S&P Global Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference Transcript

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

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Maybe first question, it's been about 10 months, I think, since you officially took over as CEO. Maybe just some initial thoughts on how high it's been since you took over and maybe some of your strategic priorities that you've brought to the table?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Yeah. Maybe asked another way, you have your Investor Day coming up in November. It will be around one year plus mark since you took over. What are some of the things we should expect at that Investor Day to look forward to?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. Before we get into some of the business segments, I wanted to stay high level. So just in terms of the AI topic that you brought out, a lot of questions out there. From your perspective as CEO of a company that has many different assets, many different verticals. Is AI hype, is it real, is it both? Just how are you thinking about the use cases within S&P Global?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. Maybe just one follow-up then. We'll wait for IR day for all the product updates. But on the cost side, your point on working through the -- sorry, the tech integration, like you can't just get the AI products and pop! it goes. Like how long does that process take? Like because I guess the investors want numbers now, right? How much you get the segment cost? But I guess to your point, it's not as easy.

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Okay, fair enough. Somewhat tied to it, but a lot of questions around data and what is proprietary, what is not proprietary. Across your portfolio, you own a whole range of data sets. So maybe from your perspective, how would you characterize two proprietary data versus there's a view that if something is available public, that means someone's going to go get it and you're done, right? But the history, the curation, all that matters. So I don't know if you have a perspective on how you look at your portfolio and how you characterize your data moat today.

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. Maybe taking that into segment specifics of Market Intelligence and Cap IQ even specifically. We've seen LSE, FactSet and other shares take the hit because of this fear that the desktop, who's got proprietary data? Is the workflow distribution at risk? What is -- how do you answer that question in terms of, again, being comfortable with your competitive moats in there?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. One of the other areas the market is always worried about is if a company has a per-seat model and therefore, there could be cuts, whether it's headcount related or budget related, but I think you guys have a data license focus as opposed to seat license focus. So can you just talk about that? Is everything enterprise? Or is there a seat sensitivity to how you sell your business on MI specifically, let's keep it there?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. One of the themes that keeps coming up in the market data space is vendor consolidation, both from a contract standpoint and from just more M&A, I guess. And in the last year, you did Visible Alpha. I think you were part of SNL way back when. And then in terms of contracts, for example, you signed the Barclays deal as well. So just curious, like is this theme finally picking up steam? Do you expect a lot more M&A out there or maybe just your own ambitions within MI on capital allocation?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Broadly vendor consolidation and MI strategy.

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Yeah, we can go into M&A in terms of just -- and then maybe you can even take M&A beyond in terms of the overall portfolio you're spending on mobility, how you feel about the assets that you have as well?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. Let's shift gears to Ratings. You used to run Ratings before you took over all of S&P. The first question is just more near term outlook-ish type question. The July data you put out was pretty good. Just your take on what the near-term trends look like with all this rate cut discussion. Is that going to help? Is it going to change things that people pulling forward?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. And then just thinking more medium to even longer term, I think, most investors have the view that right now, a lot of the issuance over the last year or so has been called it, refi driven, for the lack of a better word. And if M&A comes back, there's a lot more incremental issuance to be had. Is that a fair assumption?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. And maybe just a quick word on the refi walls, I think they build up pretty nicely over the next 3 to 4 years, but maybe just some context around that?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. Private credit, another topic that comes up a lot. Maybe -- I know there's different angles to private credit, but let's just stick to just the ratings side for now. Just give us some perspective on how you think of a size, private credit within ratings. It feels like it was -- it's a newer focus and a newer strategy. So what is that strategy?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. And you kind of answered my next question, which is you still see a lot of individual deals get funded by private credit, i.e., without ratings. And so we always get the question, is that share loss? Is that structural? And you just talked about how there's a lot of instances where private goes to public. So maybe can you just help us frame context, some context around how much of the deals actually you're losing, if you considered losing, just to help appreciate that dynamic?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. And then how about private credit beyond ratings. Judging from all the money that a lot of the other financial info peers are paying for acquiring assets and themselves investing in data, like what is S&P's portfolio of private credit assets look like?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. And then maybe in the last three minutes, since you brought up index, let's talk about index a bit. There's a lot of market chat around US exceptions (inaudible) and so flows going outside. But just what are you seeing on the S&P side? And beyond just relying on flows, you talked about innovation with UBS and so forth. Maybe a few more examples on how you can grow beyond just flows?

Question: Manav Patnaik - Barclays - Analyst : Got it. All right. I think we'll just leave it there since we have only about a minute left. So thank you so much for being here, Martina, and looking forward to the Investor Day.