Douglas Peterson on mergers and acquisitions
From S&P Global’s Doug Peterson: ‘Now is the time to strike’ · · BostonConsultingGroup
“It started with a phone call to the CEO of IHS Markit, Lance Uggla, and we had to decide how we were going to work. There were two ways that I had to think about it for the board: our financial capacity and our leadership capacity.”
On , Douglas Peterson, Senior Advisor at S&P Global Inc, spoke about mergers and acquisitions during S&P Global’s Doug Peterson: ‘Now is the time to strike’ on BostonConsultingGroup.
About Douglas Peterson
Douglas Peterson, Senior Advisor at S&P Global, has discussed the company's strategic decisions and market observations in recent appearances. In a 2024 interview, Peterson reflected on the 2022 acquisition of IHS Markit for $44 billion, stating that the decision was based on both financial and managerial capacity. He said, "Now's the time to strike," and emphasized the importance of culture in the merger, noting that "when you have two large organizations that are this big coming together, if you don't put that front and center, it's not going to happen." He also described the challenge of executing the deal during COVID, including renting a wedding venue for management meetings with social distancing. In a 2018 interview, Peterson discussed S&P Global's business model, saying the company has "been in the data business for over 150 years and we know how to monetize data." He identified alternative data and ESG as growing themes, and noted the shift from bank markets to capital markets globally. Regarding China, he said the country "needs a yield curve, they need a credit risk curve" and that S&P Global has been "building relationships there." He also described post-2008 enhancements to credit analysis, including cross-team collaboration to identify credit indicators and bubbles.