Multex Systems Keeps Busy With Reseller Pacts

Multex Systems Inc. has seen progress in its efforts to sign reseller agreements with Automatic Data Processing Inc., Bloomberg L.P. and Reuters. The full-text graphical research distribution service vendor reports that its so- called Multex on Bloomberg service is up and running; that its long-pending deal with ADP is about a month from completion; and that its recently announced deal with Reuters does indeed involve that vendor's Project Armstrong data warehouse.

Meanwhile, the vendor has brought a number of brokerage contributors more fully into its fold, converting them from so-called unsigned contributor status to contracts. Among others that have undergone such a conversion is Goldman Sachs & Co., the firm whose research department is ranked No. 2 by Institutional Investor.

Multex has waged a nearly two-year fight against Thomson Financial Services Inc.'s First Call Corp. in the full-text graphical research arena. First Call's graphical offering is called Research Direct.

Confirming details of the alliance first reported in IMD sibling publication Investment Management Technology (IMT, June 23), Multex senior vice president of sales and marketing Jim Tousignant calls the Reuters/Multex pact a global agreement that is "actively part of [Reuters'] Armstrong initiative in general." He declines to specify how the two endeavors will be linked.

Reuters' Project Armstrong database warehouse -- recently dubbed the Reference Database by Reuters -- is slated to be rolled over the next year and is to consist of fundamentals on 23,000 companies, corporate news, equities economic data for 88 countries, stock index constituents and weightings, consensus earnings, warrants terms and conditions, and convertibles and conditions.

Multex plans to release Multex over Reuters in the fourth quarter with pricing issues to be decided by Reuters, says Tousignant.

Tousignant says that in joining forces with Reuters, Multex will gain the ability to reach into Europe and Asia to find both subscribers and content contributors.

Tousignant says that either vendor may sign up new subscribers. He says Reuters will manage the process of collecting research and content from European and Asian contributors. "But it's certainly anticipated that they will actually sign -- in some instances -- contracts as the distributor of that research directly. Our agreement with them provides that they can do that as long as we have access to that information as well."

He says Reuters is looking to begin gathering content for Multex -- and is authorized to sign contributor agreements for Multex -- immediately. Says Tousignant: "Reuters through this agreement now has a technical and a business means to collect, process and distribute research reports to their customers worldwide as well as take advantage of all of the content that we have collected and processed going forward."

He says Multex will have access to Reuters-collected content and vice versa: "We're crosspopulating each others' systems...."

Multex's deal with Reuters follows an earlier pact with Bloom-berg, signed late last year (IMD, Nov. 7, 1994). Tousignant says that the Bloomberg deal -- which did not go live until earlier this year -- has greatly increased Multex's penetration. "Because we're now live over Bloomberg, we already have 6,000 subscribers live in over 200 institutions and two months ago we had under 1,000," claims Tousignant. "By the end of the year, we should have in excess of 10,000."

Meanwhile, Multex has also been courting ADP (IMD, Jan. 6) -- the vendor that originally spun Multex off. Of those negotiations, Tousignant says, "it's fair to say that we've made substantially greater progress recently with that and we would expect to conclude an agreement" within the month.

One reason ADP is interested in Multex is that many of ADP's largest quote-service clients are brokerages that could use Multex for internal distribution of research, says Tousignant. For ADP, an ADP/Multex deal may also assist ADP in its buy-side penetration effort, he says. "From Multex's point of view, it's a very good complementary channel to what we already have in place."

Tousignant cites Merrill Lynch & Co. as actively working with Multex and ADP. "When you have 500 branch offices and 25,000 users in your own branches, they're some of the largest consumers of your own research. Obviously, today that's printed and mailed to those branches, not delivered electronically."

Meanwhile, Tousignant says Goldman had been testing both Multex Publisher and Research Direct for over a year. In this test phase, Tousignant says, Goldman provided Multex and First Call with content on a 30 day delay basis. Now that Goldman chose Multex, Multex receives Goldman research in real time, Tousignant says -- "and we're getting their global content not just their North American equities content."