Morningstar acquires financial blog website Footnoted.org

Independent investment research provider Morningstar Inc, yesterday said it had acquired the financial blog website Footnoted.org for an undisclosed sum.

Peekskill, New York,-based Footnoted.org, founded in 2003 by financial blogger, author and journalist Michelle Leder, specialises in examining daily SEC filings to unearth critical information, usually buried in the fine print, for evidence of aggressive accounting, excessive compensation, or questionable self-dealing that can indicate more serious problems at a company.

With original insight and analysis culled from corporate filings, Footnoted's free site has become a must-read for professional money managers and analysts, as well as sophisticated individual investors. The company also publishes Footnoted Pro, a service for institutional investors, such as hedge fund firms, that provides insight on actionable items and trends in filings.

Leder, a reporter and editor who spent 10 years at daily newspapers in Florida, Connecticut, and New York, became interested in SEC filings early in her career while writing about a small Florida bank that was engaged in aggressive accounting during the last real estate boom. As
As a freelance business journalist, her work has appeared in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Portfolio and Slate, among others. Leder is widely quoted in the news media as an expert on SEC filings.

In 2003, she authored the book Financial Fine Print, which led her to launch Footnoted.org. Since its inception, Footnoted has been lauded by BusinessWeek, CNN/Money, Financial Times, Fortune, Time, and The Wall Street Journal.

Writing about the sale of the company on the website, Leder said, ''While I negotiated mightily for the keys to the Gulfstream, the corporate apartment in Paris, the company yacht, the lifetime consulting contract and, of course, a tax gross up - all crazy perks we've written about in various M&A deals - I came up empty handed. That's because Morningstar doesn't believe in those sorts of things. Nor do I. Instead, my reward will come if I'm able to grow the footnoted business the way that I envision, which is exactly as it should be and just another reason why I'm so excited to be joining Morningstar.''