 “firm” bids for British companies since the start of January with an average value of just over £1bn.

The half-year total of £31.5bn was the highest since the second half of 2021.

And it is already more than 50 per cent ahead of the £19 billion for the full year 2023.

Charles Hall, research director at Peel Hunt, has previously described the takeover spree as a “feeding frenzy”.

And yesterday his colleague Michael Nicholson, head of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) at the brokerage, said: “At the start of the year we saw the UK takeover market as being on a coiled spring – now the cat is out of the box.”

The figures could fuel anxiety that British corporations are being sold on the cheap, even to foreign predators, thanks to low valuations on the UK stock market.

But Nicholson said directors of takeover companies have been encouraged to demand higher offers amid an improving market.

This meant that bidders, on average, paid a premium of 40 to 60 percent over the share price to close deals, up from the previous typical range of 30 to 50 percent.