S&P Global Platts to expand India presence
It now plans to focus on agri tracking
S&P Global Platts, the benchmark pricing and analytics company for energy and commodities, is expanding its agro commodity tracking business globally as well as its presence in India.
Earlier this year, it acquired Live Rice Index (LRI), a global provider of information and benchmark price assessments for the rice industry.
Platts now employs over 50 in that sector, across pricing, news, and analytics, including a dedicated agriculture team in Gurugram.
The company already has more than half its global employees in India. “We have expanded our presence in India because of the increasing opportunity we see here. We are developing capabilities here, so that we can source the best people,” Martin Fraenkel, president, S&P Global Platts, told Business
Standard in an interview. India offers the advantage of being in the middle of the time zone and can service both Europe and Asia.
The LRI buyout expanded Platts portfolio of agricultural price assessments while extending its data and news coverage in key export regions for international grains.
Founded in 2011, LRI is the leading price reporting agency (PRA) in the global rice industry.
Through LRI buy, Platts offers rice price assessment, news and analysis for rice buyers, sellers, brokers and traders in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Paraguay, Thailand, Uruguay, the United States, and Vietnam.
Prior to LRI buy, Platts had price assessment in grains and oilseeds.
Platts does Black Sea corn and Black Sea wheat price assessments, following the launch of financiallysettled futures and options contracts by the CME Group.
These assessments offer market participants hedging opportunities and greater flexibility to mitigate grain price risk throughout supply chain. According to the company, the derivatives settled on Platts Black Sea wheat and corn indices, cleared by the CME, have traded more than 16 million tonne (mt) since launch.
They have a current level of open interest (open contracts) representing more than 1.7 mt.
In India, agriculture commodities are benchmarked to either the government set minimum selling price or mandi (wholesale market) prices. Here, global benchmarks are not followed.
Availability of price assessment in India could help bring transparency in agriculture pricing, especially for those commodities that are traded.
Platts has been expanding capabilities in agriculture over the last seven years. The LRI acquisition is part of a multi-year strategic investment to further develop its price-reporting leadership in agriculture markets. It acquired Kingsman’s sugar and biofuels business in 2012.
Recently, it launched a trial minimum viable product for agriculture. This would enable full agriculture service on the Platts platform. The scope includes content from four of Platts’ pricing and news products — daily grains and oilseeds, daily sugar market report, EU sugar market report, and the weekly global ethanol report.
“The goal is to convert content from end-of-day or weekly static PDF publications to an interactive and dynamic experience for customers with prices, news, and market commentary updated throughout the day,” said a company spokesperson.