S&P Global Inc at Stifel Cross Sector Insight Conference Transcript

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

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Yeah, very welcome. And just wanted to start off, S&P is a very multifaceted business right now. You've been here for a while, orchestrated a lot of the portfolio, and we certainly appreciate that. But I'm going to start asking you about the ratings business for the simple reason that that's the first question that I always get from investors. No matter what is going on, I always get the first question is what's going on with the rating business. And a very strong first quarter and it looks like the second quarter seems to be shaping up pretty good as well. You guys put out the date of issuance of 75% in April. We haven't issued out May, but we have our own tracker. It still looks really good in May. And so I just want to ask you your view as to -- on the earnings call, you talked about a lot of -- you're more conservative in the guidance because you are thinking that a lot of it was pulled forward, but are you seeing signs that we might be starting to get more M&A, more IPO stuff that might make this a little bit more of a sticky yet strong time?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. And one of the things I also wanted to ask about is that almost universally amongst the companies that I cover, you're seeing a trend in the CFOs of saying with interest rates going up, (technical difficulty) some of this leverage trickle down. And so where companies might have been comfortable, and some of my companies in the upper threes, they want to be in the lower threes, or if you're below three in terms of leverage. How does that factor into your thinking in terms of the cycle? And how long will that weigh in terms of companies thinking maybe I will refi $1 billion with $1 billion. I'll do $1 billion with $750,000, like how does that?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : So you're not concerned about that. You think it'll come out in a different --

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : And one more on credit before I start moving on to something else. Just could you talk a little bit about what's going on in private credit versus the public credit? And how do you see that playing out in S&P's role across the different areas within credit?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. Want to shift a little in terms of just what's going on in the general financial services vertical. So what are you seeing in the sales cycles for your general market intelligence business? Maybe you could talk a little about some of the subsegments that's taking longer for deals to close. What's happening on the ground?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Just on touch on that desktop business a little bit. S&P has always been a little bit unique because a lot of the competitors are not as much in kind of corporate America, and you guys are more in corporate America. Are you seeing a little bit more of a shift in them trying to follow your lead into corporate America in terms of not just selling to financial services firms? And some people know I'm about like Thomson and FactSet and Bloomberg.

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. So you're not you're not seeing that. It's not percolating to your level, if there's anything going on there?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. I just want to shift a little into AI. Just -- AI is a very big focus nowadays, and one of the things that people kind of -- I don't know if they fully understand is that training the models is huge and having your own proprietary data in order to be able to do that is huge. Could you talk about how you are leveraging AI and the different datasets that you have that other companies just don't have?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Would you highlight certain datasets that you think are going to be really standout in three years from the fact that you own them and you're applying AI to them?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Great. I don't want to make the same mistake I made in the last fireside chat where I forgot to ask any of the people in the audience if they want to ask anything before I took to sit the whole half an hour. (laughter) If there's anybody out there that wants to ask anything, please raise your hand. We're happy to call on anybody. Like I've said before, this is not like an auction. I'm not going to get it if you kind of wink or make a little note there. But if no one has it, I have enough, obviously a lot of my own questions over here. Okay. I'm going to just going to take it up. The best companies, I would say, are very focused on new product innovation. And S&P has a vitality index. There's only two companies that I cover that have a vitality index and you're one of them. And can you talk about, how does that work within the company? If something makes it into the vitality index, is it -- how it changed does it have to be from what it was before to really get counted as that? And from your view, what goes on operationally within the company to make sure that you are continuously innovating? Because to generate the kind of growth that you generate, for other companies, that's like producing a new company a year. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JUNE 04, 2024 / 3:30PM, SPGI.N - S&P Global Inc at Stifel Cross Sector Insight Conference

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : So just to segue a little bit into that. So the company, I think, made a comment that we're starting to get to where we're going to get more of the revenue synergies that are new product revenue synergies from that IHS Markit acquisition. And I think the comment was you guys are a little bit ahead of where you thought you were going to be. Can you talk about like what's resonating there? What are you doing now that you weren't doing that they couldn't do before? Obviously, it took a couple of years to put it together and generate, what's happened?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Yeah, it's interesting. There's the two very high-class energy products that came together. I used to cover IHS Markit and I remember someone asking Jerre Stead about buying Platts and he said, I've never ever heard that it was for sale, nor do I ever expect it to be for sale.

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : But just -- going to go back to some of the businesses that you've got with IHS Markit, so we talked about the financial services, we just touched a little bit on the energy. Please talk about mobility. Mobility was their fastest growing business, and it was very exciting. And the question we always got was how long can this growth last? It's going on and on and on. And maybe you could talk a little bit about the growth runway for that business. And then also, it's a little bit different than the other businesses you have. How does it fit in with the overall S&P family?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : So I just -- I covered S&P -- I mean IHS Markit, I think, nine years ago when they bought it or whatever it was, eight years ago, I forgot how many years already it was. The main question was, is there enough runway for this growth to continue? And I think that the main question right now is still, is there enough runway for this growth to continue in that business? (multiple speakers)

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Well, I mean, if you look at Experian, it has -- competitor in the UK. And then you've got some of the software and the insurance companies do some valuation here and there, but no one has got that.

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. I want to poll once again, because we're coming towards the end of the session, because if I get in one more, that's going to be the end of it. If anyone wants to ask anything. Okay. Then I'm going to finish it off here. Just -- it was a big focus of S&P on their ESG offering. And we've seen, at least in the US, it's not as emphasized as it was several years ago amongst the asset managers. Can you talk about where that offering is right now, what the growth rate is, and what the focus of the company is on that side of the business?

Question: Shlomo Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. - Analyst : Great. Thank you all for joining. And Doug, thank you very much for participating.