LondonStockExGroup - Trading Statement
RNS Number : 4734E London Stock Exchange Group PLC 23 October 2025 London Stock Exchange Group plc: Q3 2025 Trading Update Delivering strong growth, raising margin guidance, increasing share buyback LSEG Everywhere delivering trusted licensed data to scale AI in financial services David Schwimmer, CEO said: "We continued our strong momentum in Q3, driving growth across all business lines. We are also improving profitability and are now expecting EBITDA margin at the top of guidance for 2025. We have significantly accelerated our strategic progress in the last few months, driving the long-term growth potential of the business: we have launched a series of innovative new products for customers positioning LSEG as the partner of choice in AI with the likes of Microsoft and Databricks. "In addition, we are deploying capital effectively. Today we are announcing a significant transaction in our post trade business: a group of leading banks is acquiring a 20% stake in Post Trade Solutions, and in parallel we have amended and extended the revenue share arrangements within SwapClear. This deal strengthens our partnership and strategic alignment with key customers, while delivering attractive margin and earnings enhancement. In addition, having returned nearly £1 billion to shareholders through share buybacks in the last three months, we are committing to a further £1 billion by February 2026."
| Q3 2025 highlights | |
| (All growth rates on an organic constant currency basis unless otherwise stated) | |
| · | Strong, broad-based growth:Total income (excl. recoveries) +6.4% (+7.3% year-to-date). Led by Risk Intelligence +13.9% and FTSE Russell +9.3%; Data & Analytics +4.9%, Markets +6.3% |
| · | Continued strong subscription growth: combined growth of 6.5% in our subscription businesses1. Period-end ASV growth of +5.6% reflects underlying acceleration excluding the known impact of attractive new multi-year UBS contract; headline re-acceleration of ASV growth anticipated in Q4 |
| · | EBITDA margin guidance raised:expect c.100 bps increase in constant currency EBITDA margin in FY2025 - top end of previously stated range and excluding a further c.100 bps benefit from the change to SwapClear revenue share arrangements; confident in delivering all other financial targets |
| · | Advancing our LSEG Everywhere strategy, high pace of innovation:further embedding our high-quality, trusted data into industry workflow tools in partnership with Databricks, Rogo and Snowflake; scaling distribution with MCP infrastructure |
| · | Deepening our partnership with Microsoft:integrating LSEG data in Microsoft 365 Copilot and agentic AI tools through Copilot Studio; digital market infrastructure built on Microsoft technology live in Q3; first-of-its-kind Azure-based trade routing network for 1,600 investment firms and brokers |
| · | Goodgrowth in Markets:all businesses delivering positive growth against strong prior year comparator |
| · | Investment in Post Trade Solutions ("PTS") and SwapClear amendment:replicates the successful SwapClear structure through partnership with PTS. Immediately accretive to Group EBITDA margin and AEPS |
| · | Additional £1 billion share buyback:planning to complete before 2025 preliminary results; total share buybacks of £2.5 billion over the 12-month period from March 2025 to February 2026 |
| 1. | Trusted data:Delivering our trusted, high-quality data through multiple new distribution channels to scale AI in financial services through our open, LLM-agnostic, and infrastructure-oriented partnership approach. The value of our data lies in our intellectual property, technology and infrastructure. |
| 2. | Transformative products:Reimagining how financial services professionals work, with AI-enabled products that bring speed, simplicity and conviction to our customers' workflows and decision-making. |
| 3. | Intelligent enterprise:Deploying AI across our own business, so we can innovate faster and serve our customers better, with the same commitment to trust and reliability for which our customers rely on us. |
| · | Executing on our LSEG Everywhere strategy:we are the partner of choice for financial markets data. In August we partnered with Rogo to integrate our trusted content into its industry-leading AI applications, enabling seamless interoperability between Workspace and the Rogo platform. In September, we announced that our AI-ready data is available on Databricks, allowing customers to rapidly build and deploy AI agents with confidence in the accuracy and auditability of the data powering these tools. In October we entered into a similar partnership with Snowflake, enabling customers to embed LSEG data into AI agents powered by their Cortex AI tools. We also launched MCP infrastructure, giving customers enhanced connectivity and a unified data and AI ecosystem. |
| · | Deepening our partnership with Microsoft:Continuing our close partnership, we are embedding our data in Microsoft 365 Copilot, a powerful integration allowing financial professionals to generate insights, streamline decision-making, and improve productivity with our trusted, authoritative data. Integration with Copilot Studio further allows users to build agentic workflow based on our data, leveraging MCP. |
| · | Accelerating product innovation in Workspace:We continue to advance our innovative solutions, investing in new, powerful capabilities for our users across asset classes and communities. We have been engaging key customers in the FX and Commodity trading communities as part of the staged customer roll out of Open Directory from Q4, and we are introducing new Workspace AI tools including natural language capabilities to all users in H1 2026. We look forward to demonstrating all of these features at our Innovation Forum on 10 November 2025. |
| · | Organic constant currency growth in Total Income (excl. recoveries) of 6.5-7.5%, including an acceleration in Data & Analytics organic growth and more normalised growth at Tradeweb |
| · | Capex intensity of c. 10% of Total Income (excl. recoveries) |
| · | Equity free cash flow of at least £2.4 billion, based on foreign exchange rates of £1 = $1.28 and €1.18 |
| · | Underlying effective tax rate of 24-25% |
| Q3 2025 £m | Q3 2024 £m | Variance % | Constant currency variance % | Organic constant currency variance % | ||
| Workflows | 476 | 469 | 1.5% | 3.0% | 3.0% | |
| Data & Feeds | 449 | 430 | 4.4% | 6.6% | 6.6% | |
| Analytics | 57 | 55 | 3.6% | 7.7% | 7.7% | |
| Data & Analytics | 982 | 954 | 2.9% | 4.9% | 4.9% | |
| Subscription | 157 | 153 | 2.6% | 5.1% | 5.1% | |
| Asset-based | 84 | 72 | 16.7% | 18.2% | 18.2% | |
| FTSE Russell | 241 | 225 | 7.1% | 9.3% | 9.3% | |
| Risk Intelligence | 144 | 131 | 9.9% | 14.0% | 13.9% | |
| Equities | 102 | 100 | 2.0% | 2.6% | 2.6% | |
| Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other | 375 | 341 | 10.0% | 11.9% | 9.9% | |
| FX | 67 | 67 | 0.0% | 3.1% | 3.1% | |
| OTC Derivatives | 160 | 148 | 8.1% | 9.2% | 9.2% | |
| Securities & Reporting | 55 | 55 | 0.0% | 1.8% | 1.8% | |
| Non-Cash Collateral | 30 | 28 | 7.1% | 6.0% | 6.0% | |
| Net Treasury Income | 61 | 66 | (7.6%) | (7.1%) | (7.1%) | |
| Markets | 850 | 805 | 5.6% | 7.1% | 6.3% | |
| Other | 2 | 2 | 0.0% | (0.3%) | (0.3%) | |
| Total Income (excl. recoveries) | 2,219 | 2,117 | 4.8% | 6.7% | 6.4% | |
| Recoveries | 89 | 89 | 0.0% | 1.9% | 1.9% | |
| Total Income (incl. recoveries) | 2,308 | 2,206 | 4.6% | 6.5% | 6.2% | |
| Cost of sales | (292) | (283) | 3.2% | 4.5% | 4.5% | |
| Gross Profit | 2,016 | 1,923 | 4.8% | 6.9% | 6.5% |
| · | Data & Analyticswas up 4.9%. Growth was broadly consistent with H1 with the benefit of net sales largely offsetting the impact of known headwinds including the new multi-year UBS contract and the isolated mandate losses highlighted at H1. | |
| o | Workflowswas up 3.0% with continued strength in FX, commodities and banking users. The sustained growth follows the successful sunsetting of Eikon in June and reflects the continuous enhancement of our Workspace offering, driving new sales and displacements. | |
| o | Data & Feedswas up 6.6% with consistent and broad-based growth. Continuing innovation and expansion of our offering drove demand for our real time services, with sales of machine-readable news for AI use cases and the benefit of AI partnerships further contributing to growth. Demand for pricing and reference services also remained strong supported by ongoing enhancements to content and distribution capabilities. | |
| o | Analyticswas up 7.7%, with strong in-year sales of the Analytics API a key driver of the acceleration to high single-digit growth. The launch of services on Databricks added an additional distribution conduit for our analytics content, further reinforcing momentum across key use cases. | |
| · | FTSE Russellwas up 9.3%. As highlighted at H1, no significant multi-year customer mandates were due for renewal in the quarter leading to more modest growth in subscription revenues in Q3. A more typical mandate renewal cycle is anticipated for FY2026. Growth in asset-based revenues was strong, up 18.2%, reflecting product inflows and market strength. | |
| · | Risk Intelligencewas up 13.9% driven by strong business momentum and customer demand for our screening and identity verification services. We continue to enhance and innovate our offering introducing two new services in Q3, World-Check On Demand and World-Check Verify, delivering precise, continuously updated real-time intelligence on sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEPs), adverse media, and enforcement actions to our customers. | |
| · | Annual Subscription Value (ASV):Period-end organic ASV growth was +5.6%, a little ahead of guidance. The sequential decline was primarily driven by the final crystallisation of Credit Suisse revenues following the new multi-year UBS contract in the period. Excluding this known impact, underlying ASV growth accelerated slightly. We expect headline ASV growth to further accelerate into the end of the year. | |
| · | Marketswas up 6.3%. Amidst continuing macroeconomic uncertainty, we continue to support customers with new trading functionality and tools, driving positive growth across all venues despite a strong prior year comparator. | |
| o | Equitieswas up 2.6% with growth in equity transaction volumes and data revenues. We continue to expand the funding continuum launching a new Private Securities Market in Q3 and conducting the first private funds transaction on our Digital Markets Infrastructure (DMI). | |
| o | Fixed Income, Derivatives & Otherwas up 9.9%. The business achieved new record high trading volumes in the third quarter, with $173tn of average daily volume across its platforms, supported by Tradeweb's innovative trading protocols and an uncertain macroeconomic outlook. In the rates business, activity was particularly strong in mortgages, European government bonds and swaps. Tradeweb continued to see good customer engagement and adoption of their RFQ and AllTrade trading tools in credit, as well as their AiEX automated trading solutions. Activity in equity and money market instruments continues to be strong with both asset classes delivering double-digit growth. | |
| o | FXwas up 3.1%. Activity across our interbank and dealer-to-client platforms remained strong, delivering positive growth against a demanding prior year volume comparison. | |
| o | OTC Derivativeswas up 9.2%. Clearing and compression activity grew strongly across all asset classes in Q3 despite a strong prior year comparator. This was aided by new forward clearing capabilities in ForexClear and the international expansion of CDSClear. Our service for uncleared instruments, Post Trade Solutions, continues to build momentum, with 73% growth in activity through our SwapAgent platform in Q3 and 4,800 new counterparty relationships this year in our Acadia business. | |
| o | Securities & Reportingwas up 1.8%, with new regulatory reporting tools and strong volume growth in fixed income clearing more than offsetting the annualisation of Euronext-related revenues lost last year. | |
| o | Non-Cash Collateralwas up 6.0%, in part reflecting a customer preference to hold a greater proportion of their collateral in non-cash instruments rather than cash. | |
| o | Net Treasury Incomewas down (7.1%) reflecting lower overall collateral balances, including the reduction in cash balances following last year's loss of business from Euronext, and the mix effect noted above favouring non-cash collateral. | |
| · | Group cost of saleswas up 4.5%, below the growth rate in revenue reflecting business mix and the partially fixed nature of the costs. | |
| · | Gross profitwas up 6.5%, very slightly ahead of growth in Total Income (excl. recoveries) as a result of the lower growth in cost of sales. | |
| Contacts: London Stock Exchange Group plc Investors | |||
| Peregrine Riviere / Chris Turner Madeleine Yoxall / Sharon Muzikarova | ir@lseg.com | ||
| Media | |||
| Lucie Holloway / Rhiannon Davies | +44 (0) 20 7797 1222 newsroom@lseg.com | ||
| Q3 2025 | Q3 2024 | |
| Annual subscription value growth (%)2 | 5.6% | 6.0% |
| Subscription revenue growth (%)2,3 | 6.1% | 6.1% |
| Revenue from subscription businesses (%)4 | 6.5% | 6.0% |
| Q3 2025 | Q3 2024 | Variance % | |
| Index - ETF AUM ($bn): | |||
| - Period end | 1,732 | 1,433 | 20.9% |
| - Average | 1,662 | 1,358 | 22.4% |
| Q3 2025 | Q3 2024 | Variance % | |
| Equities | |||
| UK Value Traded (£bn) - average daily value | 4.3 | 4.1 | 4.9% |
| Fixed income, Derivatives and Other | |||
| Tradeweb average daily volume ($m) | |||
| Rates - Cash | 534,513 | 496,603 | 7.6% |
| Rates - Derivatives | 921,043 | 801,512 | 14.9% |
| Credit - Cash | 16,161 | 15,251 | 6.0% |
| Credit - Derivatives | 25,863 | 27,338 | (5.4%) |
| FX | |||
| Average daily total volume ($bn) | 530 | 495 | 7.1% |
| OTC Derivatives | |||
| SwapClear - IRS notional cleared ($trn) | 502 | 418 | 20.1% |
| SwapClear - Client trades ('000) | 1,334 | 1,091 | 22.3% |
| ForexClear - Notional cleared ($bn) | 12,573 | 9,755 | 28.9% |
| ForexClear - Members | 40.0 | 39.0 | 2.6% |
| Securities & Reporting | |||
| EquityClear trades (m) | 243 | 249 | (2.3%) |
| RepoClear - nominal value (€trn) | 83.3 | 79.9 | 4.3% |
| Collateral | |||
| Average non-cash collateral (€bn) | 206.7 | 204.4 | 1.1% |
| Average cash collateral (€bn) | 96.3 | 108.0 | (10.8%) |
| USD | GBP | EUR | Other | |
| Total income by division1,2 | 58% | 16% | 17% | 9% |
| Data & Analytics1 | 63% | 6% | 15% | 15% |
| FTSE Russell | 71% | 21% | 3% | 5% |
| Risk Intelligence | 63% | 9% | 15% | 13% |
| Markets | 48% | 28% | 22% | 2% |
| Average rate 3 months ended 30 September 2025 | Closing rate at 30 September 2025 | Average rate 3 months ended 30 September 2024 | Closing rate at 30 September 2024 | |
| GBP : USD | 1.349 | 1.342 | 1.300 | 1.341 |
| GBP : EUR | 1.154 | 1.144 | 1.183 | 1.199 |
| 2024 | 2025 | ||||||||||
| £m | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | FY | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | YTD | ||
| Workflows | 476 | 477 | 469 | 477 | 1,899 | 491 | 477 | 476 | 1,444 | ||
| Data & Feeds | 432 | 436 | 430 | 442 | 1,740 | 454 | 453 | 449 | 1,356 | ||
| Analytics | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 220 | 59 | 57 | 57 | 173 | ||
| Data & Analytics | 963 | 968 | 954 | 974 | 3,859 | 1,004 | 987 | 982 | 2,973 | ||
| Subscription | 142 | 152 | 153 | 156 | 603 | 155 | 159 | 157 | 471 | ||
| Asset-based | 74 | 81 | 72 | 81 | 308 | 83 | 75 | 84 | 242 | ||
| FTSE Russell | 216 | 233 | 225 | 237 | 911 | 238 | 234 | 241 | 713 | ||
| Risk Intelligence | 131 | 132 | 131 | 137 | 531 | 143 | 144 | 144 | 431 | ||
| Equities | 97 | 99 | 100 | 96 | 392 | 102 | 103 | 102 | 307 | ||
| Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other | 318 | 317 | 341 | 358 | 1,334 | 394 | 383 | 375 | 1,152 | ||
| FX | 62 | 64 | 67 | 67 | 260 | 69 | 70 | 67 | 206 | ||
| OTC Derivatives | 138 | 141 | 148 | 155 | 582 | 161 | 153 | 160 | 474 | ||
| Securities & Reporting | 62 | 65 | 55 | 53 | 235 | 56 | 59 | 55 | 170 | ||
| Non-cash collateral | 28 | 28 | 28 | 27 | 111 | 27 | 30 | 30 | 87 | ||
| Net treasury income | 69 | 65 | 66 | 66 | 266 | 65 | 63 | 61 | 189 | ||
| Markets | 774 | 779 | 805 | 822 | 3,180 | 874 | 861 | 850 | 2,585 | ||
| Other | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | ||
| Total income (excl. recoveries) | 2,089 | 2,115 | 2,117 | 2,173 | 8,494 | 2,261 | 2,228 | 2,219 | 6,708 | ||
| Recoveries | 93 | 92 | 89 | 90 | 364 | 93 | 90 | 89 | 272 | ||
| Total income (incl. recoveries) | 2,182 | 2,207 | 2,206 | 2,263 | 8,858 | 2,354 | 2,318 | 2,308 | 6,980 | ||
| Cost of sales | (289) | (299) | (283) | (302) | (1,173) | (308) | (294) | (292) | (894) | ||
| Gross profit | 1,893 | 1,908 | 1,923 | 1,961 | 7,685 | 2,046 | 2,024 | 2,016 | 6,086 | ||
| 2024 | 2025 | |||||||||
| % | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | FY | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | YTD | |
| Workflows | 1.8% | 3.0% | 3.1% | 3.3% | 2.8% | 3.5% | 3.1% | 3.0% | 3.2% | |
| Data & Feeds | 7.3% | 5.4% | 6.5% | 6.7% | 6.5% | 6.2% | 6.9% | 6.6% | 6.6% | |
| Analytics | 6.5% | 3.8% | 5.2% | 4.2% | 4.9% | 7.6% | 9.2% | 7.7% | 8.1% | |
| Data & Analytics | 4.4% | 4.1% | 4.7% | 4.9% | 4.6% | 5.0% | 5.1% | 4.9% | 5.0% | |
| Subscription | 6.2% | 13.1% | 13.1% | 8.9% | 10.3% | 8.4% | 9.3% | 5.1% | 7.5% | |
| Asset-Based | 16.4% | 14.3% | 1.8% | 16.0% | 11.9% | 12.5% | (1.4%) | 18.2% | 9.4% | |
| FTSE Russell | 9.5% | 13.5% | 9.2% | 11.2% | 10.8% | 9.8% | 5.5% | 9.3% | 8.2% | |
| Risk Intelligence | 12.5% | 10.4% | 10.4% | 12.0% | 11.3% | 10.7% | 13.7% | 13.9% | 12.8% | |
| Equities | 1.7% | 6.9% | 5.8% | 2.9% | 4.3% | 5.1% | 3.7% | 2.6% | 3.8% | |
| Fixed Income, Derivatives & Other | 21.3% | 27.9% | 27.3% | 17.2% | 23.1% | 17.3% | 18.5% | 9.9% | 15.1% | |
| FX | (2.2%) | 3.9% | 12.8% | 10.1% | 6.1% | 12.3% | 13.9% | 3.1% | 9.6% | |
| OTC Derivatives | 0.1% | 6.6% | 18.4% | 19.0% | 10.8% | 16.8% | 12.1% | 9.2% | 12.6% | |
| Securities & Reporting | (0.5%) | 2.5% | (11.1%) | (15.9%) | (6.3%) | (9.8%) | (9.9%) | 1.8% | (6.3%) | |
| Non-Cash Collateral | 6.5% | 5.4% | 5.3% | 2.5% | 4.9% | (0.4%) | 5.9% | 6.0% | 3.9% | |
| Net Treasury Income | (2.6%) | (14.7%) | (5.5%) | (1.5%) | (6.3%) | (6.3%) | 0.1% | (7.1%) | (4.5%) | |
| Markets | 7.8% | 11.2% | 14.3% | 10.2% | 10.9% | 10.5% | 10.9% | 6.3% | 9.2% | |
| Other | (43.9%) | (48.6%) | (75.1%) | (52.6%) | (54.5%) | (52.1%) | (32.3%) | (0.3%) | (36.1%) | |
| Total Income (excl. recoveries) | 6.4% | 7.8% | 8.7% | 7.7% | 7.7% | 7.8% | 7.8% | 6.4% | 7.3% | |
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