S&P Global Inc at William Blair Growth Stock Conference (Virtual) Transcript

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

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : My pleasure. My pleasure. Just getting right into it, I think one way to kind of set the stage here would be to just talk about how the business has performed over the course of the pandemic and then maybe within that, speak to some of the major learnings or takeaways over that time frame, whether it be in terms of new product opportunities, areas of increased customer demand or even on the cost side, whatever you think is most important for the go-forward story.

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Absolutely. And in addition to all that juggling going on and uncertainty, you had time to work on a merger, due diligence on a merger, which I'm sure many of the people on the webcast know you announced in late November. So maybe using that as a transition and as a starting point, if you could kind of just dig into the IHS Markit merger in a bit more detail, walk us through the strategic rationale and why the companies fit so well together in your view.

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : So you touched on a bunch of different opportunities within that combined entity. If you could maybe speak to the ones that you're most excited about and if there's anything in the past 6 or so months since you announced the deal that's come to light that's particularly interesting, that would be great. And then just one more follow-up to that multipart question would just be whether or not the potential sale of OPIS impacts any of the numbers that you've outlined or some of the synergies that you've thought about [prior to that].

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : You touched on the ETF opportunity, multi-asset products, fixed income products. How should we think about the players that are already there in that space, the incumbents, if you will? I imagine or my understanding, it's a market that typically rewards first movers. So I'm curious what the strategy is to take share in that part of the market. And maybe what will encourage investors to allocate capital to an S&P Global fixed income product or a multi-asset product versus maybe some of the products that are already available and have potentially gathered assets in that area? 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 02, 2021 / 5:40PM, SPGI.N - S&P Global Inc at William Blair Growth Stock Conference (Virtual)

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Yes. I would imagine the S&P brand doesn't hurt either. So that makes a lot of sense. Kind of sticking with synergy opportunities, I wanted to ask about how Kensho kind of fits into this plan. I don't believe it was included too specifically within the revenue synergy outline just because you don't have access to the full suite of data yet. But maybe if you could kind of talk about what that opportunity set might look like, maybe looking back to historical ways that Kensho has been accretive to growth as some sort of guide of what that opportunity could look like.

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Sure, sure. Makes a ton of sense. I think you touched on this a little bit more. Maybe I can expand on the component of the synergies that is pushing IHS data through the Market Intelligence platform. Can you give us a sense of maybe what portion of your customer base for Market Intelligence is in kind of the automotive or energy industries? Is there overlap there that you plan to kind of, I don't know, invest in or harvest? And if there are any IHS data assets in particular that you're excited about putting through that platform that can be a day 1 opportunity.

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Sure, sure. No, makes sense. Pretty impressive distribution footprint to be able to leverage. I want to get back to ESG a little bit. You've talked about how IHS is accretive to that opportunity. And I think an investor can go back and look at all the different commentary you've had across the various presentations and investor days on what S&P is doing in each kind of business on the ESG front. But maybe to ask a question about that area a little bit differently or maybe more specifically, I was hoping you could kind of talk about the competitive positioning of S&P relative to the more established players in the space or not more established but established players in the space. What differentiates what you're doing on the ESG data side? And maybe how this market -- or you see this market evolving over time? Is it one that is big enough and growing fast enough to support a bunch of different players? Or does the value accrue kind of disproportionately to one provider?

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Perfect. That's really helpful. Looking at the time, I want to make sure I leave some room for some questions on Ratings. At the end of April, your guidance, I think, embedded a 2% decline in global issuance. So I was hoping you could kind of unpack the different components of that guidance a bit further and maybe address how you envision debt issuance levels progressing over the course of this year and next. You're dealing with more difficult comps in corporates, in particular, over the next couple of quarters and in the prospect of potentially higher interest rates. So any update on how you see the issuance market unfolding from here would be helpful.

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Right, right. That's helpful. Sticking with Ratings, but maybe switching gears a little bit. I think Q1 was particularly encouraging, at least from my perspective, in terms of momentum in the Ratings business in China. I think you completed as many ratings in Q1 or close to as many ratings as you did all of last year. Do you feel like that business has hit an inflection point at all and we could start seeing some meaningful revenue contributions there in the medium term? Or is this still something that will take some time, maybe 3 to 5 years out?

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Got it, got it. Great. Looking at the clock, a handful of minutes left. I want to wrap up with maybe a bigger picture question. I've heard you kind of talk about all the different assets that the pro forma combined company will have. You have the distribution from Market Intelligence platform. You have copious amounts of data across a bunch of different industries and verticals. So with -- I feel like you're in a unique position to be able to speak to the topic of kind of data or the value of data versus the value of distribution. Having seen the market evolve over the past 5, 10 years, is data, whether it be proprietary or aggregated, is it more important to the S&P business than the distribution footprint? Or is it the other way around? And how do you kind of expect the relative value of both of those to evolve going 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 02, 2021 / 5:40PM, SPGI.N - S&P Global Inc at William Blair Growth Stock Conference (Virtual) forward? Because I think -- I get pushed back from investors sometimes, not necessarily specific to your company, but about the commoditization of data and whether or not it's more valuable to have one or the other.

Question: Andrew Owen Nicholas - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst : Great, great. Well, I think we're running out of time here. Doug, thank you very much for your time today. Thank you to everyone on the webcast who was able to join us, and have a great rest of the day.