Platts Launches Sugar Industry's First-Ever One-Stop Solution For Data

LONDON, Sept. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Platts, a leading global agriculture, energy, metals and petrochemicals information provider, has this week launched Platts Market Data – Sugar, a  comprehensive, daily data package containing global price assessments and freight rates for raw and white sugar from Brazil, Thailand, Europe and other locations.

"We're pleased to unveil our latest Platts Market Data product, which will provide the sugar industry with its first truly holistic pricing picture of the global market with the benefit of single-source convenience," said Andrew Goodwin, Platts vice president and general manager of metals & agriculture. "Through a variety of delivery formats, we hope to meet the information and work-flow needs of front, middle and back offices."

Aimed at sugar market professionals, the end-of-day data feed features proprietary price references for break bulk and containerized spot cargoes of raw and white sugar, and associated freight rates, as assessed by Kingsman, the sugar pricing specialist unit of Platts. It also includes access to the unit's custom historical data since 2006.

Platts Market Data – Sugar is comprised of three key components:

• Platts/Kingsman daily and monthly spot, premium and discount price assessments for key global sugars, as loaded from ports in Brazil, Thailand and Europe (SG category)
• Platts/Kingsman daily freight assessments for bagged and bulk sugar (SY category)
• Third-party prices for key sugars and additional market locations (SP category – to be launched in October)

"We believe Platts Market Data—Sugar will help producers, refiners, traders, brokers and other industry members to make better business decisions," said Jonathan Kingsman, Platts global director of agriculture. "It also has the added advantage of being deliverable to customers' proprietary systems, making it an excellent resource for record keeping and modelling."

Delivery options for Platts Market Data – Sugar include FTP site (.TXT file); downloadable spreadsheet (.CSV file); and Platts' product distribution partners, which include several of the world's leading data analysis and delivery companies.

Platts Market Data – Sugar is the latest in a series of Platts Market Data packages made available to the biofuels, coal, electric power, metals, natural gas, oil and petrochemicals markets. Through its Market Data products, Platts is among the first to offer end-of-day assessments, corrections, and historical data in a daily data feed – better enabling customers to reduce risk when making important trading decisions, valuing positions and analyzing data.

Price assessments published by Platts/Kingsman are underpinned by structured methodologies containing rigorous quality requirements to maintain the integrity of the assessments.

Founded in 1990 and based in Lausanne, Kingsman was acquired by Platts in 2012 and is part of the Platts agriculture group, which provides market news, price assessments and analysis to the sugar, ethanol and biodiesel markets.

For more information on sugar visit www.kingsman.com  and for more information on Platts products and services, visit www.platts.com.

About Platts: Founded in 1909, Platts is a leading global provider of energy, petrochemicals, metals and agriculture information and a premier source of benchmark prices for the physical and futures markets.  Platts' news, pricing, analytics, commentary and conferences help customers make better-informed trading and business decisions and help the markets operate with greater transparency and efficiency.  Customers in more than 150 countries benefit from Platts' coverage of the biofuels, carbon emissions, coal, electricity, oil, natural gas, metals, nuclear power, petrochemical, shipping and sugar markets.  A division of McGraw Hill Financial (NYSE: MHFI), Platts is headquartered in New York with approximately 900 employees in more than 15 offices worldwide. Additional information is available at http://www.platts.com.

About McGraw Hill Financial: McGraw Hill Financial (NYSE: MHFI), a financial intelligence company, is a leader in credit ratings, benchmarks and analytics for the global capital and commodity markets. Iconic brands include: Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, S&P Capital IQ, S&P Dow Jones Indices, Platts, CRISIL, J.D. Power & Associates, McGraw Hill Construction and Aviation Week. The Company has approximately 17,000 employees in 27 countries. Additional information is available at www.mhfi.com.

CONTACT:
Kathleen Tanzy
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SOURCE Platts