Defaqto has announced the acquisition of Pearson Ham Group’s market pricing business for a deal worth £11m.

The company called the deal a strategic move that would significantly enhance Defaqto’s portfolio of data and technology solutions.

Defaqto, which provides data and product ratings to the financial services sector, completed the acquisition through its parent company, Fintel.

The addition of Pearson Ham Group’s market pricing business means Defaqto will now offer a more extensive product and pricing dataset in the UK personal lines insurance market.

Defaqto CEO, John Milliken, commented: “The Pearson Ham Group pricing business is a profitable, growing, cash generative business with a rich historic data set and a strong value proposition that is invaluable to the UK insurance industry.

“The winners in the AI economy will be those with unique, valuable, proprietary data and expertise who can also innovate to benefit their customers. Through the combination of unrivalled product and pricing data, Defaqto has the tools to help the industry to better understand and deliver consumer value.”

Fintel CEO, Matt Timmins, added that the acquisition is an “important milestone” in growing the wider group’s software and data division.

“It exemplifies the type of high-quality, synergistic acquisition that we target as part of our strategy – enhancing our capabilities, deepening our market position, and reinforcing our position as the strategic technology and data partner to UK financial services,” Timmins said.

The market pricing business will initially operate as a standalone entity before being integrated into Defaqto later this year.

CEO at Pearson Ham Group, Stephen Kennedy, added: “We are delighted to become a part of the Defaqto family, because of the exciting ideas we have to grow the business and Defaqto’s proven ability to integrate and add value to the businesses they acquire.”

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