MMS plans growth in forex analysis

"We are profitable and in a very fortunate position: [former owner] Standard & Poor's has been a very good partner," he said.

Arora's plans rebut market speculation that falling revenues and a shrinking client base for the market data industry as a whole could result in lay-offs and office closures for MMS. But Arora said: "There are opportunities." He noted that the total number of market data terminals taken by sell-side institutions has actually gone up in the past three years.

Arora -- a former Dow Jones executive who left that company to work on his bid for MMS in July 2001 -- led a consortium that beat off stiff competition from six other bidders to buy MMS in September from McGraw Hill, parent company of Standard & Poor's.

The firm now plans to develop a new delivery mechanism that it believes will gain it access to new clients. "One of the things we are working on is a new Web-feed product," Arora said. "The current system involves a degree of integration, but we want to introduce a plug-and-play system to lower cost and speed up subscription and reduce the time to market." He said that the firm would invest around $6 million in technology.

MMS products will retain their overall branding image, although the Standard & Poor's regalia will be removed. "The brand name is very well known and we will look to build on that," said Arora. "We were mindful of not introducing other company names."

The firm is also planning to extend its coverage of FX options and corporate credit markets as well as focusing on its "core activities" of FX and fixed-income commentary and analysis. "There is a big market out there, and the potential to expand is huge,"Arora told FX Week. Plans are also afoot to improve the usability and display of the firm's products.

Contrary to views expressed by some of MMS's competitors (FX Week, September 30) Arora believes the sell-side market for third-party commentary is ripe for growth. One strategy is to provide content for sell-side banks as part of their trading offerings for clients, rather than just to the banks' dealers.

"On a trading platform at a bank they tend to put news services on as content, but users get more value from commentary and analysis," he told FX Week. "Many buy-side corporate treasuries already have a vendor terminal providing them with that kind of news content. What they need is commentary, analysis and actionable trading strategies."