Record first half financial performance, guidance raised, £2.1 billion share buybacks completed; AI monetisation to sustain long-term growth
David Schwimmer, CEO said:
“We have delivered a record first half performance, once again demonstrating our ability to grow and create value in any market environment. We have driven growth across all of our businesses through continued product innovation and a strong focus on customer partnership.
“Growth in our subscription businesses is accelerating. Our LSEG Everywhere data strategy is making great progress in a dynamic market environment. AI in financial services will drive enormous value, but comes with significant challenges for customers. We are the partner to help them address those challenges: we have the infrastructure, the proprietary data, the trust, the regulatory expertise and the institutional history. This is already evident in the complex and multi-layered data and AI solutions we are engaged on. Thousands of Workspace customers are now using AI Search, with very positive feedback.
“Our Markets businesses had an exceptional first half, achieving double-digit growth through sustained investment. With our plans for LSE 24 and growing momentum of transactions on the Private Securities Market, we are opening up significant new market opportunities.
“We are combining all of this innovation with a material improvement to margins and exceptional cash flow growth – enabling us to return a record £2.1 billion to shareholders via share buybacks in the first half with a further £1.4 billion to come, starting today. With an exciting product pipeline and deep customer engagement on AI, the business has never been better positioned for future growth.”
Financial highlights
(all growth rates relate to H1 and are expressed on an organic, constant currency basis, unless otherwise stated)
- Total income (excl. recoveries) +8.4%; +6.9% on a reported basis
- Broad-based growth: Data & Analytics +5.1%; FTSE Russell +9.1%; Risk Intelligence +9.7%; Markets +11.9%
- All subscription business KPIs improving: ASV [Note 3] growth at June 2026 +6.1%; revenue retention rate at 92.8%; rolling 12-months gross sales of £482 million; NPVI [Note 4] at 25.0%
- Significant margin improvement: Adjusted EBITDA +14.1%, margin +320bps, constant currency margin +260bps, of which 120bps is underlying and 140bps relates to the change in the SwapClear revenue share agreement in H2 2025. EBITDA +16.7% on a reported basis
- Strong adjusted earnings growth: Adjusted EPS +17.2% at actual rates to 244.9p, driven by revenue growth and increased efficiency. Reported EPS +33.5%
- Record cash generation: Equity free cash flow £1.2 billion and equity free cash flow per share of 242p, up 37.0% on a reported basis
Strategic progress
- LSEG Everywhere: significant progress in providing customers access to AI-ready data via MCP [Note 5], multi-cloud environments or directly integrated into customer AI stacks, with over 200 customers engaged. New partnerships with Amazon Quick and Google Gemini
- Major enhancements to Workspace: roll-out of AI Search with 17,000 active users, deeper integration with Microsoft Copilot, over 20 customers now onboarded on Open Directory
- Unprecedented rate of innovation in Markets: first Private Securities Markets transactions, LSE 24 launch planned, Digital Securities Depository collaboration with HSBC on DIGIT
- Significant shareholder returns: a record £2.1 billion returned via buybacks in H1, with a further £1.35 billion planned to be completed by Feb 2027; interim dividend +17.0% to 55.0p per share [Note 6], to be paid on 16 September 2026 to all shareholders on the share register at the record date of 14 August 2026. The ex-dividend date is 13 August 2026
2026 guidance – EBITDA margin guidance raised
- Organic constant currency growth in total income (excl. recoveries) raised to 7.0-7.5% (initially 6.5%-7.5%), including an acceleration in our subscription businesses’ organic growth
- Constant currency EBITDA margin: guidance raised from +80-100 bps to around 100 bps
- Capex intensity c. 9.5%
- Equity free cash flow at least £2.7 billion
- Underlying effective tax rate 24-25%
Source: LSEG
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