Half Year 2026 London Stock Exchange Group PLC Earnings Call Transcript
Key Points
- Organic revenue growth accelerated to 8.4% with strength across all divisions.
- Subscription revenue growth accelerated to 6.3%, on track for the 2026 target of 6.5%.
- EBITDA margins improved strongly, with guidance raised to around 100 basis points improvement.
- Free cash flow per share grew 37%, driven by strong cash generation and ongoing buybacks.
- AI-driven innovation is gaining traction, with MCP tool calls increasing nearly five times from May to June and new Workspace AI tools seeing strong user adoption.
- Net finance expense increased significantly to GBP149 million from GBP66 million in H1 2025, driven by higher global interest rates.
- EBITDA margin is expected to decline slightly in H2 due to a 70 basis point headwind from the SwapClear revenue share change.
- MCP monetization is not expected to materially impact revenue in 2026, with meaningful contributions only anticipated from 2027 onward.
- Cost of sales grew 8.6% in line with revenues, excluding the SwapClear agreement change, indicating ongoing cost pressures.
- The company faces challenges in managing customer expectations and sales cycles amid the rapidly evolving AI landscape, though it has not seen extended cycles itself.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LSEG's H1 results presentation. Thank you for joining us. As usual, I'm joined by MAP, our CFO; and Peregrine Riviere, our Head of IR.
I'll give you a few highlights of the first six months and then hand over to MAP to talk through the numbers in detail. After that, I'm going to spend some time talking specifically about our progress in D&A and our deep engagement with customers as they adapt to an AI world. And then, of course, we will be happy to take your questions.
It has been a great first half. We achieved organic revenue growth of 8.4% with strength across the Board. Subscription growth accelerated to 6.3%. Our EBITDA margins improved very strongly and we're raising guidance to the top of the 80 to 100 basis point range. The top-line and margin improvement delivered 17% earnings per share growth. An exceptional growth of 37% in free cash flow per share.
We made record returns to shareholders, around GBP2.6 billion across
| Access to All Earning Calls and Stock Analysis | |
| 30-Year Financial on one screen | |
| All-in-one Stock Screener with unlimited filters | |
| Customizable Stock Dashboard | |
| Real Time Insider Trading Transactions | |
| 8,000+ Institutional investors’ 13F holdings | |
| Powerful Excel Add-in and Google sheets Add-on | |
| All data downloadable | |
| Quick customer support | |
| And much more... |
Trustpilot
We'd love to learn more about your experiences on GuruFocus.com and how we can improve!
Take Survey
