By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Business information provider S&P Global (NYSE:) Inc on Friday took a step closer to becoming a data powerhouse as it won EU antitrust approval for its $44 billion takeover of IHS Markit Ltd to better compete with Bloomberg and Refinitiv.

S&P announced the deal last November, underscoring the consolidation in the industry as companies seek to create one-stop shops to attract the biggest clients and invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The European Commission approved the deal on condition S&P sells IHS’ U.S Oil Pricing Agency Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), PetroChemWire and the Coal, Metals and Mining businesses.

S&P clinched a deal in August to sell the assets to News Corp (NASDAQ:) for $1.15 billion.

Margrethe Vestager from European Antitrust said that the conditional approval will eliminate any problematic overlaps in commodity prices assessments as well as in loan identifiers, indices.

Reuters exclusively reported on Oct. 12 that S&P would win the EU green light for the deal.

S&P Global is a distant third by annual revenue behind Bloomberg and Refinitiv, based data from on market research firm Burton-Taylor. Acquisition of IHS Markit (No. The acquisition of IHS Markit would help accelerate its growth.

Thomson Reuters (NYSE:), parent to Reuters News, provides information and news for the oil markets.