Business Monitor International

In 1984, two founders, Richard Londesborough and Jonathan Feroze, launched Business Monitor International, or BMI. Their playbook was simple: provide country risk and industry analysis, with an initial focus on the emerging markets of Latin America. The business was about delivering specialized news, data, and forecasts on political, economic, and financial risk to clients who needed to make informed decisions. By the mid-90s, they were already producing numerous newsletters and forecast reports. In 2009, the company took on a substantial, non-controlling equity investment from Spectrum Equity Investors to help accelerate its global expansion. This set the stage for a major event. In March 2014, Fitch Group, a global leader in financial information services, announced it was acquiring Business Monitor International. The move was designed to strengthen and expand Fitch's offering, adding BMI's expertise in emerging and frontier markets. Following the acquisition, BMI continued to operate with its founders at the helm for a period. It was eventually integrated more deeply into its parent company, rebranding as BMI Research, then later as Fitch Solutions Macro Research, and now trades as BMI, a Fitch Solutions Company. This completed the journey from an independent research firm to a key component of a major financial information services powerhouse.