Q1 Trading Update
25 April 2024
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.”
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Q1 2024 highlights - Good start to the year, driven by solid performance across the business
Note: (all growth rates are expressed on a 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.
Q1 2024 investor and analyst conference call
LSEG hosted a conference call for its Q1 Trading Update for analysts and investors on 25 April 2024 at 08:30am (UK time). On the call was David Schwimmer (Chief Executive Officer), Michel-Alain Proch (Chief Financial Officer) and Peregrine Riviere (Group Head of Investor Relations). Listen to a replay of the conference call below.
- [Peregrine] Good morning everyone,and welcome to LSEG's first quarter update.I'm here with David and Michel-Alain, MAP.He'll make some brief opening remarkson our Q1 performance,and then we'll open up to questionson the conference call line.So let me hand over to him right now.- [Michel-Alain] Thanks, Peregrine.Good morning everyone.I'm very happy to be talking to you for the first timeafter my first two months in the group.It has been quite an intensive onboarding.I've spent a lot of time in the businessas well as joining David on investor roadshows.For me, the status is clear.We have a strong portfolio of businesses,a rapid pace of innovation,and a strategy that is well understood.Now it's time to execute.I'm excited about the potential of accelerating growth,and I also see the opportunity for improving marginsand cash flows over the medium term,consistent with our guidance.I'm confident we will deliver all of that,and I'm already deeply engaged in making that happen.For 2024, we have started the year well.We saw good performance across the group.There are some puts and takes across the business,but these are very much as expected,remain well set for the rest of the yearand are on track to deliver all of our guidance.Total income grew 7.3% on a constant currency basis.This includes 90 basis points of M&A benefitmainly from Acadia in Post Trade.Organic growth was 6.4%,and I will actually refer to this metricthrough the rest of my comments.Growth was a little lower than in 2023, as expected.This mainly reflects the exceptional growthin Post Trade in Q1 last year,plus some erosion from Credit Suisse.We saw a robust performance across all of our divisions,reflecting the strength of our product offerings,and the benefits of our services to customers.Turning first to Data & Analytics.So this is the new D&A,reflecting the reporting changeswe made at the start of this year,and we published 2023 numberson this basis a few weeks ago.Overall, it represent just under half of the group.Organic growth was 4.3%.This compares to growth of 5.5% through 2023.As we highlighted at the full year result,our annual price increase was similarto what we achieved going into 2023,reflecting our investments in improvingour products and services.In addition, our overall salesand retention performance was solid.As expected, we are now seeing a greater impactfrom the Credit Suisse cancellation in revenue growth.In addition, we renegotiated our relationshipwith another major investment bankat the start of the year.We moved from service by service contractsto a data access model,significantly extending the breadth of our relationship.In year one, this has resultedin a slight step down in revenue,but it will generate attractive growthand greater value over the full length of the new contract.Taking these two relationship togetheraccounts for 1% of growth of D&A,with a slightly bigger impact within Data & Feeds.Workflows revenue was up 1.7%.Our underlying performance was consistentwith the growth rates seen through 2023.We continued to make good progresson migrating customer from Eikon to Workspace.We were able to retireour legacy SDC Platinum deals platformwith all banking customers migrated to Workspace,which has SDC Platinum integrated.We have also maintained a strong paceof improvement and innovation.During the quarter,we made over 100 enhancement to the platform.In Data & Feeds, we had another solid performancewith growth of 6.8%.In Q1, we launched cloud-based,real-time, full tick data,complementing our existing rangeof feed-based, full tickand real-time optimised services.And in Analytics, we achieved 6.5% growth.It was primarily driven by demandfor fixed income analytics.So you can see the pipeline of standalone innovationacross the division is straightening,and we are also making strong progress with Microsoft.Our first products, Meeting Prep and Open Directory,are now entering the pilot phase with customers,and our Lipper AI insights platformis on the brink of commercialisation.We are looking forward to bringing youfeedback on these at the first half results.At the same time, we are acceleratingthe migration of our data setsto the Microsoft environment we have built.You can expect to hear moreon the Data Intelligence servicesthis will facilitate at our H1 in August.Turning now to our two new divisions,starting with FTSE Russell, our index business.FTSE Russell was a strong performer in Q1with growth of 9.5%.The subscription line continue to grow well, up 6.2%,with some price benefit and good sales momentum.The reported slow down in growthjust reflects a one off of around 3 millionin the prior period, which we reference at the time.Asset based revenue was up 16.4%,combining new inflows, strong market performanceand a weaker comparable period in 2023.Risk Intelligence continue its very strong trend,with growth of 12.5%,on top of similar levels of growth in the prior period.World-Check, our leading screening platformremains the main driver,and we are also seeing good growthfrom our digital identity business.We had a busy start to the year in terms of new products.We launched a new platform in the quarter,which consolidates third party risk data,allowing customer to screen their supply chainand distribution networks effectively.And this month, we are launchinga consumption-based pricing optionfor new customer for the first time.Let me turn now to ASV growth,which covers all the subscription businessof the three divisions I just covered.ASV growth stood at 6.0% at the end of Q1.There are three main elementsto the movement from Q4 6.7%.First, price.As you know, the vast majorityof our annual price increase lands in January.So given my earlier comments in 2024,the price increase was equivalent to the one in 2023,and consequently was neutral to ASV growthfrom Q4 2023 to Q1 2024.Second, Credit Suisse.As you remember, we expected the impactto increase coming into 2024,and this accounted for halfof the ASV slowdown quarter on quarter.Overall, we are now around halfwaythrough the Credit Suisse impact on ASV.For the rest, this relates to the data access dealwe struck at the start of the year with a large bank,and which I mentioned earlier.It impacts on ASV and revenue in the year,but it will be a driver of growth in 2025 and beyond.Taking all this into account,we now expect ASV growthto be around these levels through the rest of 2024.Moving on to Capital Markets.This was a strong contributorto group growth in the quarter.Organic growth was 14.4%,consistent with the Q4 exit rate.Tradeweb was the main driver,with strong volumes and continued share gains,mostly in credit, including a record 17.6% shareof fully electronic US high grade bond volumes.This performance drove organic growthin our fixed income line of 21.3%,with total constant currency growth of 23%,including contributions from the acquisitionof Yieldbroker and r8fin.Earlier this month,we announced the acquisition of ICD,which brings a forth leg to Tradeweb's businessby opening up the corporate treasury channel.It growths and margin profileis very similar to Tradeweb's,and we seeing it makes an excellentand synergistic fit.Revenues in our equity business return to growth up 1.6%.In secondary markets,share gains for the LSE were offsetby a decline in overall volumes.FX revenue was down 2.2%.Good volume growth in FX all was offsetby a less favorable product mixedtowards short dated FX swaps.We saw strong demand Forward First Fixing,an innovative new product launched last year.Actually, 64 billion was tradedusing this protocol in Q1.Matching was affected by weakness in interbank volumes.Post Trade revenue grew 5% in constant currency,and were flat on an organic basis,excluding the Acadia benefit.This actually represent a very robust performance,despite the slowdown in headline growth.As you know, we face values headwinds this year.The combined impact of the Euronext exitand last year's software migration revenuewas circa 15 million in Q1across OTC derivative, securities and reporting, and NTI.In addition, March 2023 saw exceptional volumeson the back of volatility created by the crisisaround Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank.Taking all of those into account,I think we can be very happy with the performance here.We put through price increasesfor both members and client at the start of the year,reflecting the significant valuewe provide to the marketplace.In addition, we are successfully monetizingour Post Trade data and analytics products.As expected, Net Treasury Incomedecline a bit year on year,with strong yields more than offsetby a fall in collateral balances.We are seeing some optimisation here from clientsshifting collateral from cash to non-cash,and we expect this to continue.Finally, let me turn to capital allocation and financing.In March, we issued $1.25 billion of bondsrefinancing maturing debt.Given the move in interest rates,there is a significant step up in coupon to above 5%,and we have swapped the 10 year tranche to floating rate,which is more expensive in the short term.So this move will have a small impacton net financial expense in the year.Also in March,we participated in Blackstone's fourth placing,committing 500 million in a directed buyback.Blackstone holding is effectively now down to 4%,from around 34% at the start of last year.We have a further 500 million to deployas and when the opportunity arises.So to sum up, we have deliveredanother quarter of solid growth.We are trading through the expected headwinds well,and continue to innovate and improveproduct and services for our customer.We are confident of delivering on guidance,and we are fully on trackto deliver on all revenue margin,CapEx and cashflow targets,as provided in November 2023 Capital Markets Day.I look forward to meeting more of youover the coming months.And with that, I will pass back to Peregrine for questions.- [Peregrine] Thank you MAP.Operator, please would you open the line to questions now?- [Operator] Thank you Peregrine.And if you would like to ask a question,please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypadto raise your hand and join the queue.If you are listening to the call via loudspeakerand are called upon to ask your question,please pick up your handsetand unmute your device to ensure you are clearly heard.Again, to join the queue, please press star one.And your first question comesfrom the line of Bruce,Arnaud Giblat from BNP Paribas Exane.Your line is open.- [Arnaud] Yeah, good morning.I've got three questions, please.Firstly, can I ask about the Microsoft agreement?You've talked about Meeting Prepand Open Directory coming through.I'm just wondering if there are more productscoming through in the pipeline,and when, are we still expecting to see contributionto the P&L come through in 2025?My second question is, you pointed outthat there was an enterprise a wide,sorry, you struck an enterprise wide agreementwith a major investment bankthat led to a step down in ASV,and that should rebuild from here.I'm wondering could you givea bit more color around this?Are you, for example, charging on usage,or is that a big part of the equationthat that's gonna lead to the growth of that account?And do you have other potentialto strike these sorts of deals with other clients?Thanks.- [David] Morning Arnaud.David here.So with respect to your first question on Microsoft,everything's very much on track.As MAP just mentioned,we now have pilot versions out thereof Open Directory and of Meeting Prep.We are also close to the same stagewith respect to the AI functionalitythat we have added to Lipper.There are a few other things that we're working on,such as the interoperabilityof Workspace in the Microsoft productivity suite,which we've put a demo out on a couple months ago.So everything very much on track.No change in terms of what we've said in the pastwith respect to when we expect to see revenue,and that continues to be in 2025.But overall feeling very good aboutthe progress we're makingwith the Microsoft partnership.And then your question on the enterprise agreement,this is a, let me just spend a moment on this actually,because this is a textbook exampleof a successful turnaround in a relationshipthrough one of these data access agreements.This is a big global bank thatwe had had a, I'll say flatto declining revenue recordwith them over the last 10 yearsin the Refinitiv and Thomson Reuters era.And the team did a very nice jobin terms of turning that from a transactional relationship,where there was constant negotiationon a product by product basisand constant sort of chipping away,because this bank was lookingto address their own cost issues.As we've talked about with you all in the past,we had a discussion with them,turned it into a strategic relationshipand that covers a broad array of their products.We expect to see meaningful displacement across a numberof our competitors that they have been using.And it's just as part of this,the negotiation we have,it's attractive in terms of the multi-year arrangement,and we gave them a modest discount in year one.So that's the impact thatMAP was referring to with respect to ASV.The second part of your question,whether there are others like this,there are a relatively small number of our customerswhere these kinds of very large data access arrangements,one, makes sense, and two, would have an impactlike this that you would see.But we have these kinds of conversations pretty regularly,and as I said, you know, it's a great turnin what historically was franklya more challenged relationship.The other point I should just make on thisis that this is another good reasonor a really good exampleof why you shouldn't get hung up on moves in,you know, little bits of ASV from quarter to quarter,because this is a good outcome for us,and yes, in year it has a modest tick down in terms of ASV.- [Arnaud] That's very helpful, thank you.- [David] Thanks.- [Operator] Your next question comes from the lineof Bruce Hamilton from Morgan Stanley.Your line is open.- [Bruce] Hi, morning guys,and thanks for the information so far.Two questions from me just on the ASV,you've obviously given quite a lot of the inputsthat have, you know, taken us throughthe last quarter or two,and been very explicit on CS.But as we think about the path from here,obviously there's still some CS pain to come,but you're indicating you think, you know,ASV should be flat,and so other things should be, I guess, adding.So I'm just trying to think how to consider that partof ASV acceleration say through into 2025.And then second point,a number of your peers have pointedto sort of client driven pressure,I think particularly from buy side clientsimpacting some subscription revenue growth,including in index.And I guess it sounds like that's, you know,elongated sales cycles,client pressures are not somethingyou're seeing in your business,but I just wanted to double check that.Thank you.- [Michel-Alain] Hi Bruce.So maybe I begin with the ASVand the ASV variation and evolution for 2024.But let me first say, I mean,ASV is obviously an important KPI for sure,but I think it should, you know,be considered more on a trend basis,and not really on a quarter by quarter basis, so.And I shall add that, you know,over time, it will become less and less relevantas we move towards more consumption based pricing.Now if I go to the, you know, the evolution of ASV in Q1,remember that we did expect a slow down,because of the impact of Credit Suisse.But we did not know its weightquarter by quarter throughout 2024 until early 2025.And as previously communicated,we think that overall,it will represent less than 1% of the former D&A revenue,so about 100 BPS on the ASV.So if you take the Q1 slow down,it actually captures around 30 BPS of this 100 BPS,on top of the 10 BPS or sowe already had in Q4 last year.So what does it mean going forward?It mean that all in all we have capturedabout half of the Credit Suisse impact in ASV so far.In terms of the rest, you know,it's still hard to be precise,but as I said in my remarks,we do expect ASV growthto remain around this level of,you know, 6% through the rest of the year,and despite this further Credit Suisse headwindsthat I was referring to.Please, David.- [David] Yeah.Bruce, I'll just take on your second questionwith respect to, as you mentioned at the,some of the pressure thatsome of our competitors are talking about.You know, we are not seeingany broad based weakness in terms of our business,and we are not complacent about this.We track this very carefully in terms of, you know,we look at all our metrics around deal velocity,deal size, number of deals, win rates, et cetera,and we are not seeing any kind of broad based weakness.There's, you know, a little bit of moves upand down in the different metrics.So nothing that I would describe as a trend.We're certainly aware of some of the differentfactors that are out there thatsome of our competitors have talked about.Obviously MAP was just talking about Credit Suisse.We've seen a little bitof bank consolidation in Canada, for example.But overall, I think this is a function of the diversityof our business relative to our competitors.You know, we are global.We serve our customersacross asset classes, across products.We have a very broad range of customer types.You touched specifically on pressure from the buy side.We work with the buy side, we work with the sell side,we work with corporates through the trade life cycle.So I think we really have a different scaleand a different level of diversification.And then on top of that, we also,we don't have huge exposureto perceived pricing models.So we will continue to execute,we'll continue to improve our product,invest in our capabilities.And maybe the last thing I would say, you know,in my remarks a moment ago I talked aboutthe success of these enterprise relationships,and the breadth of our product offeringand our diversification really allows usto serve our customers in a very different wayfrom our competitors.- [Bruce] Brilliant.Pretty helpful. Thank you.- [David] Thank you.- [Operator] Your next question comes from the lineof Ian White from Autonomous Research.Please go ahead.- [Ian] Hi there.Thanks for taking my questions.Just a few follow ups, please.Just can I just ask for a little bit more detailaround the enterprise wide agreement you've signed.I'm particularly interested to understandif there is an embedded agreementthat the cost of the serviceto that customer will rise,or is there kind of some obligationon LSEG to deliver additional products?Particularly under the Microsoft partnership, for example,or some link back into consumption for that deal.I'm just trying to get my head around how,to what degree is growth kind of assured from that,or contingent on other deliverables.On FTSE Russell subscriptions,I think obviously given a lot of colorin the previous answer,but can you just say a bit abouthow client retention rates have progressed thereover the last few quarters specifically, please?And finally, just interestedin the yield progression on NTI in Post Trade.Just can you help me understandhow much of the return you're making thereis being driven by the cash collateral feesthat you charge to customersversus market returns, please?If that's a number thatyou might have available.Thank you.- [David] Sure.Maybe I'll start with the last oneand then we'll work our way up.We are seeing, and MAP or Peregrine,feel free to correct me on this,but we are seeing modestly lower collateral levelsand modestly higher yieldin terms of the portfolio.So hopefully that gives you an answeron your question on the yield progression.With respect to the FTSE retention rates,I don't think we've seen any change there,any meaningful change at all,so not much more to add on that.I know there's a lot of focus on that in the market,but from our perspective,I'd sort of say nothing to see here.And then your question for more coloron the data access agreement.The way these typically work,and this most recent one is very similar,is that they're multi-year contractual relationships.Tend to have a step up year over year.As part of that step up,some of that may be relatedto our adding some incremental productthat we are already investing inand already planning on building.With respect to a number of these,there are basically displacement plansbaked into those, displacement of competitors.And so as they are able to get offsome competitor productsand move over to ours within the same fixed arrangement,that becomes a cost saving for them.So as I said, kind of a textbook exampleof using the breadth of our offeringand the continuing improvement in our offeringto serve our customers betterand to displace some of our competitors.- [Ian] Okay, thanks.Just some, let me just get my head aroundslightly on the enterprise deal a bit more.Is it fair to think of this askind of a discount being given to the clientin exchange for much greater consumptionof LSEG product?Is that essentially what this boils downto over a number of years?And you get this growth profilemostly based on greater consumptionof LSEG services, basically?- [David] So yes, with,I'm just being cautious about your useof the word consumption,because this is not yeta consumption based pricing agreement.So they will be using more of our productsbecause we are displacing some of our competitors.So from that perspective, yes,more consumption of LSEG products.But not within a framework of consumption based pricing,if you follow me.And then it is, it's a multi-year arrangement,and so as part of the negotiationand part of our desire to really make sure we haveappropriately attractive growth rates in the coming years,we gave them a modest discount in year one.So that's how you should think about that.- [Ian] Got it. Thank you.- [David] Thank you.- [Operator] Your next question comes from the lineof Hubert Lam from Bank of America.Your line is open.- [Hubert] Hi, good morning.Thanks for taking my questions.I've got three of them.Firstly on Tradeweb.There's obviously anothervery strong quarter in Tradeweb.Can you just talk a little bit more aboutyour thoughts for the rest of the year?I guess you go into higher comp,tougher comps for the rest of the year,just wondering what your thoughtsare on the Tradeweb growth.Second question is on FTSE Russell.You had 9.5% growth, organic growth this quarter.I think at the back end of last year,you had double digit growth.Just wondering how confident you are in termsof getting back to that double digit growththat we saw at the back end of the last year.And lastly, a question for MAP.I know today's update is mainly on revenues,but just wondering what your thoughts are on costsas you took a look at it for the first time?And what you can do about it?And further efficiencies you can comethrough on the cost side.Thank you.- [David] Thanks, Hubert.So I'll take your first one,and then MAP will take the FTSE and cost question.With respect to Tradeweb,look, this is a great business.The team's doing very well.We have a lot of confidencein Billy and Sara and Tom and the team there.I don't think that we would have anything to addwith respect to the rest of the yearbeyond what you would hear from the Tradeweb team.So again, feel very good about their execution.We are happy with what they're doingso far on the M&A front.We like the ICD deal.We think that's a great fit both for Tradewebbut also for the broader LSEG relationshipsgiven the access to the money marketand corporate treasurer field there for ICD.We think that fits in very well with Tradeweband also with us with FXall,with World-Check, with Workspace, et cetera.So, but in terms of specific thoughtsfor the rest of the year,I'll leave that to Billy and Sara.- [Michel-Alain] Yeah, so on FTSE Russellsubscription revenue,in Q1, the organic growth was 6.2%.So it's true that it compareswith double digit 12% actually in Q4.But you know, around half of this differencerelate to 1/2 of 3 million in Q1 2023,which was related to back billing,as we flagged previously.So really when you take this one off out,we're talking about we're very close to 9% underlying.So you know, for the rest,it is just some natural quarterly fluctuation.We are confident on good growth herethrough the rest of the year.So on the cost side, indeed I have spent timein the business into reviewingboth the operating model of the different divisionand the different projectson which we are engaged, a project of transformation.Let me first say that this yearis an interesting yearbecause we are finishing up integration,and we are moving into transformationfor most of our businesses.So the point is really about capital allocationand the ability to run strategic programwith large impact on growth and margin.So overall I think I see really opportunityon the cost side, particularly in term of,you know, more efficient operationin between the different division.So, long and short, I'm confident we can deliverimproving margin and cash flow as per our guidance.- [Hubert] Great, thank you.- [Operator] Your next question comesfrom the line of Enrico Bolzoni from JPMorgan.Please go ahead.- [Enrico] Hi, good morning.Thank you for taking my questions.So the first question relatesto these strategic agreementyou signed with another big bank.Can you just tell us if these large agreementsthat you're signing were fully includedin your guidance that you presentedat the Capital Market Day,or if in a way these are on top?You know, the terms,when you presented a guidance,were you already expecting to sign these big agreements,or it's a positive surprise going forward,and therefore can be an upside riskto your original guidance?And my second question relates to,you mentioned displacement,so you expect that you'll be able to displacesome of your competitors as part of the agreement.I was curious if you could provide some colorin terms of which areas of, for example,the bank you just signed the agreement with,you see the greatest potential of displacement.Is it in wealth management,is it in investment banking, or in risk functions?So I'm just trying to understand reallywhere your product is stronger.And related to that, is the displacement drivenmore by pricing or you think it's moreby your unique product offering?Thank you.- [David] Thanks, Enrico.So with respect to your first question,I would say, I would not view this as a,don't put this in the positive surprise categoryin terms of changing our guidanceor changing your outlook.But I would say that it is a consistentsort of record of how we are executing.And we regularly get questions from peopleover the past year or two in termsof how have we made this a faster growing business?How have we improved the performancein particular of the Data & Analytics business?And this is just a really good example of that,where we have been investing in our product,our product is getting better and better.Our customers are recognising that.We have an unmatched breadth and depth of our offering.And so when we take that to our customersand we have these discussionsaround the strategic opportunity that they have to,as I said, lower their overall cost,and we get higher wallet share,that's a win-win, for them, for us.So I would just put this in the categoryof the continuing improvement in how we are executing,and continuing improvement in our performanceand our relationship with our customers,market share, et cetera.But I wouldn't take this on its ownas a signal in terms of kind of changing your outlook.Hopefully that's clear.To the question around some specificityon the displacement.I would describe it, there are three main areasfor this customer actually,and it's really about desktops,and then real time, our real time offering,and then also non-real time.So desktops and then basically Data & Feeds,a number of different areas within Data & Feedsare the primary areas for displacement.The other point I should just make,when we have these data access arrangements,and we've seen this with a number of the others,when the relationships,really the enterprise arrangementsreally start working well,we become a natural first callfor other opportunities, other RFPs,which can then lead to other displacements.But in terms of the starting point here,it's desktops and then within the data and feed space.Does that help?- [Enrico] Yes, very much, thank you.- [David] Great.- [Operator] Your next question comes from the lineof Benjamin Bathurst from RBC.Please go ahead.- [Benjamin] Good morning.I've got two questions, if I may,starting on ASV.You've mentioned previously that the groupis less likely to see ASV improvementsfrom improvement retention,but I just wondered if you could confirmif retention at a group levelhas now sort of flatlined,or if you're still seeing improvements in that area,maybe just more minor?And then secondly, on Gen AI,you are obviously very clearly exposed to that trendby the Microsoft partnership,but are there any other areas of major investmentthat you're carrying out across the groupoutside of that Microsoft initiativethat we should be aware of?Thank you.- [David] Sure, thanks Ben.So I would say in terms of retention,we are still seeing modest improvement in retention.So I would say it is flattening out,and we've talked about this given the areasof improvement over the last few years,it is flattening out relative to that.But we're still seeing, as I said,some modest areas of improvement.With respect to gen AI,we are actually doing a bunch with Gen AIin some of the operational aspects of the businessthat have nothing to do with Microsoft actually.So for example, we have a,I think we've mentioned in the pastthat we have about 2200 people doing customer service,basically responding to inbound customer questionsor customer queries.And we get a lot of them given the breadth of our business,and some of them are quite complex questionsand can be challenging for people to answer quickly.So what we have put in placeis what we call QAS, Question and Answer Service,and it is an internal LLMbased on all of our internal documentationof how to do things, how to find things,how to chart things.And that is now used by our 2200 people,our own customer service teamto make them better at their jobs,and it makes them more efficient,more responsive to our customers.And as we are using this model,we are training it and making it better and better.And so our plan and our hopeis to get that QAS model strong enough,so that we can expose it directly to our customers.I don't wanna put a timeframe on that yet,but we're making very good progress on that.So that's a really good example.That is a model, we are usingone of the open source models for that,so great technology and free. (laughs)- [Benjamin] Great, thank you for that.- [David] Thanks, Ben.- [Operator] Your next question comes from the lineof Russell Quelch from Redburn Atlantic.Please go ahead.- [Russell] Yeah, hi guys.A couple of questions.Firstly, David, you spoke on the Q4 conference callto an additional 50 billion TAM opportunityin data as a service.I was hoping you could elaborateon what you're looking to do herein terms of a product offering,how integrated you expect to be with Microsoftin that product area,and how soon we should expect LSEGto start to grow into that TAM.That's the first question.My second question was around Workspace.You've obviously startedto retire some legacy platforms, which is great.Just wondered if that has comewith any increase in customer usageas they migrated to the new platform,and if that then presents a future pricing opportunity?And you gave a helpful with demo of Workspaceintegrated into Microsoft Office.I think that's the point at which most would expectthere to be an acceleration in sales and pricing.So can you be very specific as to the timingof that product rollout too?- [David] So I'm confidentI won't be as specific as you want me to be,but happy to try to be helpful here.So first, on your first questionwith respect to the 50 billion pound TAM,this refers to all of the spendthat we see our customers doing in-houseas they manage their data.And that was what Satvinder was talking aboutat the capital markets day in November.And we will, I'll touch on this briefly now,but we will be giving moreof an update on our Data Intelligence offeringand how that is developing at that half year.But the concept here is thatwe have expertise and we are at scalein terms of managing data,and we currently provideenormous amounts of data to our customers.Then they have to spend their own capitaland human resources in terms of managingthat data for themselves,interacting with their own data, et cetera.And typically, they are not operating at scale,and don't have that expertise as a core competency.And so we see that as an opportunity in the coming years.We already do this to a certain extentwith our Tick History,where it is such a large data setthat it is much easier for our customersto effectively rent access to it from us,while we manage it in our cloud environment.Whereas in the past, we used to send it to them,and that was costly, unwieldy,difficult for them to manage.So that's an early exampleof how we're thinking about this conceptof managed data services.As I said, we will talk more aboutour data intelligence approach at the half year,so looking forward to that.With respect to Workspaceand the rollout there, you know,nothing really to add.In other words, everything is going according to plan.The icon migration to Workspace is going welland going according to plan.Meeting Prep and Open Directoryof course will have incremental benefitsfor Workspace in terms of making it that much moreof a useful and powerful toolfor our customers who have access to it.And then we had talked aboutthe notion of interoperability,which, as those of you who have seen our demoand that can see how powerful that is going to be,where you can move seamlesslybetween the Microsoft productivity toolsand Workspace, across Teams, across Workspace, et cetera.And we're building that,and I would say no change in the timing.- [Peregrine] Can I just add, Russell,just on the integrationof legacy platforms into Workspace.So we talked about SDC Platinum,and usage of that was up 85% year on yearacross January and February post-integration.So yeah, to your point, we do see a big uptake.- [Russell] Super.Thank you very much.- [David] Thank you.- [Operator] Your next question comes from the lineof Michael Werner from UBS.Please go ahead.- [Michael] Thank you very much.Just a question regarding SwapClear.I think you mentioned you raised pricingthis year both on clearing members as well as clients.I was just wondering, A, if that was effectiveof the 1st of January?And B, is this something thatwe should expect going forward?And then C, you know, any help in termsof better understanding the magnitudeof the price increases?That'd be helpful, thank you.- [Peregrine] Yeah, sorry, Michael, it's Peregrine.I'm gonna take that one.I think one of them was effective 1st of Januaryand the other was effective 1st of February.In terms of the Quantum, actually,it's all public on our website,so you can see what the new prices are.But for I think top tier it was,you know, I think sort of mid to high single digit,that kind of area.But remember these are not common, these price increases.- [Michael] Okay, so we shouldn't expect themto be recurring going forward, is that correct?- [Peregrine] No.- [Michael] Okay. Thank you.- [Operator] Your next question comes from the lineof Andrew Coombs from Citi.Please go ahead.- [Andrew] Good morning.Two technical questions, please.Firstly, just on the debt issuance,the 1.25 billion I think more than coversthe two maturities you had in April, 2024.I think you've got one more maturingin November of this year,and then nothing until 2026, if I'm correct.So I just wanted to know,do you think you're done in terms of issuance,or is there more to come this year?That's the first question.Second question, Tradeweb's acquisition of ICDclosing in second half.I think it did 85 million of revenues last year.Company's guiding to around a 50% EBITDA margin.But I just wanted to check if, firstly,I assume it'll be fully consolidatedin the same Tradeweb is into your accounts,but is there any differencein scope in IFRS versus US GAAP?How should we think about modeling that going forward?Thank you.- [Michel-Alain] Okay, maybe I takethe first question about the debt.So we had 1.25 billion of debt maturing.So we decided to come back on the US market.We haven't been there since the Refinitiv acquisition.So we showed two bonds here,one at five years and one at 10 years.The five years at 500 million,and the 10 years at 750,which is covering our need for flexibility,you know, in the year to come.So your analysis is good actually.We do not expect to reissue any bond this year.- [David] And then Andrew, on your Tradeweb question,yes, we'll continue to consolidatewith respect to Tradeweb.I think in terms of your specific questionaround whether there are any accounting differencesbetween IFRS and how Tradeweb accounts for it,maybe we should take that offline,and if there's any specific color there,we can share that with you,but we'll take that offline.- [Andrew] Great, thank you.- [Operator] Your next question comesfrom the line of Kyle Voigt from KBW.Please go ahead.- [Kyle] Hi, good morning.Maybe just a few questionson consumption based pricing,the rollout this month in risk intelligence.I guess I'm wondering if your sales teamhas actually gone to market and clientswith the consumption based pricing model yet,and if so, any initial feedbackfrom those conversations and how those have gone,and how interest has been from those clients?And I believe in the remarksyou said the pricing modelis being offered to new customers specifically,do you anticipate rolling that outto existing clients as wellupon contract renewal in that segment?Is that also being rolled out this month?And then last part of this question,can you remind us what other businessesyou're looking at to potentially roll outthis consumption based pricing model next?Thank you.- [David] Thanks, Kyle.So I don't have a lot of feedback for you yet,because we turned on the consumption based pricing-- Tuesday. - Yes, just this week.- [Michel-Alain] Tuesday, yeah.- [David] So it is, you're absolutely right,at this point it's for new customers,and that we'll see how this goes with the new customers.There'll be a little bit of learning,frankly, on our end.But yes, we expect over time to be rolling thatinto the broader existing customer relationships.In terms of other areas where we will doconsumption based pricing,one other area where we already have itactually is in yield book.But this is something that we will belooking at across the business over time.If you think about how our model is shifting,and as more of the business is moving into the cloud,as there's greater usage of our datain a cloud environment,that leads to greater cloud costs.And so we just need to make sure thatour commercial model reflectsthe variable expense on the cloud cost.Does that help?- [Kyle] That does, thank you.- [David] Great.- [Operator] There are no furtherquestions on the conference line.I will now hand the presentationback to Peregrine Riviere,group head of investor relations.- [Peregrine] Great, thanks Paulie.Thanks everyone for your questions,and look forward to speaking to you soon.Have a good day.
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