The companies said Friday they now expect to close the deal in the first quarter of next year S&P Global Inc. won European Union approval to buy IHS Markit Ltd. after agreeing to sell off commodity price assessment and financial data businesses, Bloomberg reported. The divestments removed “problematic overlaps” that could have “limited customers’ access to some competitive and reliable data which is essential to ensure fairness of physical trades and financial markets,” the European Commission said in an emailed press release last Friday. The deal, initially valued at about $39 billion in stock, marries S&P, one of the most famous names in financial markets, with a research company that supplies forecasts to most of the world’s biggest companies. “S&P Global and IHS Markit expect the proposed remedies to be sufficient to satisfy global regulators, the companies said. The companies said Friday they now expect to close the deal in the first quarter of next year. The deal has sailed past the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority regulators, who also said they will clear the deal if concerns are addressed.