Clients of Ibbotson Associates' Encorr product can now purchase Standard & Poor's mutual fund data directly through Ibbotson.

Although S&P data has been available through Encorr since July 1, Ibbotson has been in talks with its clients about the new agreement for a few weeks, said Jim Ulbrich, product manager at Ibbotson.

Clients have been responding favorably to the new data, said Ulbrich. He estimated that there are approximately 1,000 subscribers of the Encorr product. Ibbotson is offering clients a free trial.

Ibbotson currently links to other data providers, such as Morningstar, Lipper and Weisenberger, but subscribers cannot purchase the products directly through Ibbotson. Ibbotson does not keep tabs on which data providers their clients are using, since data is not primarily purchased through Ibbotson.

The deal will help in the sales process of the Encorr product, said Ulbrich. With the relationship, Ibbotson can offer customers the S&P data, and also accommodate clients already using another data provider. "One stop shopping makes it a lot easier for them," said Ulbrich.

Ibbotson does not have an interest in promoting one provider over the other, said Ulrich. "We just want our clients to be comfortable with whatever data [they choose]," he added.

Ibbotson sought S&P out for the deal, since it already has pre-existing arrangement with other fund data vendors, said Ulbrich. He said they internally compared S&P data with other vendors, and found their product to be "very favorable."

The process of setting up software to "read" S&P data took less than one month; Ulbrich added that Ibbotson already relies on S&P for indices and is familiar with their formatting methods. 

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