LSEG Capital Markets Days 2023
LSEG hosted its Capital Markets Days (CMD) on 16 and 17 November 2023. The CMD consisted of presentations from David Schwimmer, CEO, Anna Manz, CFO, Satvinder Singh, Head of Data & Analytics and Ron Lefferts, Head of Sales & Account Management as well as breakout sessions with various divisional heads.
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Nov 16 - Event Video
Presentations by David Schwimmer, CEO and Anna Manz, CFO.
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Nov 17 - Event Videos
Presentations by Satvinder Singh, Head of Data & Analytics and
Ron Lefferts, Head of Sales & Account Management.
Q&A with David Schwimmer, Anna Manz, Satvinder Singh and Ron Lefferts.
Captions will be available soon
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- Okay, welcome back, everyone.I imagine you've all got a lot of notes.Welcome back to everyone on the webcast.We have an hour set aside now for Q&Awith David, Anna, Satvinder, and Ron.And let's kick off.So hands up for questions, please.Yes. Thank you, Kyle.Sorry, there are microphones.If you wait for the microphones so the webcast can...Stick your hand up, Kyle.- [Kyle] Let me just start with a questionon EBITDA margins.Just the way that you laid out in the slidethe three segments, 52% for capital markets and post-trade,and for data analytics specifically, 45%.And you showed that the peers are at 51%.So the question really is,given what we heard from Tradeweb with less expectationfor margin expansion into the future,should we expect that really a majorityof the margin expansion over the medium termshould really come from that data analytics segment?And is 51% getting to a peer margin set,is that achievable in the medium term?- Thanks for the question.Anna, I'll turn that to you.- So yeah, I mean, the reason we showed that slidewas because the majority of the margin opportunityis in data and analytics,and that's the piece we're working on.And I would say there's no structural differencein terms of our business versus our peers.That would mean that we shouldn't,once we've optimized ourselves,be at a similar level of margin.That said, you know, it's gonna take a number of years,which was the journey we've laid out.- Yeah. Andy.- [Andrew Coombs] Thank you.It's Andrew Coombs from Citi.I'll ask two questions.And I apologize, one will be for Anna again.On the mid- to high-single-digit revenue growth,you talk about this accelerating after 2024,in part due some of the Microsoft initiativesand other factors.When you specifically think about 2024,just so we can think about base,this year you're talking about the higher upper endof six to eight,but you've flagged that there's one percentage pointfrom M&A in there.And then there's a couple of items in post-trade.So what do you think we should be thinking aboutas the base from which to then accelerate fromfor the revenue growth?I can ask the second question as well now.- Well, we'll take that one and then come back to it.Anna, you wanna touch on that?- Yeah, so I think your question is reallywhere are we for 2024?And the first thing I'd say,(attendees laughing)I mean, the first thing I'd sayis all the momentum that I talked to you about,Q3, nothing's changed.So we are feeling good about the business as we enter 2024.Now, you know, I'll let you work out the exact numbers,but we've got good underlying organic momentumthat you can work your way through.And there are a number of one-off itemsthat will slightly slow our growth in 2024,which we've talked aboutand are fully reflected in your consensus,well, in analyst consensus, you know,which looks to be sensible.And they are the reduction in cash collateral in post-trade,Euronext, Credit Suisse, all the thingsthat you know and we've spoken about.But as I say, where I sit today, we enter 2024with good momentum and nothing's changed.- [Andrew Coombs] Thank you.Second question for the rest of the panel would be,when you think about some of the data analytics businessesthat you've outlined, you said number 2 in workflows,number 1 in real-time data and number 3 in PRS.So when you think about the various different businesses,is it a case that, for example, workflows,there definitely is a market share gain element,whereas, for example, in real-time data,given that you are already the number 1 player,it's you are more dependentupon the addressable market growththat David outlined yesterday evening.And within that, just to take a tangible example,you've given this figure for HSBC.Can you give us an idea of the breakdown of thatbetween the workflows business versus data and feeds?- Sorry, I missed the last part that you...- [Andrew Coombs] So you've given the number for HSBCand how much has been achievedthrough that from displacement.I'm interested to know what the breakdown of that isas a tangible example.- Yeah, so we're not gonna give a more specific breakdownwith respect to that example.I think, and Satvinder,feel free to weigh in in a moment here.I think we have,and hopefully you heard a bunch of this today,we have significant opportunity in each of those three areasusing a number of different levers.So I wouldn't say, you know,we have this opportunity set in workflows,whereas we only have this opportunity set in data and feeds.But Satvinder, why don't you weigh in on that thought?- I think this question's a really good question.But if you look at the three businesses,they're actually really market-leading businesses today.And we're gonna do a combination of two things.One, deepen our relationshipsand therefore grow market share.And number two is look at expanding the TAM that's availablefor these businesses.And how we deepen our market share,there was a slide I presentedin terms of pre-Microsoft scaling,here are the initiatives that we're looking at, right?We talked about the icon migration,we talked about PRS feeds,we talked about migration to the cloud,we talked about modeling.So that gets us deeper.And if we spend a secondon how we're gonna expand the target market,let me just give you one example, right?Real-time optimized.So if you look at our real-time, we're number 1.You think we're mature there,there isn't much opportunity to do anything else.So defend and keep growing slowly.We changed the game.So we developed real-time optimized,which was it took the need of physical hardware,physical infrastructure,connecting to us completely away.We put it in the cloud. It was almost real-time.Not everybody needs real-time.So the corporate community then opens up.So we have a European corporatethat's using our real-time optimized dataand actually using it to manage their supply chain.It's a completely different time.So combination of going deeper into our existing customersand opening up new TAMS by ourselvesand obviously with Microsoft is gonna behow we think where the growth is gonna happen.- And if I can just touch on HSBC, as David indicated,we wouldn't give specificsaround where their cost savings are.But I can give you anecdotallythat it is across all of our offerings.So for example, I mentioned alreadythe real-time displacement.We've had hundreds and hundreds of desktop displacementsacross different divisions.And then in support of our open philosophy, for example,they wanted to build a portal themselves,and it required some fixed-income analytics.So we exposed our Adfin fixed-income libraryso they could build their ownand displace another competitor.So it's examples across the board.- Yeah. Hubert.- Hi, it's Hubert Lam from Bank of America.I've got three questions.Firstly, going back to the mid-single-digithigh-single-digit guidance,how much of that is drivenby market share gains and pricing?That's the first question.The second question is again for Anna.Yesterday you talked about cumulative free cash flowexceeding underlying profit after-tax equity holders.So it's obviously a very cash-generative business.How should we think aboutwhat are you gonna use for the date of cash?I know you were doing a buyback for next year,but should we expect a recurring buybackevery year going forwardjust because of the strong cash generation?And lastly, a question on Microsoft.So your relationship with Microsoft is very entrenched nowacross data analytics and enterprise data,trading and banking and also capital markets now.How should we think about the economics,that split in terms of revenues between Microsoft and LSEG,just given how tight you guys are together now?- So actually, why don't we mix things up a little bit here.So Satvinder, you can touch on the third question.And if you want to answer the first question,and I'll actually answer the second questionin terms of the buyback question.- Okay.- Yeah, Satvinder, why don't you go ahead.- So very simple. We have guardrails.And the guardrails are based on a very principled approachto how the commercials across both sites are gonna work.We will make money whenever a customer has a needfor data and analytic services that we provide.We will obviously make money on any Workspace licenses.Microsoft will make moneywhenever their product licenses are involved and used,and they will obviously make money on cloud consumption.Those are the broad parametersand the principles in which we will price products.Obviously as we get more mature, as we do pilots,as we do MVPs, we will figure that outand get to the right combination.There'll be different combinations depending on the product,but the guiding principles are the ones I just stated.- So can you take the first questionin terms of the mid- to high-single-digit question.- Yeah, sure.So the mid- to high-single-digit growthis an organic guidance.And I call that outbecause we see this as a real step up.Your question was how do we think about shareand price within that?I think we start from the customerand products that meet our customers' needs,and we then charge appropriately for them.And so that will sometimes be through pricingand sometimes, you know, the pricing may be lowerand we may see larger share gain.So in the way we give our guidance, it is in aggregate,because we make our choices solution by solutionthrough the lens of what the right balancefor the customer is.- And then on your second question, which was really,are we gonna have recurring buybacks,if I've phrased it correctly.So we have done a billion and a half in buybacksover the last 15 months.We've just announced yesterdaywe're gonna do another billionover the course of this next year.Nothing is changingin terms of our capital allocation approach.So this is a business that is enormously cash generative.And you have seen us have the cash generationto do the billion and a half of buybacks,to do the M&A, to do the organic investment internally,our dividends as well.That will continue in terms of,just from a policy perspective,from a capital allocation policy perspective.We I think have been very careful not to committo doing regular buybacks,but we are very committed to actively managing our capital.Because of the nature of our business, highly regulated,we have a good line of sight both to when we might do M&A.And if we do do any M&A,it typically has a pretty long regulatory approval period.So that gives us a very good handle on our cash generationwhen we are going to have cash that's availableto use for buybacks.But as I said,we're not going to put ourselves in a positionof committing to regular buybacks.But by the same token, as you can see,we are developing a very strong track recordof actively managing our capital.- And Bruce.- Thanks. Yeah, it's Bruce Hamilton, Morgan Stanley.Couple of questions.Firstly, on the foundation piece,so the migration of the 50 datasets to the cloud,it feels, based on my sort of conversation internally,it feels like that's quite importantin that the sort of friction in accessing dataand linking data is still problematic.So what's the sort of timelinefor when that's no longer an issue,which could release more data usage?And how important is that to the processof charging more on it on a usage basis?That's the first question.The next one's a quite short one.I think, Anna, you said that EBITDA margin improvementwill be non-linear.I'm assuming that's simply that it picks upwhen revenues pick up towards the endrather than singling anything elsein terms of they shouldn't be going down,it's just the pace of growth will be linked to revenues,just to make sure that's true.And then final one on post-trade, the segment growth.So I assume that embeds Euronext moving out.So that 4 to 6% in your slide, just to double-check.Thank you.- Thank you, Bruce.Satvinder, do you wanna take the first one?And then, Anna-- So there's a reason we callthe base of the pyramid foundation, right?It's the right word.It is very important to what we're doing.What we're trying to do,we're trying to move key datasets onto the platform.I think most of the key ones will moveby the end of next year.That gives us the benefits of accruing over timeas we continue to move more.I think the more important part alsois we're looking at a full reference catalogbeing available by then as well.So it gives us the ability.So if you look at the slide I presentedwith all the Microsoft initiatives,they're not sequential: they're in parallel.And so we've got stuff going on with Workspace,with data and in intelligence and analyticsin parallel with what we're doing on the foundation side.So it gives us the ability to create valueas we move across our datasets,but also our ability to monetize some of the capabilitiesthat are really important to us,like Data Management as a Service,in parallel as we do this.And one of the things we're also gonna dois we're gonna have a copilot in placethat allows data platformsto add more discovery in data analysis.So all of this will happen in parallel.The timeline is majority of that by the end of next year,but will continue in subsequent years as well.- So if I just do the EBITDA margin growth,so by non-linear, I'm not flagging that it's going down.I'm just saying that, you know,we shouldn't draw a straight line up.And just to clarify one thing you said,the reason we see EBITDA margin growthis as much about efficiency in our cost baseas it is about revenue growth.And that's why, you know,we should be consistently driving it.And the reason that we are flaggingthat it will not be linearis because we want the freedomto invest when we see the opportunitieswith customers along the way.And Bruce, can I just clarify your last question?- [Bruce Hamilton] Sorry, yeah, it's just on the slide 21,the post-rate segment growth, 4 to 6%,just I assume that embeds the DRNX departure.- Yeah.- Sorry, can I just clarify one thing on that?So that slide is about the market growth,not our growth in each segment.So where (indistinct) sits is neither here nor there.So that is a market growth slide.- Yeah, just right there.- Hi, Oliver Bazin from GVQ.You spoke yesterday about how people had doubtsabout your growth previously,and you've obviously beaten thoseand congratulations for doing so.And you spoke a lot in the presentation we've seen todayabout the structural growth that business is facing.I guess my question, looking at the slideyou also presented yesterday of how uncorrelated you arewith typical things you might expect your businessto be correlated to is what are the biggest thingsthat could cause you, which hopefully won't,but to miss those guidance?What's the downside that we should be aware of?- So I think the point of that partof the discussion yesterdaywas what a robust model this is, very diversified.We went through it yesterday by product,by region, by customer.I think it's a subscription business.you know, 70-plus percent of our revenues are recurring.And again, you heard yesterdayin terms of the transactional revenueshow consistently growing those have been as well.And we've looked at this, you know,as part of our due diligence on the Refinitiv transaction.We looked back at how the business performed going back,you know, many years,including looking at what the performance wasin these kinds of businesses in 2008.So, you know, it's hard for me to speculateon what could really drive, you know,a dramatic shift in the performance.You know, when a number of customers go out of business,that wouldn't be a good thing.You know, Anna's touched on the Credit Suisse,very modest impact, but impact that we'll seeover the course of the next few quarters.So I think if there's some kind of major financial crisisthat wipes out a number of our customers at the same time,I think you all know that when there's volatility,that tends to actually be a good thing for our business.But if there is so much volatilitythat everyone just puts pens down,and again, you could see thatin some kind of major crisis scenario,that would not be a good thing.So I think that gives you a little bit of a sense of,you know, the robustness of the business,the real strength of the business.And it would have to be such a widespread crisisthat it would take out a, you know,a significant number of our customersand really shut down a lot of market activity, so.- Can I make a little build,'cause I've had this question in many different waysover the last few days asked differently,which is why is it mid to high?You know, which is where's that range come from?And what I've said to many of youis when we set guidance back in 2019,we didn't foresee a pandemic, a couple of wars,huge inflation, supply chain disruption.And as we set guidance going forward,we've given a range that foresees all of those things.So I think, you know,that's how we thought about it actuallyas we set the range in the first place.- And if I could build, one of the things that we're doingis where we can, we're really focused on execution,and we're focused on how we reallyhave built our organizationto try and be as proactive as possible.So especially in the 73% subscription side,one third of my sales teams is focused onis a group called Customer Success.And we've developed a methodologycalled the customer lifecycle framework.So we proactively monitor all of the subscriptionsand understand where our markers arein terms of key renewals,and we deploy resources specifically focusedon ensuring that they've got the right kind of utilization,the right kind of usage patterns, and are really proactive.So we've taken a strong proactive stancetowards managing our existing book,which is why you've seen 300 basis point improvementin our retention rate.And so we view that as another way to help mitigatesome of these other external eventsthat could really impact us.- [Oliver Bazin] Thank you. That's very reassuring.- Yeah, Russell.- Please keep that going down the line.- Yeah, thank you. Russell Quelch from Redburn Atlantic.Given we're now I think at the pointwhere sales has to take over some of the growthin place of retention,which has obviously been a big part of the growth this year,I wanted to maybe ask a couple of questions around sales,maybe for you, Ron.Firstly, in terms of the HSBC example that was given,you talked about that account being onethat was a drag on growth;you've turned it into a growth account, yeah?Within your top 20, maybe 50 if you wanna go there,customers, how many more of those customers are leftwhere you've got the same opportunitythat you had with HSBC?That's question number 1.In terms of question number 2,when you think about you, you had a slide up therewhere you had all the sales initiatives,and then you had pie charts down the sidewhere how far you are through those various initiatives.And clearly, you're not there yetin terms of your sales or go-to-market strategy.I just maybe wondered if you could put some timeframearound when we might expect you to be where you want to bein terms of your go-to-market strategy,such that we can expect those new sales part of the growthto start accelerating.- Great questions. So I'll take the first one.And HSBC is an example of one of our strategic accounts,and you were asking around our strategic account program.That was an underserved customer segmentfor a long period of time under Refinitiv.When I first came in, I looked at the growth trajectoryof those strategic accounts, and the growth ratebetween 2018 and 2020 was 0%.And so that includes, you know, price increaseas well as, you know, market increase.So really not the right place you want to bewith your top accounts.So they were generally speaking declining;it was a declining group.And so as part of the sales transformation strategy,we changed how we approached those accounts,we changed how we engaged with them,and we also evolved some of our commercial models.So for example, HSBC is one of the accountsthat's under somethingakin to an enterprise type of agreement.And so that provides us with,that provides the customers like HSBCwith a certain level of cost certaintyand a true partnership.And for LSEG that provides us with certainty of revenue,and as well as an incentive for us to partner togetherto find new revenue opportunitieseven outside of those enterprise agreements.And we found HSBC, for example,to be our fastest-growing gross sales new sale account,even though it was underan enterprise agreement, for example.And now that collection of accounts that was growing at 0.0%from 2018 to 2020 is now projected to be growingmore towards where our target rate is.- Do you wanna just touch on the second questionon the timeframe on your continued progress on go-to-market?- Sure, so we have done a lot of great things,but there's obviously a lot more to go.And without getting into the entire strategy,I'll just pick out one or two examples.So one thing we wanted to do is to ensurethat we trained all of our team on selling the LSEG wayin one LSEG.So we made the largest investment in over a decadein our people to train them on a common methodology.So one of our sellers who sits in Seoulis speaking the same exact languageand has the same approach as someone who's sitting in,you know, Sao Paulo.And so we are 100% complete with that rollout in APAC,and in the first quarter we'll be complete.And so every single salespersonwill have gone through that methodology and training,which is a big milestone for us.But there are some othersthat are gonna continue to take some time.But we had some great progress.So we talked about building out digital capabilitiesand call center capabilitiesand more of like a global demand center type of model.So we made some incredible progress this year,partnering very closely with what you heardin some of the operations breakout with the operations team.So we have soft launched our e-commerce capability.And in first quarter of this year,next year, we'll be launching that more broadly.So we'll be putting World-Check onlineto be sold through our e-commerce channel front to back.And so we view that as somethingthat could give us great accessto a very large customer set without requiring humans.And in parallel, we built out call centersco-located with our operation centers.So we had sort of a call center supporting North America.We now build out call centers in Gadinia and Manoaco-located with our operations team.We were able to staff those teams, about 60%,with resources we already had trainedwho were part of the team.We've moved thousands of accounts to be managedout of those, and we're just starting that.So we're gonna start seeing some scale happengoing forward over the next couple of years.- Yeah, Arnaud.- [Arnaud Giblat] It's Arnaud Giblatfrom BNP Paribas Lausanne.A quick question on what you mentionedduring your presentation about the abilityto price for usage as a vector for growth.I'm wondering does this really kick in with the full rolloutof Workspace and Microsoft product,or can that happen sooner?And with a lot of your key clientsnow on enterprise pricing,what's sort of the lag of the ability to change pricing?I suppose that the contracts are setfor maybe a year or two.- So Ron, you wanna touch on the second questionand then we'll come back to your first one.- Sure.We are cautious where we applythe enterprise commercial model.And we have several commercial models available to us,everything from at this enterprise agreement,which falls into a certain pattern.And where it makes sense for us, we engage in in those.And we have some very large customers on them,like the few that I mentioned,and we have some smaller customers on them.But that's a very specific pattern.And it's I would say a relatively modest part,percentage of our book.But where we've applied it,it has had the right kind of resultthat we've been looking for.We also have different types of modelswhere many of our contracts are less than 12,or 12 months in duration.And that's an area of improvementthat we're looking to get to move more to a longer term,more in a 24-month type of modelto get some more consistency,especially over some of our smaller accountswhere we have a lot more churn in our book,and so a lower target-retention rate.So we look for some improvement there.And then as the technology becomes more availablewhere we can do usage, we'll be looking forward to that.'Cause we approximate usage now.We sell often, for example, on our data subscriptions,within bands in certain ranges.And then we monitor that in kind of a retroactive way.So we still look at usage,but it's more in the rear-view mirroras opposed to a proactive way.So that's something that we're looking to improve upon.- Sorry. Yeah.You can go all the way back over there. Thanks.- [Harun] Hi, this is Harun.It seems like a lot of the opportunities you mentionedover the last couple of days are really opportunitiesthat no one else is going after,either because they don't have the capabilitiesor history that you have,or because the incumbentsor the other players in the marketdon't wanna disrupt themselves.So it really comes down to pace of product development,quality of product development, and pace of execution.Have you maybe worked on the culture incentivesand product development capabilitiesto deliver against that?And have you learned anything from Microsofton the product development side that's been helpful?- So Satvinder, I'll turn that one over to you in a second.Just to pick up, Harun, on your commentin terms of the fact that we're going after some spacesit seems like no one else is going after.I think that's a function of the uniquenessof what we bring to the table strategically.And the fact that we can havesuch a broad-ranging strategic conversationas a partner with these huge global institutions,no one else can really have those kinds of conversations.I think you're right in terms of the factthat we have a very different approach.Just to be blunt about it,we're willing to disrupt ourselves.And our open model really facilitates that.It facilitates the kind of partnership with our customers.And a number of our competitorshave a very different approach,whether it's the closed silo model,whether it's the closed box model.And so I think because we havesuch a different attitude towards that,you know, I agree with you.I think that, you know, a number of our competitorsare in a very different positionin terms of that kind of attitude towards self-disruption.But Satvinder, you wanna jump in there?- One of the things I'll say is, look,the opportunity is in front of us.And as David said, we have a very different mindsetto some of our competitors.And we're very proud of that,because that's based not on our thinkingthat there is better;it's based on what we've heard from our customers.So our customers want us to be open,so we want to be open, number one.Number two, while the opportunity is there,it will not last forever.It's not static. So we have to grab it.And we have to work at pace with it.So if you look at just the partnershipand using that as a great example,we've got hundreds of people working on it.Microsoft has hundreds of people working on it.We have access to the best engineers, best product people,best client people at a Microsoft.That's a great benefit.We're learning a lot from them as well.So there's parts of my organizationthat's benefiting tremendouslyby having that sort of exposure,not only to their minds but also to their ways of working.So when we say we're on a journeyto be a customer-centric world-class product organization,yes there are things we're doing organically ourselves;we're bringing in some of the best talent in the industryto help us in that process.But there are quite a few thingswe're learning through osmosisby watching how the Microsoft teams operate,because we work with them day in and day out.So if you wanna learn how to work in an agile way,there's no better example than actually working with teamsthat have grown up that way.So it's a combination of lots of things,but I think the bottom line for usis we've gotta grab the opportunity,and speed is really important for us.- And Mike.- [Mike Warner] Thank you. Mike Warner from UBS.Two questions please.First, with regards to the acceleration of revenuesafter 2024, I was just wonderingif you could help us better understand what's driving that.Is that revenue synergies that you think are coming through?Is that new products in terms of your new productsthat you're developing with Microsoft?Or is this one where, you know,particularly with the Workspace,with the Microsoft enhancements,you know, as that gets rolled out,do you expect a little bit of a faster jumpin terms of the price point of that product?And then second question, you know,we sat and listened to the transformation team,and they talked about how the depthof the software development and engineer teamshas improved substantially.Just going forward, thinking about some of the M&Athat you have done over say the past two and three yearsto add capabilities, is that somethingthat going forward we should expect LSC,or LSEG, excuse me, to do internally, you know,as that software development team improves.And ultimately, you know,as you've got a lot of these projects rolling out,it potentially frees them up from a capacity perspective.Thank you.- Thanks. You wanna touch on the first one?I'll take the second one.- Sure.And, you know, you've heard a lot of the drivers of growthover the last couple of days,so I'll call out some of them,but actually, many are relevant to 2025.So yes, we'll be seeing the revenue synergiesflowing through.We already are, but they will continue to benefit us.Absolutely, we'll see the Microsoft partnership revenuesstart to come through in 2025.And you've also seen the pipelineacross a number of other areas broader than Microsoftthat will benefit us as well.And we continue to drive Salesforce effectivenessand pricing yield efficiency.So all of those things should flow through.- And on your second question,and I'll interpret it,tell me if I'm interpreting this wrong,but I'll interpret it as as we get betterat building internally, will we have to buy less?Yeah.Probably the best way to think about thatis that we think about build versus buy analysisall the time.And there are a number of thingsthat we are building right now that we had evaluated buying.And a number of the things that we have boughtwe evaluated building.I think if you take a step back,you pick up on the comments that Satvinder was makingin terms of changing how we build product.I'm not sure if in our breakout sessionsif anyone touched on what we refer to as Project Gemini,which is insourcing a lot more of our engineering talentthat had historically been outsourced.We are building a lot moreas we've talked about engineering musclewithin the organization.So I think that is a cultural change,and that does improve our capability set.And we are getting stronger and strongerat the product build.But I think you will continue to see us evaluatebuild versus buy in a number of different situations.And there may be, we'll see, there may be timeswhen we might be building more going forwardbecause we have incremental capability in-house.But there also may be circumstanceswhere it makes more sense to buy.But I think, I mean, it's an interesting question,but there's no definitive sort of, you know,we're shifting much more towards buildingand less towards buying.- [Mike Warner] Thank you.- Great, Enrique.- [Enrique Wilson] Thank you.It's Enrique Wilson in JP Morgan.A couple of questions from me.One on CapEx, you are guiding now for this decline.But within that, it seems that clearlyit's gonna be less directed towardswhat has been under investment in the pastand more towards other initiatives.Can you just give us some color in terms of, you know,understanding whether the CapExthat's gonna come in the future will actually contributejust to, you know, increase the top line,or actually there's more that can be doneto improve the cost base and make it even more scalable.And then my second question,as a result of the partnership with Microsoft,the migration to the cloud and the other initiatives,would you say that actually it's potentially easierto do inorganic acquisition?So small acquisition, simply because the businessjust for the way it's positioned is more scalable,so it's actually easier to plug in other realitiesto the existing one.Thanks. - Thanks.Why don't you take the first one.I'll take the second one.- Sure.Soyou will see declining CapExas we move through maybe the rump of the integrationof the Refinitiv business.And as we sort of move through that,we'll see more and more of our CapEx focused on two things:growth and continue to drive efficiency.'Cause there's some areas where we can still do that.And that growth chunkwill continue to be a significant number as it is today,but today you also havesome of the kind of core infrastructural stuff as well,which will fall away.So lots of investment in growth as we go forward.- Then on your second question,whether it'll be easier to make acquisitionsor maybe easier to integrate.I think a couple ways to think about that.So first of all, I talked yesterday about the factthat we are really integrating this business,and significant investment going into thatin terms of integrating our network infrastructure,consolidating data centers, et cetera.And so you will see us,if we are doing M&A going forward,and we're doing this with the more,the more modest-sized acquisitionsthat we've done since Refinitiv,we're actually integrating.We're not just stapling things on and then carrying on.And I think that's important and that requires disciplineand it requires sort of ongoing focus on that.To the specific questionof once you have that integrated architecture,is it then easier to acquire?In some cases, yes,but it will depend.And so for example,if you think about what we're building,and I was talking with some of you about thisearlier in the day,we're basically creatinga very efficient and scalable machinewhere you can input new content hereand then have a very efficientglobal distribution mechanism.So under that construct,it should be relatively straightforwardto add incremental content into that machine.Now, it will depend on what that content looks likeand how we can ingest it.But then there are other potential capabilitiesor potential M&A that might not fit so easilyinto that machine, and they might relateto other parts of the business as well.So I think that,the long and short of it is we will havea more integrated business across the whole estate,which will make us more efficientand will make our business more scalable.And we will continue to maintainthat discipline going forward.And in some cases, depending on the particular asset,that will make it easier to acquire and integrate.None of that will change the disciplinewith which we approach any M&A.And it has to make strategic and financial sense.And we've been very, very careful about that.- Ian.- [Ian White] Thanks very much. Ian White, Autonomous.Just a couple of follow-ups from my side, please.First upon pricing,I'm just wondered if you might be preparedto share a bit more coloraround what you're assuming on pricing as a lever,particularly by the end of the forecast period.Does it become a bigger driver?Are you assuming that, you know,Workspace remains at a significant discountto the major competitor in the the desktop space,for example?And that's question one.Question two, I'm just interested in thoughts aroundhow you think some of the advancements in technology,cloud-based distribution, for example,might impact the broader competitive dynamicbetween vendors.So if it becomes cheaper and easierfor customers to receive product or ingest data,does that also mean it's cheaper for themto switch between vendors,and should we expect to see more displacementand, you know, threats and opportunitiesthat you see around that, please?Thanks.- Got it.So my typical approach on your first questionwould be I would ask Annaif she wants to not answer that question.(attendees laughing)So we're not gonna get into the specificsof multiyear views on pricing.I think what you've heard from Anna yesterdayis that we have increasing capabilityto use pricing as a lever.We're going to continue to be thoughtful about itin the context of our long-term,very strong kind of trusted relationshipswith our customers.I think we're all aware of certain productswhere we have a significant discount to the competition.I've said in the past, you know,that we're not going to,so for a 25 to 30% discount to a competitor,we're not going to move that up 24.9%.You know, we will do it in an appropriate way,a phased way that makes sense for our customersand for our customer relationships.But not in a position to get intosort of a multiyear pricing discussion at this point,other than just recognizing the continued improvementin our product, the continued investment in our productis improving our pricing power.On your second questionon whether that makes it easier to switch,I don't think so.And yeah, I'll turn it over to,it sounds like you guys are both chomping at the bitto answer that one.I mean, one quick point I'll make,and then you guys can both touch on it.So we've, we've gotten this question about cloud.And if you think about when we have our hardwareon your trading floor,that's really hard to switch out of.But when it's cloud distribution,oh, that must be a lot easier.But what that doesn't include is the factthat you are using our taxonomy,our classification system in the consumptionof all that data.And so, you know, we estimate that, you know,a big bank customer has our taxonomy,our classification systemcoded into 300 to 500 applications across the estate.So what you have is a situation where it's much easierto access our data, but it's still deeply embeddedand deeply sort of coded into all of your systems.I dunno if you wanna...Either one of you. - You took my answer.- Oh, okay.Satvinder, you wanna touch on any of that?- Look, I'm four months into this organization,but one of the taglines I love is, you know,we do a lot of things across the trade lifecycle.Nobody does everything we do.And I think customers use usnot for individual products or services.They use us for the solutions we provide.They use us for the investments we're making in the future.And they know we're gonna create more value for themas a relationship with us and as they stay with us.And I think that is a very sticky point,in addition to everything that David said,which is absolutely true.You know, just going to the clouddoesn't make it less easier for them to move.But I think there's a stronger emotional bindthat we have with our customers,which is based on what we do, how we do it,and our commitment to the futureand our investment into the future.- Ben.- [Ben Bathurst] Thanks, Ben Bathurst from RBC.Looking out over the medium term,which regions do you expect to be the biggest contributorsto the growth that you've outlined?And is there any change in the regional mixor contribution to growthrelative to sort of the previous three years,given the fact that the world's arguablyin a slightly different place now?- So just as a sort of starting point,America is the largest capital market in the worldand is our largest market.We're seeing significant growth in Asiain a number of different product areas.You know, Ron, you wanna touch on sort of the perspectiveon a global basis?- Yeah, no, I'd love to.Sowe have seen surprising resilienceand strong performance from EMEA.I'll state that firstly.Extremely strong and across our product set.And in particular with our core offeringsaround enterprise data.So in both real-time and in our reference data businesses.So very strong retention, very strong net new gross sales,high single-digit to low double-digit.So very, very strong.And AMEA has been incredibly resilientgiven all of the geopolitical things going onyou know, in that market.And then APAC, as David had mentioned,continues to have pockets of strength for us as well.There has been some exposureon some of our transaction revenuerelative to some of our offeringsthat support investment banking; for example,our due diligence products, which have, you know,as that activity has slowed down,we've seen some slowness there.We've also seen in some of our emerging marketswhere there has been some more volatility,like in China, for example,with small, medium business, more churn,especially in recent quarters.But as we talked about overall the strength of the business,the strength of our pipeline, still very in lineand consistent with what we've seen in the past.- And just one last item on that.In post-trade,and this is more of a longer-term opportunity set,but really interesting what we're seeing in Asia.And that can be in a couple different areas,whether it's in India,whether it's in China where there's been a changein the futures and derivatives lawover the last year and a half that makes it more acceptablefrom a risk management perspective to engagein clearing in China, for example,both international banks going into China,but also potentially Chinese entitiesclearing more internationally.So that's a little bit more of a longer-term view.- Yeah, sorry, right at the back.I can't even see that far.It's Kyle, I think, again.A different Kyle.- [Kyle O'Donovan] Thanks, Peregrine.Hi. Yeah, it's Kyle O'Donovan with Alua Capital.Thanks for taking the question.One of the more exciting messagesI think from yesterday and today, for me at least,was the acceleration of the product launch with Microsoftto the first half of next year,previously, versus the second half of next year.So you've still though kept the revenue contributionto starting in 2025.I'm just curious if you could expanda little bit more on that.And is there an opportunitywhere because of the acceleration of the launch,potentially you start to monetize the products in 2024?Or if not, what is different I guess,what changes by 2025that you start to activate that revenue?- So what we've said in the past,and there's no change in this,is that you'll see material revenue in '25.And so there may be an immaterial shiftin terms of what we see in '24 based on the earlier launch.But in terms of that kind of materiality threshold,we're not expecting a meaningful shift.I don't know if you can add anything to that.- [Peregrine] Sorry. Yes.- [Attendee] All we've heard is wonderful, good news.So being an analyst, I have to think of the opposite.The financial sectors around the world are changing,many of them reducing the number of players,reducing pricing.What is the worst thing that you could imaginethat could happen to you over the next couple of years?(attendees laughing)- Who wants to answer that?- Where do you wanna start?- Actually, yeah, I think,like one of the things that we are super focused on,and we've talked a lot about resilienceover the past day and a half,but one of the things that we're really focused on,we haven't really talked about explicitly,is our risk management culture.And this is something that we take very seriously,a core part of how we operate.It's something that we,when we acquired the Refinitiv business,one of the things that we had to implement,and again, we haven't really talked about thisover the last day and a half,is a risk culture within that business.Thomson Reuters viewed itself largely as a media business.We view ourselves as systemic market infrastructure.And that's just a very different mindset.So I mean, you ask a question like that;I could give you a million things that could go wrong.And we do lots of scenario planningso that we are prepared for whatever may come.We're very focused on, you know, a big part,we don't have meaningful, like financial institutions,there's often a lot of concern about balance sheet risk.We have 300 billion or so of collateral in LCH,but because of the way we manage that,you shouldn't think about thatas traditional balance sheet riskin the way that you would think about it at a bank.And then we're very focused on operational risk,regulatory risk,and various other things like that.So it's a core part of how we operate.You know, we run all kinds of, as I said,scenario planning, test runs for various things, exercises.And we think in terms of backup and resilience.And so I would like to say,and, you know, we've got David Shalders, our COO here,who deals with a lot of this as well.Our head of risk is not here right now.But, you know, we build redundancy into the system.And so that if something goes wrong,we have the backup and we can recover very quickly.So that's probably,probably the best way I would answer that at this point.I don't know if anyone has anything you'd wanna add.- Well, I would add,because we're that critical infrastructure,we are very embedded in our customers own planson how they're managing their own risk.And so we partner very closely with them as wellon their own plans.And so we inform each otherin terms of how we're managing risk.So I think that's also a really critical part of what we do,because we're such a critical partof their operations as well.- Any more questions?Oh yes, at the back here.- [Frihold] Thanks, Frihold from Lone Pine Capital.Thanks for taking the question.When you guys first did the Microsoft partnership,AI wasn't as big of a buzzword as it is today, obviously,but it must be influencing the technology roadmap.You know, on a go-forward basis,when I just think about an average user of your products,they're probably using less than 1% of the datathat you actually have, right,on a given day or whatever it is.And so having an AI interface, right,where you could potentially natural language query, right,and just the consumption of the data that could bring about,like how big of an opportunity is that?How big of a priority is that?And what are you doing to, you know,go after that opportunity?- So it's interesting.And it's interesting that you link it to AI.And I understand why you've linked it to AI.I would not limit it just to AI.And the reason for that is that there's a lotthat we are doing that makes it easier to accessand utilize our data.And some of that is as simple as moving it to the cloud.And we refer to this as liberating the data.And in many ways, that's what we're doing strategicallywith our datasets that Satvinder was talking about.And by making that available in a cloud environment,in an integrated architecture,we're liberating those 48 or 50 different datasets.And we've seen that when we do that in the past,that leads to a pretty dramatic pickupin usage and consumption.And World-Check's the best example of this,where, you know, we used to distribute World-Checkby file transfer.And I don't know what the timeframe was.It was, you know, it was once a monthand then it was once a week and then...Now it's, you know,embedded in a lot of our customers' systems,either through feeds,and it's also available through the cloud.What has that done?A lot of our customers now use it real-time.Some payments firms check every transactionwith our World-Check database.You can imagine what that has done to the usageof that data, the consumption of that data.And because of that facility, when Russia invaded Ukraine,we've talked about this in the past,the usage of World-Check went up 800%.So that is what we mean by the liberation of data.I think to your question on AI,it's gonna do it,I think it'll be yet another accelerant.And, you know, hard to calculate what that will look like.But this notion of the liberation of the datawe think is a very positive tailwindfor our business broadly.So Satvinder, I don't know if there's anythingyou'd wanna add to that.- So just a couple of things.One is internal use cases.You heard Ron today talk abouthow they're using AI in the sales organization.In the breakouts you probably heard,in the transformation breakout,how we're using AI for our own internal efficiencies,how we interact with internal inquiries, customer inquiries.So that's just one part.Then you look at stuff we're doing right now,BAU activities, how we're embracing AI,advanced dealing, how we're using chat roomsto pre-order, put orders in.And that's an amazing abilityto take a couple of those workflows out,take the friction in the system outand create something that adds a lot of value.In my deck you saw that one of the test caseswe're putting out there with our partnership with Microsoftis the Lipper AI-assisted Q&A chatbotthat we wanna put out there.We've also talked about as we do our data platform,how do we put a copilot in therethat allows for data discovery and analysis.So there's a lot of things we can do with AI.To David's point, it liberates it,but it also creates significant efficienciesfor us internally,but also creates significant efficiencies for our customersand allows them to be a lot more efficientand do a lot more of the value-add on top of that.So I think it's a real game-changer,and we totally agree with that.- And I would add our customers are really asking for usto accelerate that as part of our roadmap,and we think that that's keyand really strategic that we're partnered up with Microsoft.And so as part of the outreach to our customers,as we're building our capabilities, just for example,earlier this week we metwith one of the large inner dealer brokers.And we were talking with them abouta large segment of their business.I was there with Dean Barry's team, who you met Deanin terms of the workflow breakouts.And their main use case was,hey listen, what we want is chat.So I don't want any more screens.Just include it so it's just easier and intuitive for usto get what we need, 'cause we just chat all day long.So if we have that capability embeddedinto the rest of our information,you deliver that, you're pushing an open door, okay?You're knocking on an open doorin terms of the capabilities that we want to buy from you.- I think we have one more question.Johannes.Just behind the pillar.- [Johannes Beschizza] Thank you, Johannes Beschizza.Just one final follow up question on the EBITDA margin.You don't want to give a precise guidancefor the next years,but what could be the long-term ambition for the group?Is it that data and analytics gets to the same levelof the other two units,or all units get even higher to a 55% EBITDA margin?Don't wanna focus on a year,but just as a long-term ambition,what is your thinking about this?- David's handed me a question not to answer.So look, what we've laid out is the gap to our peer set.And that will create considerable valuefor ourselves and investors as we close it.There's no shortage of ambition here.And as we continue to drive significant revenue growth,that allows us to go further.But, you know, where we sit today,we have a strong path to improve our margin.- So thank you, everyone.I'm gonna hand over to David in a secondjust to say we do have one of our longstanding issuersdoing a market close ceremonythat you're very happy to stay and watch.But David, and if you want to wrap up.- I would be delighted to.And Peregrine, thank youfor your chairing of the events here.Thank you all for coming.Thank you for spending a day and a half with us.I hope you have had an opportunityto see the array of opportunities and the strengthof the strategic roadmap that we have laid out.Most importantly, I'm thrilledthat you have had the opportunity to meet the broader team.I know Anna and I have spent a lot of time with youover the years.I'm sure you're tired of seeing us.And hopefully, it's been a great opportunityfor you all to meet the team,because we have a great team in its strengthand its expertise, in its vision,and you can see the direction that we are going in.So again, thank you for your support.Thank you for being here.(attendees applauding)(upbeat music)
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Agenda
An outline of the agenda is provided below.
Agenda for November 16, 2023
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 16:45 GMT | Registration at 10 Paternoster Square |
| 17:30 – 18:30 GMT | David Schwimmer (CEO) and Anna Manz (CFO) presentations |
| 19:00 – 21:00 GMT | Dinner |
Agenda for November 17, 2023
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 08:00 – 09:00 GMT | Registration and breakfast at 10 Paternoster Square |
| 09:00 – 09:45 GMT | Satvinder Singh (Head of Data & Analytics) and Ron Lefferts, (Head of Sales & Account Management) presentations |
| 10:00 – 13:00 GMT | Break-out sessions Workflows and Analytics | Data Feeds and Data Intelligence | Capital Markets | Post Trade | Transformation | Demos/downtime |
| 13:00 GMT | Lunch |
| 13:50 - 15:15 GMT | Break-outs continued |
| 15:15 – 16:15 GMT | Panel Q&A David Schwimmer (CEO), Anna Manz (CFO), Satvinder Singh (Head of Data & Analytics) and Ron Lefferts, (Head of Sales & Account Management) |
| 16:30 GMT | Market close event |
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