London Stock Exchange Share News (LSEG)

(Sharecast News) - London Stock Exchange Group reported a a strong start to the year in a trading update on Thursday, with solid first-quarter performance across its business divisions.

The FTSE 100 company recorded a 7.3% increase in total income excluding recoveries, with organic growth at 6.4%.

It said each division showed a robust performance, as data and analytics grew by 4.3%, FTSE Russell by 9.5%, risk intelligence by 12.5%, and capital markets by 14.4%.

Post trade revenues remained flat, reflecting a strong performance in the prior year.

The firm's organic annual subscription value (ASV) experienced 6% growth, driven by strong retention, robust sales, and pricing, despite anticipated impacts from Credit Suisse losses.

LSEG executed a £500m directed buyback in the first quarter, with plans for an additional £500m in buybacks throughout 2024.

Additionally, LSEG successfully issued $1.25bn in bonds and completed acquisitions, including ICD by Tradeweb and minority stakes in LCH Group.

The partnership with Microsoft progressed well, with the delivery of first products expected in the first half of the year, and successful migration of datasets to the cloud-based platform.

Workspace rollout continued, leading to the retirement of legacy platforms and improved customer experience.

Looking forward, LSEG said it was confident in its continued growth and improving profitability, aiming to meet all financial guidance it provided at its capital markets day in November.

"We have started the year well, delivering another quarter of solid growth consistent with our plans," said chief executive officer David Schwimmer.

"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."

Schwimmer said the company was continuing to make strong progress in its 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."

At 0836 BST, shares in London Stock Exchange Group were down 0.32% at 8,774p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.