S&P Global Inc Q3 2023 Earnings Call Summary

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Ashish Sabadra - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Really strong billed issuance momentum in September of 35%. There was a comment around IG being potentially weak in the fourth quarter. But just wondering if you can comment on the strength that you saw in high-yield and bank loans in the third quarter for the rest of the year. And also, if you can talk about any initial color on the refi wall and share pipeline for '24. Martina L. Cheung - S&P Global Inc. - President of S&P Global Ratings, Inc. & Executive Sponsor of S&P Global Sustainable1 Ashish, thanks very much for the question. It's Martina here. Yes, very pleased with Q3 overall. As you have seen, our billed issuance was up 21% and a very, very strong September. In high yields, we were very pleased to see it was about 150% growth in issuance overall year-over-year in the quarter, and high-yields year-to-date is up about 50% rated issuance in the market. We see strong refi activity there in Q3 and looking to see more of that as we go forward, certainly into next year. It's -- Q3 marked, I think, a notable point in terms of issuers willing to come back and tap the market for high-yields. And then on bank loans, as we said before, we didn't have heroic assumptions on bank loan volumes for this year. Overall, while we saw an increase in Q3 year-over-year, we're still down year-over-year, year-to-date in bank loan issuance. There, we saw a lot of refinancing. Interestingly, a very strong trend this year that we saw in Q3 and are monitoring closely going forward is a lot of amend to extend activity -- or amend and extend activity, rather, in the bank loan space. And that's been a boost in that area from an issuance standpoint. For '24. Obviously, we're not commenting yet for '24. We'll certainly give more on that in February. But the factors that we're watching closely, refinancing walls are very healthy. Our last midyear report on refinancing showed the 5-year total's up about 11%. And between now and '26, we see about $8 trillion in refinancing. So that's something that we watch closely, and that's a very robust growth in that area. But we also are looking at the usual factors, the macroeconomic factors, certainly heightened geopolitical uncertainty. M&A has not been great this year. As we've seen, it's been down by quite a bit this year. So we're looking to see that come back in next year as well. And just the other point that I would make on -- as we're looking ahead in the next several quarters is that CP balances, or commercial paper balances, are quite high. So that could lead to some issuance if we see corporates transitioning from CP to fixed income. And we've commented in the past that we continue to see corporate cash balances at pre-pandemic levels, which we think will continue to boost the need for issuance as well.

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : A lot of really good color on new product development. Vitality Index is ticking higher. Growth there is good. I'm just curious, and I don't know if this is one that you can quantify, but just how much of that is a result of investments in product development on the gen AI side? Or is that something that can create kind of a new leg of accelerated growth as you continue to kind of harvest your investments there?