April 25, 2024
London Stock Exchange Group plc: Q1 2024 Trading Update
Good start to the year, driven by solid performance across the business
David Schwimmer, CEO said:
“We have started the year well, delivering another quarter of solid growth consistent with our plans. We drove the strongest performances in FTSE Russell, Risk Intelligence and Tradeweb, and our Equities business returned to growth. The rapid pace of innovation continues, with new product launches across LSEG throughout 2024.
“We continue to make strong progress in our Microsoft partnership, with a number of products expected to be in external pilot or general release this half. We are now picking up the pace of migrating our datasets onto the Microsoft platform, which will transform access to our data for customers. We look forward to further progress in the rest of the year.”
Q1 2024 highlights
(All growth rates on an organic constant currency basis unless otherwise stated)
- Solid growth: Total income (excl. recoveries) +7.3% incl. M&A, +6.4% organic.
- Robust performance from all divisions: Data & Analytics +4.3%, FTSE Russell +9.5%, Risk Intelligence +12.5%, Capital Markets +14.4%, Post Trade revenues flat reflecting strong prior year comparator.
- Organic Annual Subscription Value (ASV) growth +6.0%: good underlying growth from strong retention, robust sales and pricing, partly offset by increasing impact of Credit Suisse losses, as expected, plus initial step-down from entry into an attractive multi-year contract renewal with another major bank. Organic ASV growth expected to remain around these levels throughout 2024 despite further Credit Suisse impact.
- Active capital allocation: £500 million directed buyback completed in Q1, targeting £1 billion of total buybacks in 2024; refinancing of $1.25 billion in 3-year and 10-year bonds; acquisitions of ICD by Tradeweb and minority stakes in LCH Group.
- Further strong progress in partnership with Microsoft: delivering first products in H1; successful ongoing migration of datasets to our cloud-based data platform.
- Confident of continued growth and improving profitability: on track to deliver all financial guidance provided in November 2023’s Capital Markets Day.
This release contains revenues, cost of sales and key performance indicators (KPIs) for the three months ended 31 March 2024 (Q1). Certain columns and rows may not add due to the use of rounded numbers for disclosure purposes. To reflect underlying performance, all constant currency variances compare the current and prior period at consistent exchange rates. Organic variance is calculated on a constant currency basis, adjusting the results to remove disposals from the entirety of the current and prior year periods, and including acquisitions from the date of acquisition with a comparable adjustment to the prior year.
Q1 2024 summary
| Continuing operations | Q1 2024 £m |
Q1 2023 £m |
Variance % |
Constant currency variance % |
Organic constant currency variance % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workflows | 479 | 488 | (1.8%) | 1.2% | 1.7% |
| Data & Feeds | 465 | 446 | 4.3% | 6.8% | 6.8% |
| Analytics | 55 | 56 | (1.8%) | 6.5% | 6.5% |
| Data & Analytics | 999 | 990 | 0.9% | 4.0% | 4.3% |
| Subscription | 144 | 139 | 3.6% | 6.2% | 6.2% |
| Asset-based | 74 | 66 | 12.1% | 16.4% | 16.4% |
| FTSE Russell | 218 | 205 | 6.3% | 9.5% | 9.5% |
| Risk Intelligence | 131 | 120 | 9.2% | 12.5% | 12.5% |
| Equities | 60 | 59 | 1.7% | 1.6% | 1.6% |
| Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other | 318 | 269 | 18.2% | 23.0% | 21.3% |
| FX | 61 | 66 | (7.6%) | (2.2%) | (2.2%) |
| Capital Markets | 439 | 394 | 11.4% | 15.5% | 14.4% |
| OTC Derivatives | 138 | 126 | 9.5% | 11.8% | 0.1% |
| Securities & Reporting | 62 | 64 | (3.1%) | (0.5%) | (0.5%) |
| Non-Cash Collateral | 28 | 26 | 7.7% | 6.5% | 6.5% |
| Net Treasury Income | 69 | 73 | (5.5%) | (2.0%) | (2.6%) |
| Post Trade | 297 | 289 | 2.8% | 5.0% | (0.1%) |
| Other | 5 | 9 | (44.4%) | (43.9%) | (43.9%) |
| Total Income (excl. recoveries) | 2,089 | 2,007 | 4.1% | 7.3% | 6.4% |
| Recoveries | 93 | 93 | - | 3.8% | 3.8% |
| Total Income (incl. recoveries) | 2,182 | 2,100 | 3.9% | 7.1% | 6.3% |
| Cost of sales | (289) | (288) | 0.3% | 3.9% | 2.8% |
| Gross Profit | 1,893 | 1,812 | 4.5% | 7.6% | 6.9% |
- Data & Analytics was up 4.3% reflecting continued strong retention, good sales and a contribution from pricing consistent with the previous year. Overall Data & Analytics growth was impacted by cancellations related to Credit Suisse as expected, and by entry into an enterprise-wide LSEG Data Agreement (LDA) with a major bank securing a multi-year period of attractive growth and greater long-term value following an initial step down in revenue.
Our partnership with Microsoft continues to make good progress with a number of products expected to be in external pilot or general release this half and the ongoing migration of content sets into our cloud-based data platform.- Workflows was up 1.7% with growth across Trading, Banking, Investment Management and Wealth customers. The roll-out of Workspace continues to progress well and, following the successful migration of banking users, we retired the legacy SDC Platinum platform in Q1, creating a more seamless and integrated experience for customers and driving increased usage.
- Data & Feeds was up 6.8%, driven by continued innovation and expansion in both our Data and Feeds offerings. In Q1 we launched our first cloud-based service offering customers access to full tick data in real time, further broadening our extensive range of real time services. Demand for our data content remains strong, especially in fixed income following targeted investment over recent years.
- Analytics was up 6.5%, primarily driven by growth in Yieldbook’s fixed income analytics and loan data.
- FTSE Russell was up 9.5%, with inflows and more favourable year-on-year market trends driving a stronger contribution from asset-based revenues (+16.4%). Strong demand for flagship equity products continued to support good growth in underlying subscription revenues, adjusting for one-time revenues in the prior year period.
- Risk Intelligence was up 12.5% driven by strong business momentum and customer demand in our screening business, World-Check. Growth in our digital identity and fraud businesses continues to build as the expansion in distribution partnerships over recent years feeds though to increased usage.
- Annual Subscription Value (ASV): Period-end organic ASV growth of 6.0% reflects an increasing impact from Credit Suisse contract losses, as expected, plus the near-term step-down following entry into an attractive long-term agreement with a major bank noted above. We expect ASV growth to remain around these levels throughout 2024 despite further Credit Suisse cancellations.
- Capital Markets was up 14.4%, driven by growth at Tradeweb.
- Equities returned to growth, up 1.6%, with gains in secondary trading partly offset by lower market activity.
- Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other was up 21.3% with a record quarter for Tradeweb. Average Daily Volume (ADV) of $1.9 trillion in Q1 reflected continued share gains, including a record 17.6% share of fully electronic US high-grade bond volumes, complemented by strong market activity across Tradeweb’s global asset classes. Tradeweb also expanded its capabilities in algorithmic execution in Q1 with the acquisition of R8fin.
- FX was down 2.2%. Good volume growth in FXall was offset by a less favourable product mix. We saw strong demand for our innovative Forward First Fixing capability launched last year, with $64 billion traded using the automated multi-dealer trading protocol in Q1. Matching was affected by weakness in interbank volumes.
- Post Trade was flat on an organic basis, and up 5.0% in constant currency including the benefit of the Acadia acquisition. Underlying OTC Derivatives revenues grew strongly driven by higher clearing volumes and price increases for LCH members and clients, with realised organic growth flat due to the £8 million of one-time revenues from reference rate reform in the prior year period. Net Treasury Income was slightly lower (-2.6%) with higher treasury margins largely offsetting the impact of a 21.5% decline in cash collateral balances. Following the acquisition of minority interests in Q1, our ownership of LCH Group rose to 85.9%.
- Group cost of sales was up 2.8%, below the growth rate in revenue reflecting business mix and the partially fixed nature of the costs.
- Gross profit was up 6.9%, with growth slightly ahead of Total Income (excl. recoveries) as a result of the lower growth in cost of sales.
Capital allocation
In March we participated in the further placing of LSEG shares by the former Refinitiv shareholders, committing £500 million to a directed buyback. During the course of 2024 we intend to return an additional £500 million in buybacks, similarly targeted at the Blackstone-led consortium, and are seeking the requisite shareholder approvals at today’s AGM.
In March, we successfully issued a total of $1.25 billion in 3-year and 10-year bonds, using the proceeds to repay maturing bonds and commercial paper.
In April, Tradeweb announced the acquisition of ICD, a cash management platform for Corporate Treasurers, adding a new customer vertical with attractive cross-sell opportunities.
Q1 investor and analyst conference call:
LSEG will host a conference call for its Q1 Trading Update for analysts and investors today at 8.30am (UK time). On the call will be David Schwimmer (Chief Executive Officer) and Michel-Alain Proch (Chief Financial Officer).
To access the webcast or telephone conference call please register in advance using the following link:
Contacts:
London Stock Exchange Group plc
Investors
Peregrine Riviere / Chris Turner
ir@lseg.com
Media
Lucie Holloway / Rhiannon Davies
+44 (0) 20 7797 1222
newsroom@lseg.com
Additional information can be found at www.lseg.com
About LSEG
LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) is a leading global financial markets infrastructure and data provider, playing a vital social and economic role in the world’s financial system.
With our open approach, trusted expertise and global scale, we enable the sustainable growth and stability of our customers and their communities. We are dedicated partners with extensive experience, deep knowledge and a worldwide presence in data and analytics; indices; capital formation; and trade execution, clearing and risk management across multiple asset classes.
LSEG is headquartered in the United Kingdom, with significant operations in 70 countries across EMEA, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. We employ 23,000 people globally, more than half located in Asia Pacific. LSEG’s ticker symbol is LSEG.
