Morningstar purchases Hemscott

Morningstar Inc., the U.S. research firm known for its five-star mutual-fund rankings, agreed to buy the Hemscott financial-data unit of Ipreo Holdings LLC for $51.6 million to increase sales outside of the U.S.

Hemscott Data, based in London, provides information on more than 19,500 public companies, 170,000 directors and officers, and earnings estimates from 68 U.K. securities firms, Chicago-based Morningstar said in a statement Monday.

"They are making it clear that international operations is an area they are going to focus on," said Marvin Loh, director of research at WR Hambrecht & Co. in Boston.

Morningstar, which provides data on more than 260,000 funds, had already bought at least seven companies since it raised $141 million through an auction-style initial public offering in 2005. These included the $83 million acquisition of an S&P unit in March that doubled the size of Morningstar's fund database and increased its business outside the U.S.

Morningstar fell $2.18 to $74.89 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The company has risen 66 percent this year compared with a 2 percent gain for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

The deal, which Morningstar expects to complete in January, includes Hemscott India, which operates a data-collection center in New Delhi; Hemscott.com, a free investment research Web site that attracts more than 320,000 users a month; and Hemscott IR, a U.K.-based investor-relations and corporate-communications service.