London Stock Exchange Group On Course To Hit Upper End Of Guidance

Shares in London Stock Exchange Group rose on Thursday after the financial markets operator said it was on track to hit the higher end of sales estimates.

At £82 per share, the FTSE 100 company was trading 1.6% higher.

Organic revenues (excluding recoveries) at London Stock Exchange rose 8% during the three months to September, to £2 billion, with sales at its core Data & Analytics arm increasing 7.2% year on year to £1.3 billion.

As a consequence, the firm said that it is “on-track to deliver full year growth towards the upper end of the 6% to 8% guidance range.”

ASVs climb

At Data & Analytics — which is responsible for two-thirds of London Stock Exchange’s organic revenues — third-quarter growth was thanks to “improving sales, rising retention and this year’s higher annual price increase,” the company said.

It added that “we continue to make very good progress building new products with Microsoft
MSFT
and are on target to launch with customers in the second half of 2024.”

Organic annual subscription values (ASVs) at the division rose 7.1% between July and September.

Organic sales at the group’s Capital Markets arm rose 6.2% year on year to £375 million. Meanwhile, corresponding revenues at Post Trade rocketed 17% to £286 million thanks to soaring volumes at TradeWeb. This part of the business specialises in trading fixed-income securities and derivatives.

“Strong, Broad-Based Growth”

Chief executive David Schwimmer said that the company had “delivered another quarter of strong, broad-based growth,” noting that “by building compelling solutions that meet customers’ evolving business needs we have established a consistent track-record of growth in our Data & Analytics business.”

He said that sales at its Capital Markets unit “accelerated in the third quarter,” helped by innovation at TradeWeb that boosted its market share. Schwimmer added that “our Post Trade businesses also continue to grow strongly as customers look to our risk management services in an uncertain macro environment.”

“Robust Advancements”

Analyst Neil Shah of Edison Group noted that “[the company’s] optimistic outlook is bolstered by their robust advancements in the data and analytics sector, an area where they’ve notably established reliability.”

He described the 7.1% increase in ASVs during the last quarter as “a critical metric post their strategic $27 billion Refinitiv acquisition back in 2021.”