Vienna Stock Exchange takes over majority of Hamburg company database North Data

The Vienna Stock Exchange is primarily a trading venue. But at the weekend the company announced the acquisition of an 80 percent majority stake in the Hamburg search engine for company data North Data. In this way, the stock corporation is further expanding its portfolio beyond its actual core business.

Of the 90 million euros in group sales in the last record year, only around 40 percent came from securities trading and stock market placements. The company is diversifying its “sources of income along its core business areas,” writes Vienna Stock Exchange boss Christoph Boschan in a press release.

In addition to the strong market position in the area of ​​European corporate data, the decisive factor for the investment in North Data was “the complementary orientation to existing data activities and the long-term growth prospects,” explains the company when asked by Handelsblatt.

The company already generates more than a fifth of its revenue from selling market data. Almost 30 percent comes from the custody business on the Prague Stock Exchange and more than seven percent comes from IT services. The business areas are highly profitable: Last year, the Vienna Stock Exchange reported a margin of 59 percent with pre-tax profits of more than 53 million euros.

The stock exchange made the purchase public on Sunday. The takeover has been operationally running for over six weeks. The shares were transferred to the notary on July 29th. The decision in favor of the Vienna Stock Exchange was also made due to an open and innovative corporate culture, explains founder Frank-Felix Debatin.

According to North Data, Debatin will remain with the company as CEO and hold the remaining 20 percent of the company. According to the commercial register, Raphael Proksch, head of finance at the Vienna Stock Exchange, has been running the business alongside him since August 13th.

North Data has a three-tier business model: basic data is generally free, and advanced searches and dossiers are chargeable. There is also interface access for companies and authorities. There are no plans to move this limit, says Debatin. The platform brings together information on 100 million private companies in 26 European countries from more than 160 public sources, such as the commercial register or EU databases.

With the takeover, Vienna is following a course that the major stock exchange operators have already taken. The London Stock Exchange Group took over the data provider Refinitiv for around $27 billion in 2021 - today the group generates the majority of its revenue from data and analytics, not from stock trading.

Deutsche Börse bought into the ESG data business with the voting rights advisor ISS. Stock exchanges around the world are transforming themselves from trading venues to information companies. “We see data as a growth business,” says the Vienna Stock Exchange when asked.

With the takeover and participation in the central European data ticker EuroCTP since August 2023, it is further expanding its position along the data value chain. In addition to the growth prospects, data subscriptions also provide more predictable revenue than fluctuating trading sales.

The stock exchange's previous investments are in the environment of regulated markets. However, the Hamburg platform provides data about companies that are not currently listed on the stock exchange. With the acquisition, the Vienna Stock Exchange is tapping into new customer groups outside of the capital market, such as compliance departments, credit examiners or authorities.

According to its own information, the company reports annual recurring revenue of 10 million euros.

North Data also has a particularly strong connection to the journalistic sector. Among other things, the company sits on the funding board of Network Research and has employed Christina Brause, an investigative data journalist, since April 2025. Guidelines secured under Debatin separate their editorial work from business interests. Nothing has changed, Brause tells Handelsblatt. North Data also confirms that the position remains unchanged.

The majority owner, the Vienna Stock Exchange, belongs to a larger group of Austrian banks and insurers: including UniCredit Bank Austria with 13 percent, Erste Group with eleven percent, the Vienna Insurance Group with nine percent as well as Raiffeisen Bank International, Austrian Control Bank and the Uniqa Group with around seven percent each.

Both sides do not mention a purchase price. However, it can be narrowed down from the known figures: North Data reports an annual profit of over two million euros for 2025, and according to the company, recurring subscription revenue is more than ten million euros per year.

Comparable companies are currently trading at two and a half to five times their sales, explains Jan Eiben, Managing Partner at Hampleton Partners. For the 80 percent, this results in 24 to 47 million euros, estimates Eiben. Because of its growth - profits have increased twenty-fold from around 100,000 euros since 2020 - he places North Data at the upper end of the range.