Global data provider S&P Dow Jones Indices, a division of S&P Global, announced today that it has agreed to acquire ARC Research, the branch of ARC Group behind the widely recognised private client wealth indices.
The ARC indices provide anonymised, risk-adjusted performance data for private client portfolios. Access to the anonymised data and benchmarks is freely available, with no charge.
The indices are widely viewed as a useful tool for private clients to evaluate the performance of their investments and asset management providers.
[See also: How the ARC was built]
Related
S&P Dow Jones produces the S&P 500, the index which tracks the performance of 500 of the biggest publicly traded US companies. The company expects the deal to expand its capabilities to tailor its data solutions and performance benchmarks to the needs of wealth managers, private banks and financial advisers.
‘The acquisition of ARC Research represents a significant step in our commitment to serving the evolving needs of the wealth management industry,’ said Dan Draper, the CEO of S&P Dow Jones Indices.
He added: ‘ARC Research’s expertise, high-integrity data, and trusted benchmarks are a natural fit with our global capabilities. Together, we aim to elevate transparency and benchmarking across wealth portfolios, enabling clients to make more informed decisions.’
Graham Harrison, the founder and chairman of ARC Group, said the acquisition would enable ARC to take its private client indices to a global audience. The firm maintains a dataset of some 500,000 private client portfolios, which it claims is the largest of its kind in the world.
Content from our partners
[See also: The Spear’s Wealth Management Indices 2025]
ARC Research collects actual performance data, net of fees, supplied by over 190 investment managers to establish the actual returns being seen by real clients. Managers contributing data include Barclays, Canaccord, Charles Stanley, Coutts, RBC Brewin Dolphin, Rathbones, Schroders and UBS.
‘We have always dreamt of taking the ARC Wealth Indices and our vision of better performance transparency to private clients across the globe,’ said Harrison. ‘We are thrilled to have found a partner in S&P Dow Jones Indices that shares our vision and brings instant global brand recognition.’
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2025; no financial terms have been revealed.
ARC Group will continue to control its own separate advisory business. The division will remain independent and privately owned, and will continue to advise on $25 billion in assets for international families and charities.
‘For the ARC Group, our core advisory business has a compelling growth story all of its own. This will become our sole strategic focus. We continue to believe that large and sophisticated private client investors have need of truly independent advice,’ said ARC Group CEO Stephen McMahon.
The ARC Indices are known for providing benchmarks for the performance of private client portfolios, and are trusted by many leading wealth management firms to assess and compare portfolio performance. As McMahon told Spear’s last year, they also allow private clients to understand how well their providers are performing compared to their peers, even when those peers operate in different ways.
‘If I have two managers who I’ve asked to do very different things, how do I cross-compare those?’ McMahon previously told Spear’s. ‘The reality is you can take in quite disparate data and provide a common analysis to it. There’s unbelievable power in big data.’
Both S&P Dow Jones and ARC have said that during and after the integration of the indices into S&P, all business will run ‘as usual’, meaning existing clients can expect to keep working with the same teams.
