REG - LondonStockExGroup - Trading Statement
Today 07:00
For best results when printing this announcement, please click on link below:
https://newsfile.refinitiv.com/getnewsfile/v1/story?guid=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20260423:nRSW5635Ba&default-theme=true
RNS Number : 5635B London Stock Exchange Group PLC 23 April 2026
London Stock Exchange Group plc: Q1 2026 Trading Update
Record performance: strong trading volumes, good momentum in subscription
businesses, high pace of new product innovation; full-year revenue growth
expected to be in the upper half of 6.5-7.5% guidance range
David Schwimmer, CEO said:
"We have had a great start to 2026 across the board: our leading, multi-asset
class trading venues have been critical sources of liquidity, price discovery
and risk management for customers, while engagement with our trusted data to
inform decision-making has been at record levels.
"We have continued to execute on our LSEG Everywhere strategy for the
distribution of AI-ready data. Over 150 customers have connected or are
onboarding to our MCP server, and our new AI tools within Workspace are
generating very positive feedback. Our focus through 2026 will be on roll-out
and adoption of these services.
"We are delivering this high rate of innovation across the whole of LSEG:
during the quarter we drove strong adoption of our digital asset indices,
launched TradeAgent to broaden our Post Trade Solutions platform, executed the
first transaction on the Private Securities Market and announced the launch of
LSEG DiSH, which enables real-time settlement in commercial bank money across
payment networks. We are confident in the outlook and the delivery of all of
our financial targets for the year."
Q1 2026 highlights
(All growth rates on an organic constant currency basis unless otherwise
stated)
· Record revenue: Total income (excl. recoveries) +9.8%. Data & Analytics
+5.1%, FTSE Russell +8.8%, Risk Intelligence +10.5%, Markets +15.5%
· Continued strong subscription growth: combined growth of +6.3% in our
subscription businesses(1), with all three divisions accelerating over Q4 2025
· Exceptional growth across Markets: driving very strong growth in trading
volumes across multiple asset classes as customers look to manage risk in a
more volatile environment
· Further strong progress with LSEG Everywhere: over 150 customers connected or
onboarding to our MCP server; Workspace AI tools now rolling out
· Significant product innovation: strong demand for digital asset indices,
launch of TradeAgent, first transaction for Private Securities Market
· Dynamic capital allocation: completed £1.1 billion of share buybacks in Q1;
well on track executing on £3 billion buyback by February 2027
(This release contains revenues, cost of sales and key performance indicators
(KPIs) for the three months ended 31 March 2026 (Q1). Constant currency
variances are calculated on the basis of consistent FX rates applied across
the current and prior year period (GBP:USD 1.318 GBP:EUR 1.168).)(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. Certain columns and rows may not add due to the
use of rounded numbers for disclosure purposes.)
(1. Combined total income (excl. recoveries) of Data & Analytics, FTSE
Russell and Risk Intelligence)
Q1 2026: a record quarter
LSEG serves its customers through the whole of the trade lifecycle and the
data value chain, across multiple asset classes. As market participants
consume growing volumes of data to make trading and risk management decisions,
these two threads are becoming more intertwined, reinforcing our strategy and
strengthening our position as our customers increasingly turn to us for our
trusted solutions. The adoption of AI and agentic solutions is accentuating
this, as access to the deepest data sets that are constantly refreshed is
essential for accurate decision-making. The multiple levers of growth for LSEG
reflect the significant progress we have made both in transforming individual
businesses and in combining them to create additional opportunities.
This is becoming increasingly evident in our financial and operational
performance, as we delivered record revenue in Q1, with strong performances
from all divisions, and increased the cadence of product development across
the whole of LSEG.
Our customers recognise that our solutions are more valuable in an AI world.
With our unmatched data, infrastructure and partnerships, we are uniquely
positioned to partner with customers to seize new growth opportunities,
significantly enhancing our products and opening up powerful new distribution
channels for our data and analytics.
LSEG Everywhere
In 2025 we launched our LSEG Everywhere strategy, to make our unmatched,
AI-ready data available to use wherever our customers are working. We made
further significant progress in Q1 2026 as we drive adoption across our
customer base.
In our Data & Feeds business, we have made our data available to licensed
customers through a wide range of foundational models and cloud environments,
including Anthropic, Microsoft, Open AI, Databricks and Snowflake. Since
launch in December 2025, 90 customers have connected via our Model Context
Protocol ('MCP') server, which delivers context, accuracy, control and
measurability for data consumption. A further 64 customers are in the process
of onboarding. The feedback has been very encouraging and we are refining our
commercial strategy for this channel.
We continue to add data sets to our MCP server, with significant additions
this week including estimates, corporate actions and company fundamentals.
Over half of our non real-time data is now available via MCP, and in the
coming months we will add transcripts, Lipper funds and FTSE Russell indices
data. Through foundational work on our data estate over the last three years,
in partnership with Microsoft, we have accelerated our speed of delivery
significantly.
In Workflows, we are making very strong progress with the development and
roll-out of AI functionality within Workspace. Our Workspace AI Search tool is
in pilot with a wider launch planned in the coming months. This will become
increasingly powerful as we introduce additional data sets. Our Workspace AI
Deep Research tool, which combines our data with a number of leading
foundational models, has tested very well with customers and generated strong
feedback when compared with the equivalent tools of our competitors. This is
now available through Microsoft Teams, as well as through the main Workspace
platform.
We believe that, both through Workspace and our broader distribution channels,
we can drive meaningful upsell and displacements over time.
Innovation across LSEG
In FTSE Russell, we launched 28 new ETFs in Q1, up from 24 in Q1 2025. In new
growth areas, we drove a number of displacements with our digital asset
indices, and made our first sales of our new private markets indices developed
in partnership with StepStone.
Risk Intelligence launched its new Sanctioned Securities Data File, a
granular, instrument-level dataset engineered to help financial institutions
identify and manage exposure to securities with direct or indirect links to
sanctioned entities. The data set links global sanctions designations and
ownership and control relationships directly to financial securities.
We continue to build out our suite of services within Post Trade Solutions,
working hand-in-hand with our industry partners. In March, we launched
TradeAgent, a new post trade processing platform. TradeAgent helps industry
participants reduce costs and risks associated with cleared and bilateral
derivative processing by standardising the full post trade lifecycle.
During the quarter we also announced the H1 launch of a new digital settlement
service, Digital Settlement House (LSEG DiSH), an open-access platform which
enables real-time settlement in commercial bank money between independent
payment networks, both on and off chain. Instantaneous settlement of cash
means that LSEG DiSH can offer dynamic management of intraday liquidity and
funding, as well as 24/7 management of settlements and margin.
In our Equities business we executed the first trade on the Private Securities
Market. This new secondary market provides for the first time private
companies with access to intermittent liquidity auctions using the London
Stock Exchange's public markets infrastructure.
Tradeweb continued its track record of innovation by entering into a strategic
partnership with Kalshi, the largest regulated prediction market. The
companies will collaborate with the goal of expanding institutional access to
Kalshi's prediction market data and analytics and advanced market
infrastructure for prediction markets trading to institutional investors
through Tradeweb's global electronic trading platform. Tradeweb has also made
a minority investment in Kalshi.
Capital allocation
We continued to execute our buyback programme in Q1, returning £1.1 billion
to shareholders through the purchase of 12.8 million shares at an average
price of £84.59. We are well on track to meet our plans to return £3 billion
in total between our 2025 results announcement and our 2026 results in
February 2027. We expect leverage to be around the middle of our 1.5-2.5x
operating net debt to EBITDA target range at the end of 2026.
Financial guidance
We are confident of further growth and improvement to our EBITDA margin in
2026, leading to strong growth in equity free cash flow. We have started the
year very strongly, and are therefore improving our guidance for 2026 as
follows:
· Organic constant currency growth in total income excluding recoveries of
6.5-7.5%, including an acceleration in our subscription businesses' organic
growth. We expect growth to be in the upper half of the guidance range.
· An improvement in constant currency EBITDA margin of 80-100 basis points
· Capex intensity of c. 9.5% of total income excluding recoveries
· Equity free cash flow of at least £2.7 billion, based on foreign exchange
rates of £1 = $1.32 and €1.17
· Underlying effective tax rate of 24-25%
Q1 investor and analyst conference call:
LSEG will host a conference call for its Q1 Trading Update for analysts and
investors today at 08.30am (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:
https://www.lsegissuerservices.com/spark-insights/LondonStockExchangeGroup/events/c84f6435-49b9-4d74-80b3-314951ad0970/lseg-q1-results-2026-investor-analyst-call
(https://www.lsegissuerservices.com/spark-insights/LondonStockExchangeGroup/events/c84f6435-49b9-4d74-80b3-314951ad0970/lseg-q1-results-2026-investor-analyst-call)
To ask a question live you will need to register for the telephone conference
call here:
https://registrations.events/direct/LON35022543
(https://registrations.events/direct/LON35022543)
Contacts: London Stock Exchange Group plc
Investors
Peregrine Riviere / Chris Turner ir@lseg.com (mailto:ir@lseg.com)
Neha Kasabia / Sharon Muzikarova
Media +44 (0) 20 7797 1222
Lucie Holloway / Rhiannon Davies newsroom@lseg.com (mailto:newsroom@lseg.com)
Additional information can be found at www.lseg.com (http://www.lseg.com) .
Q1 2026 summary
(Commentary on performance is on an organic constant currency basis, unless
otherwise stated)
Q1 2026 Q1 2025 Variance( Organic constant currency
£m
£m ) %
variance
%
Workflows 491 491 0.0% 2.9%
Data & Feeds 475 454 4.6% 7.3%
Analytics 59 59 0.0% 5.2%
Data & Analytics 1,025 1,004 2.1% 5.1%
Subscription 160 155 3.2% 7.7%
Asset-based 88 83 6.0% 10.9%
FTSE Russell 248 238 4.2% 8.8%
Risk Intelligence 153 143 7.0% 10.5%
Subscription Businesses(1) 1,426 1,385 3.0% 6.3%
Equities 114 102 11.8% 11.1%
Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other 452 394 14.7% 18.4%
FX 74 69 7.2% 11.8%
OTC Derivatives 183 161 13.7% 16.0%
Securities & Reporting 61 56 8.9% 9.0%
Non-Cash Collateral 29 27 7.4% 7.3%
Net Treasury Income 74 65 13.8% 17.0%
Markets 987 874 12.9% 15.5%
Other 2 2 0.0% (6.1%)
Total Income (excl. recoveries) 2,415 2,261 6.8% 9.8%
Recoveries 93 93 0.0% 3.1%
Total Income (incl. recoveries) 2,508 2,354 6.5% 9.6%
Cost of sales (289) (308) (6.2%) (2.9%)
Gross Profit 2,219 2,046 8.5% 11.5%
(1. Combined total income (excl. recoveries) of Data & Analytics, FTSE
Russell and Risk Intelligence)
Total Income (excluding recoveries) was up 9.8% on an organic constant
currency basis.
· Data & Analytics was up 5.1%, with growth accelerating as the strong gross
sales performance delivered in H2 2025 flowed through to revenues. The
contribution from pricing and retention was consistent with the previous year.
o Workflows was up 2.9%. Engagement was particularly strong in Q1 as customers
turned to our trusted solutions to help them navigate market volatility in the
period. Use of our shipping data saw a 3x increase in March and use of our Oil
applications grew 75% from baseline levels. We rolled out Workspace AI Deep
Research capabilities to around 1,600 users, receiving strong positive
feedback.
o Data & Feeds was up 7.3% with consistent and broad-based growth.
Continuing innovation and expansion of our offering drove demand for our
real-time services. Use (number of RICs accessed) of our cloud-based Real Time
Optimised offering rose four-fold year-on-year in Q1, while consumption
(number of server requests) of our Tick History data grew 39% year-on-year.
Demand for pricing and reference services remained strong, supported by
ongoing investment in content and an expanded presence in cloud-based
platforms such as Databricks and Snowflake.
o Analytics was up 5.2%, reflecting strong Yield Book usage and continuing good
sales of the Analytics API. Model as a Service went live in Q1, making
third-party models from Societe Generale available via our Analytics API, and
we further expanded our cloud presence with the launch of a Snowflake native
application for Yield Book.
· FTSE Russell was up 8.8%. Subscription revenues accelerated as the renewal
cycle on multi-year customer mandates normalised, as anticipated. Growth in
asset-based revenues was also strong, reflecting product inflows and higher
market levels. FTSE Russell expanded across multiple asset classes in Q1,
winning a $3 billion sustainable infrastructure mandate in Taiwan, launching 6
fixed income ETFs in partnership with Global X, and 8 ETFs opting to switch to
FTSE Russell's digital asset indices.
· Risk Intelligence was up 10.5% driven by strong customer demand for our
services for their screening and identity verification needs. Customer
receptivity to the World-Check On Demand and World-Check Verify solutions
launched in H2 2025 has been strong, with customers valuing the precise,
real-time intelligence on sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEPs),
adverse media and enforcement actions.
· Markets was up 15.5%. Against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty and
market volatility, customers turned to our trading venues and post-trade
infrastructure to meet their liquidity discovery and risk management needs.
This strength was broad-based, driving exceptional growth in the Markets
division.
o Equities was up 11.1% with continued growth in data revenues and double-digit
growth in secondary trading. The LSE's Private Securities Market successfully
conducted its first trade in Q1 demonstrating the important role of the London
Stock Exchange in building a seamless funding continuum across public and
private markets.
o Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other was up 18.4%. Tradeweb achieved new
record high trading volumes in the first quarter, with $3.3 trillion of
average daily volume across its platforms, supported by heightened market
volatility and Tradeweb's innovative trading protocols. Interest rate products
saw strong, broad-based activity driven by the uncertain macroeconomic outlook
and inflationary and central bank policy concerns. Activity in credit, equity
and money markets assets also remained robust, with all asset classes
delivering double-digit growth. Amid the heightened volatility, Tradeweb
continued to see strong customer demand for electronic execution and
accelerating adoption of its AiEX automated trading solutions.
o FX was up 11.8%. Activity was strong across both our interdealer trading
venue, Matching, and our dealer-to-client platform, FXall. The integration of
FXall with Workspace is creating a powerful, seamless solution for the FX
community, and a strong platform for innovation. In Q1 we added the capability
for Corporate Treasurers to invite banks to bid for deposits through
FXall/Workspace, creating a new use case for the platform.
o OTC Derivatives was up 16.0%. Elevated market uncertainty created additional
demand for our trusted clearing infrastructure in Q1, driving strong growth in
post-trade services across all asset classes. In terms of notional value
cleared, all five of the busiest days on record for SwapClear occurred in
March 2026. Expansion of Post Trade Solutions - our services for uncleared
derivative instruments - continued in Q1 with the launch of TradeAgent,
offering customers additional efficiencies in trade processing. LSEG's Digital
Settlement House (DiSH) will go live in Q2, enabling real-time settlement in
commercial bank money between independent payment networks, both on and off
chain.
o Securities & Reporting was up 9.0%, reflecting continued growth in the
RepoClear platform.
o Non-Cash Collateral was up 7.3%, as a slight decline in collateral balances
was offset by improved returns.
o Net Treasury Income was up 17.0%, with increased clearing activity leading to
higher customer cash balances in Q1.
· Group cost of sales declined by 2.9%, driven by the benefit from the revised
SwapClear revenue surplus share agreement struck in 2025. Excluding this, cost
of sales would have grown less than revenues at 8.5%, reflecting business mix
and the partially fixed nature of the costs.
· Gross profit was up 11.5%, ahead of growth in total income excluding
recoveries as a result of the decline in cost of sales.
Divisional non-financial KPIs
FTSE Russell
Q1 2026 Q1 2025 Variance
%
Index - ETF AUM ($bn):
- Period end 1,871 1,434 30.5%
- Average 1,906 1,449 31.5%
Markets
Q1 2026 Q1 2025 Variance
%
Equities
UK Value Traded (£bn) - average daily value 6.8 5.0 36.0%
Fixed income, Derivatives and Other
Tradeweb average daily volume ($m)
All asset classes 3,347,592 2,547,321 31.4%
Rates - Cash 670,125 558,883 19.9%
Rates - Derivatives 1,410,838 884,151 59.6%
Credit - Cash 20,401 18,264 11.7%
Credit - Derivatives 48,523 30,427 59.5%
FX
Average daily total volume ($bn) 564 522 8.0%
OTC Derivatives
SwapClear - IRS notional cleared ($trn) 649 464 39.9%
SwapClear - Client trades ('000) 1,740 1,248 39.4%
ForexClear - Notional cleared ($bn) 16,387 11,113 47.5%
ForexClear - Members 41 39 5.1%
Securities & Reporting
EquityClear trades (m) 315 304 3.6%
RepoClear - nominal value (€trn) 90.1 84.3 6.9%
Collateral
Average non-cash collateral (€bn) 208.1 211.2 (1.5%)
Average cash collateral (€bn) 109.6 104.8 4.6%
Foreign Exchange
The majority of LSEG revenues are in US dollars followed by sterling, euro and
other currencies.
USD GBP EUR Other
Total income by division(1,2) 58% 16% 17% 9%
Data & Analytics(1) 63% 7% 16% 15%
FTSE Russell 73% 20% 2% 5%
Risk Intelligence 63% 9% 15% 12%
Markets 48% 26% 24% 2%
(1 Total income includes recoveries)
(2 Percentage splits based on Q1 2026)
(Due to rounding, income percentages may not add to 100%.)
Spot / Average Rates
Average rate Closing rate at Average rate Closing rate at
3 months ended
31 March 2026
3 months ended
31 March 2025
31 March 2026
31 March 2025
GBP : USD 1.348 1.319 1.259 1.294
GBP : EUR 1.151 1.145 1.197 1.196
(For definitions of technical terms - refer to the Glossary contained in the
2025 Annual Report, page 197.)
Total income and gross profit by quarter
2025 2026
£m Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 FY Q1
Workflows 491 477 476 481 1,925 491
Data & Feeds 454 453 449 466 1,822 475
Analytics 59 57 57 58 231 59
Data & Analytics 1,004 987 982 1,005 3,978 1,025
Subscription 155 159 157 159 630 160
Asset-Based 83 75 84 82 324 88
FTSE Russell 238 234 241 241 954 248
Risk Intelligence 143 144 144 148 579 153
Subscription Businesses(1) 1,385 1,365 1,367 1,394 5,511 1,426
Equities 102 103 102 105 412 114
Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other 394 383 375 387 1,539 452
FX 69 70 67 66 272 74
OTC Derivatives 161 153 160 167 641 183
Securities & Reporting 56 59 55 59 229 61
Non-Cash Collateral 27 30 30 30 117 29
Net Treasury Income 65 63 61 68 257 74
Markets 874 861 850 882 3,467 987
Other 2 2 2 2 8 2
Total Income (excl. recoveries) 2,261 2,228 2,219 2,278 8,986 2,415
Recoveries 93 90 89 88 360 93
Total Income (incl. recoveries) 2,354 2,318 2,308 2,366 9,346 2,508
Cost of Sales (308) (294) (292) (219) (1,113) (289)
Gross Profit 2,046 2,024 2,016 2,147 8,223 2,219
(1 Combined total income (excl. recoveries) of Data & Analytics, FTSE
Russell and Risk Intelligence)
Organic, constant-currency revenue growth by quarter
2025 2026
% Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 FY Q1
Workflows 3.5% 3.1% 3.0% 3.0% 3.1% 2.9%
Data & Feeds 6.2% 6.9% 6.6% 6.7% 6.6% 7.3%
Analytics 7.6% 9.2% 7.7% 6.4% 7.7% 5.2%
Data & Analytics 5.0% 5.1% 4.9% 4.9% 5.0% 5.1%
Subscription 8.4% 9.3% 5.1% 5.7% 7.1% 7.7%
Asset-Based 12.5% (1.4%) 18.2% 2.6% 7.7% 10.9%
FTSE Russell 9.8% 5.5% 9.3% 4.7% 7.3% 8.8%
Risk Intelligence 10.7% 13.7% 13.9% 8.7% 11.7% 10.5%
Subscription Businesses(1) 6.3% 6.0% 6.5% 5.2% 6.0% 6.3%
Equities 5.1% 3.7% 2.6% 9.1% 5.1% 11.1%
Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other 17.3% 18.5% 9.9% 9.5% 13.7% 18.4%
FX 12.3% 13.9% 3.1% 1.4% 7.5% 11.8%
OTC Derivatives 16.8% 12.1% 9.2% 9.0% 11.6% 16.0%
Securities & Reporting (9.8%) (9.9%) 1.8% 8.3% (3.0%) 9.0%
Non-Cash Collateral (0.4%) 5.9% 6.0% 9.1% 5.2% 7.3%
Net Treasury Income (6.3%) 0.1% (7.1%) 3.1% (2.6%) 17.0%
Markets 10.5% 10.9% 6.3% 8.1% 8.9% 15.5%
Other (52.1%) (32.3%) (0.3%) (34.1%) (35.6%) (6.1%)
Total Income (excl. recoveries) 7.8% 7.8% 6.4% 6.2% 7.1% 9.8%
(1 Combined total income (excl. recoveries) of Data & Analytics, FTSE
Russell and Risk Intelligence)
This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact
rns@lseg.com (mailto:rns@lseg.com)
or visit
www.rns.com (http://www.rns.com/)
.
RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services. For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange use the personal data you provide us, please see our
Privacy Policy (https://www.lseg.com/privacy-and-cookie-policy)
. END TSTVLLFLQZLZBBK
Copyright 2019 Regulatory News Service, all rights reservedRecent news on London Stock Exchange
See all newsREG - LondonStockExGroup - Result of AGM
AnnouncementREG - LondonStockExGroup - Trading Statement
AnnouncementREG - FTSE Russell - Sorted Group Holdings
AnnouncementREG - LondonStockExGroup - Transaction in Own Shares
AnnouncementREG - FTSE Russell - 1 7/8% Index-linked Treasury Gilt 2049
Announcement