Factset Research Systems Inc.
FDSHIGH VELOCITYFILING INTENSITYFactset Research Systems Inc. reads as an High Velocity (composite 62/100); Consistent Strategic Buyer deploying $372M across 3 disclosed transactions, down 82% vs the prior cycle · primary market Financial Infrastructure.
Lens
Disclosed M&A capital (2023–2025)
$372M
vs $2B in 2020–2022
Disclosed transactions
3
2/3 active fiscal years in window
Buyer archetype
Consistent Strategic Buyer
Meaningful spend appears across repeat years.
Composite score
62
High Velocity dominates · Filing Intensity
Behavioral posture, nine reads.
Each index scores the issuer 0–100 against an EDGAR-anchored definition. Scores ≥ threshold elevate the issuer into the index's constituent set; the dominant index drives the masthead label.
Active Acquirer
Companies actively deploying disclosed capital into M&A
- $3.4B disclosed buyer spend
Buyer Cadence
Buyer-side companies with recent filing activity
- 17 acquisition-history signals
- 193 8-Ks
Target Probability
Issuers showing target-side patterns from filings
- 1 activism filings
Spin/Carve
Issuers showing spin-off, carve-out, or sum-of-parts posture
- 1 activism filings
Pressure Watch
Issuers facing activism, governance, or control pressure
- 1 activism filings
- Latest activism 22y ago; heavily discounted
Distress Watch
Issuers showing financial-distress filing patterns
- 1 activism filings
Restatement Risk
Issuers with accounting-integrity flags from filings
Capital Velocity
DominantIssuers with the highest filing-activity intensity
- 193 8-Ks
- 5 form types
Quiet Power
Large issuers with low signal volume and clean disclosure cadence
- Enterprise value $9.4B
- 10-Q 68d ago
- 2 active signals
Capital cadence.
Ten-year disclosed M&A activity. Bars show spend ($MM); ticks show recorded transaction count. Disclosure tier annotated where v6 audited corpus carries an entry.
Disclosed spend $MM Disclosed transactions (right axis)Peak spend year: $1,982M · Peak count: 3
| FY | Disclosed buys | Disclosed spend | Avg ticket | Audited tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 3 | $348M | $116M | N/A |
| 2024 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 2023 | N/A | $24M | N/A | N/A |
| 2022 | 1 | $2B | $2B | N/A |
| 2021 | 1 | $58M | $58M | N/A |
| 2020 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Strategy posture.
The buyer's playbook in terms of strategic archetype: what each disclosed move says about how they're deploying capital.
Archetype mix
- Bolt On20%
- Geographic Expansion20%
- Technology Acquisition20%
- Talent Acquisition20%
- Tuck In20%
Strategy keywords
Terms recurring across recent 10-K acquisition disclosures.
- bolt_on
- geographic_expansion
- technology_acquisition
- tuck_in
- talent_acquisition
Filing language.
Direct excerpts from acquisition disclosures and strategy sections: the verbs the buyer chose, in the filings they signed.
“Mergers, consolidation or contraction of our clients in the financial services industry also could directly impact the number of clients and prospective clients and users of our products and services”
“Uncertainty, consolidation and business failures in the global investment banking industry may cause us to lose clients and users”
“Uncertainty in the global economy and consolidation in the financial services industry may cause us to lose clients and users”
“As we continue to pursue selective acquisitions to support our business strategy, we seek to be a disciplined acquirer.”
“Many of our clients are investment banks, asset managers, wealth advisors, and other financial services entities. Uncertainty in the global economy or a lack of confidence in the global financial system could negatively impact our clients, which could cause a corresponding negative impact on our business results. Mergers, consolidation or contraction of our clients in the financial services industry also could directly impact the number of clients and prospective clients and users of our products and services. If our clients merge with or are acquired by other entities that are not our clients, or that use fewer of our products and services, they may discontinue or reduce their use of our products and services. Thus, economic uncertainty, lack of confidence”
Market context.
Where this issuer sits inside its SE-Cluster rollup wedge, with disclosed-spend rank plus trading comparables against the public peer set.
Primary market
Financial Infrastructure
- Market spend (2023–2025)
- $186.1B
- Market spend (2020–2022)
- $98.1B
- Recent vs prior
- +90%
- Issuer rank in market
- N/A
- Share of market capital
- 0.0%
Valuation positioning
FDS trades at a -11.4-turn discount to the Financial Infrastructure peer median of 21.4×.
- EV / Revenue
- 3.9×
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 1.2×
- Peer median EV / EBITDA
- 21.4×
Trading comparables
FMP market data · 2026-05-10
| Company | EV / EBITDA | EV / Rev | Net debt / EBITDA | Revenue | M&A 2023–2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fair Isaac CorpFICO | 25.4× | 13.1× | 2.9× | $2.3B | N/A |
Msci Inc.MSCI | 24.5× | 15.1× | 3.0× | $3.2B | $755M |
| 21.4× | 10.8× | 1.4× | $7.9B | $451M | |
S&P Global Inc.SPGI | 17.4× | 8.7× | 1.5× | $15.7B | $2.6B |
| 16.2× | 8.2× | 3.2× | $13.1B | $10.3B | |
Factset Research Systems Inc.FDS | 10.1× | 3.9× | 1.2× | $2.4B | $372M |
Trading multiples from FMP market data; disclosed M&A spend from the SE-Cluster EDGAR 10-K corpus. Peer set = top disclosed buyers in Financial Infrastructure. Bars scaled to the highest EV/EBITDA in the set.
Target landscape.
Public-issuer targets that fit this buyer's archetype and target categories from filing-derived signal. Scores reflect cross-signal fit; reasons cite the EDGAR-anchored facts that drove the match.
No qualifying public-issuer targets surfaced from the current signal mix.
Stated target categories
No target categories enumerated in the audited corpus for this issuer.
Filing activity & signal stream.
Filing cadence and event-driven signals visible on EDGAR. The signal stream below is curated from restatement / spin-carve / activism categories, providing context for any near-term call.
Filing cadence
- 10-K (annual)312025-10-22
- 10-Q (quarterly)962026-04-02
- 8-K (event)1932026-04-08
- Proxy / DEF 14A482025-10-27
- Activism (13D / DFAN / PREC)12004-01-22
Signals on file
- elevated
Activism on file
2004-01-221 activist filing on file (13D, DFAN14A, PREC14A series).
- info
Signal
Disclosed acquisition spend
- info
Signal
10-K strategy themes
Audited corpus.
No audited record on file for this CIK in the current v6 corpus.
This issuer has not been extracted into the v6 audited acquirer corpus yet. The brief above pulls from ranking-level aggregates and issuer-index signal only.