Wilshire launches indexing arm with partners

Yasmine Raso

Senior Journalist, Financial Newswire

29 March 2023

Global financial services firm, Wilshire, has launched its indexing business as a new operating entity, Wilshire Indexes, with the Financial Times (FT) and Singapore Exchange (SGX Group) joining as strategic partners.

The launch partly continues Wilshire’s existing partnership with the FT and seeks to expand the global adoption of the FT Wilshire index suite, while SGX will work with Wilshire Indexes to provide indexing solutions to institutional investors and other financial intermediaries.

Mark Makepeace, Wilshire Indexes chief executive, said the announcement is the latest step in transforming “Wilshire’s legacy business into a modern index provider”.

“Now, at a pivotal inflection point, this organizational change and outside capital will allow us to focus on our growth plans. We believe that, with the support of our new investors and shareholders, the newly created subsidiary will become an important player in the industry.”

“At its core, this transaction ensures both the investment solutions and index businesses continue to receive the resources they need to achieve long term success. This will enable us to seamlessly serve clients of both businesses and provide them the high quality services they rely on us for,” Andy Stewart, CEO of Wilshire, said.

The FT’s CEO John Ridding said the newspaper was pleased to be taking this step and becoming a shareholder of Wilshire Indexes.

“Almost two years ago, we announced our strategic collaboration with Mark and his team at Wilshire. The FT has been a pioneer in digital journalism and the ‘new agenda’ for investing – including ESG, climate and technology,” he said.

“This collaboration will help us provide the data, metrics and indices to support market-leading analysis in traditional and new investment sectors, serving our readers even better and strengthening our position as the leading global financial news provider.”

“SGX welcomes the opportunity to partner with Wilshire Indexes, which is uniquely poised to gain adoption in a fast growing industry,” Ng Kin Yee, Head of Data, Connectivity and Indices at SGX Group, said.

“Our partnership will offer institutional investors and intermediaries with more services built around best in class index designs.”