Morning, everyone. This is Paul Froud. Welcome to the London Stock Exchange Group first quarter of 2022 update. I'm pleased to be joined on the call by David Schwimmer, the Group CEO, and Anna Manz, the Group CFO. As is normal for our quarterly releases, Anna and David will make some just very brief introductory remarks around the revenue performance of the group, and then we'll open up to Q&A. There are two ways to ask a question. You can send one in writing by following the instructions on the webcast page, or alternatively, you can ask a question over the phone using the number provided in today's release. We've provided a few slides to accompany the call. If you haven't got these already, they're available for download from the investor relations section of the London Stock Exchange Group website. With that, let me hand you over to David. Thank you, Paul, and good morning. Turning to slide two. I'm pleased with our first quarter performance. We delivered a continuation of last year's strong operating trends. Our integration is proceeding well, and we remain on track to achieve all of our financial targets. As a group, we are well-positioned for the current uncertain environment. Nearly three-quarters of our revenues are recurring, generated from a diverse range of products, customers, and geographies. Most of our transactional revenues are from areas of long-term secular growth that also benefit from volatility in the short term. Tradeweb and SwapClear, in particular, stand to benefit from a more uncertain interest rate environment. We feel very good about this business mix. We are investing to accelerate growth and bring further scale to our operations, and we are continuing to reposition our portfolio, further expanding our capabilities and driving incremental growth. In the first quarter, we announced the acquisition of TORA and GDC. We will provide financial details on those acquisitions when they close. We also announced the sale of the lower growth data business. We will return a significant proportion of the net proceeds to shareholders following completion of that divestiture in the third quarter. Since the start of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, our focus has been on the well-being of our people in the region. In the first quarter, we also took actions in response to this conflict that will have a small financial impact on our business. Anna will take you through that in a moment. There is no change to any of our financial targets. I'm pleased with our performance and feel very good about the positioning of our business. With that, over to Anna. Thanks, David, and good morning. It's been another strong quarter, as you can see on slide three. We shared with you the actions that we're taking to run our business better at the full year, and they're continuing to drive our performance. Now, as usual, I'm going to focus on constant currency numbers, excluding last year's deferred revenue haircut, as this gives the best insight into our underlying performance. Total income grew 6.3% in the first quarter, and this speaks to both the strength of our business in the current environment and the steps we're taking to improve execution. Data and Analytics grew 4.5%. The vast majority of revenue in Data and Analytics comes from three businesses: Trading and Banking, Enterprise Data, and Investment Solutions. I'm going to focus here. Trading and Banking had a good quarter, driven by the actions we're taking to get closer to our customers and service them better. Excluding the impact of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, we delivered positive growth. The first time this business has grown in many years. Our Enterprise Data business continues to accelerate. Better customer service has driven strong sales and record retention in our real-time business. We've continued to gain share in pricing and reference services, in part by leveraging the combination with FTSE Russell. As we maintain strong growth in our Investment Solutions business, with 10% growth in index subscriptions in the quarter. Moving to Capital Markets, which grew 12% in the first quarter. The largest driver was Tradeweb, which saw another quarter of double-digit growth, reflecting market share gains and the continued expansion of electronic trading, particularly across fixed income. Post Trade delivered strong broad-based growth, up 7%, with record activity in uncleared swaps and repo clearing, and record client volumes at our FX clearing business. As a group, we saw a small impact from the Ukraine-Russia conflict. In this first quarter, it reduced revenues by GBP 6 million, with a full year impact of about GBP 60 million. That's in line with the guidance we've given you before. The first quarter ASV metric already reflects the full annualized revenue loss, and you can see this on slide four. This is a really important slide as it shows the underlying trend of the recurring revenues in our Data and Analytics business. You can see that our underlying ASV growth accelerated to 4.9%, up two percentage points from a year ago, and a further improvement in the quarter. As well as delivering a strong financial outturn, we've also made good progress on a number of initiatives which will drive future growth. The integration continues well. Customers are benefiting from a more seamless experience across our products, and we're strengthening relationships by providing solutions across the trade life cycle. As a result, we've ended the quarter with GBP 25 million of run rate revenue synergies, putting us firmly on track to achieve our full year target of GBP 40 million-GBP 60 million. We continue to make good progress towards the cost synergy target we set for 2022. In addition, we're continuing to invest in the initiatives which will deliver long-term growth, scalability, and agility of our business. In short, it's been another strong quarter. Better execution is improving the quality of our business, and you see this in today's financial performance and in our forward-looking ASV metric. The investments we're making will drive faster growth and better margins over the longer term. We're positioned well for the uncertain environment, and we're on track to deliver all of our financial targets. That's revenues, synergies, costs, and margins. With that, back to Paul. Thanks, Anna. We're into the Q&As now. As we said at the outset, we've got a couple of questions that have already come through in written form. We're going to deal with those ones first. The phone lines are open to take the questions. I think we've got three or four people in the queue now already. Do add your name to that if you want to put a question in person. Let me start with the written questions that we've got so far. Let me take the first one. That is, we've had a few twists and takes in the first quarter, including the impact of Ukraine and Russia. Will you be resetting any of the targets, and in particular, the 5%-7% revenue growth target? No, all of our targets are unchanged, and that includes the revenue growth target. You know, we're really pleased with the progress we're making on the integration, and I think you can see that in our strong 2021 performance and also strong performance this quarter. No change to any targets. Let me just add to that as well. We're, as Anna said, very pleased with the performance and the broad-based growth that we've delivered. Almost three-quarters of our group revenue is highly recurring. We've got subscription-based revenue. You can see the growth that we are driving in that business, that book of business via our ASV growth metric. We've seen upside from the market volatility, particularly in Capital Markets, and we're investing to further improve the scale and the efficiency and to develop new products. With the diversity of revenue by product, by business, by geography, the group is well-positioned for further progress. Great. Thank you, David. You mentioned ASV there, and that's the subject of the next question we've got. It is well done. Great progress on ASV. Can you tell us what's driving that? Is that price? Is it other? Now, has the baseline been reset at 3.6%? I'm really pleased with the ASV progress. You know, just to say it again, because it is a relatively new metric. This is the book of recurring revenue of our business at the end of Q1 in DNA versus the same point a year ago. As I said on the call, we've seen a two percentage point improvement versus a year ago, which I'm really pleased with. I'm also pleased with the momentum that we've seen on an underlying basis in this first quarter, a 4 percentage point versus the Q4 point. What's driving that? Combination of improved sales, improved retention, and price. All three levers. Actually, the biggest shift over that twelve-month period is really coming from sales and retention. It talks to the underlying health of the business. Of course, we've exited Russia, and we've stopped trading with sanctioned entities, and that's had an immediate impact on our ASV metric, dropping it to 3.6%. We'll show you our performance going forward, both on a basis including Russia, Ukraine, but also without it, so you can see the underlying performance. Thank you. One more question in written form, and then we'll open the phone lines. Change of subject this time, onto clearing. Given what recently occurred in the LME nickel market, can you elaborate on any differences in risk management practices or procedures at LCH that may have dampened or limited such an outcome? And also, what do you think the regulators will be focused on in the wake of this event? And could that have implications for LCH, for capital requirements or potentially cause other changes at clearing houses in terms of oversight more broadly? David. Thanks. Thanks, Paul. First, at the exchange level, you do need to have speed bumps or circuit breakers, because once you get a price spike in any product of 50% or 100% or whatever the numbers are, then you are going to have some market challenges and market difficulties. At the clearing house level, which is where that question is directed, it's worth pointing out that our model at LCH or OTC clearing is different from the approach taken by the traditional futures verticals. We operate on a pay-as-you-go model. So what that means is we only clear risk that our members have pre-funded with actual collateral. Whereas the futures model is an open offer construct, which basically means clear now, pay later. I should mention we have additional liquidity and concentration margins as well. I would say pretty significantly different approach from what you would have seen at the LME. On the regulatory aspect of the question, I'm sure the regulators are looking at it very closely. I'm not really in a position to comment on how they will come out on it, but I do not expect an impact on LCH from a capital perspective or really any other way. We'll let the regulators look at that very carefully and closely, as I'm sure they will do. All right. Thank you. Okay. That's the written questions we have so far. Let's open it up to the phone lines. Operator, I think we've got some questions in the queue already. Do you want to open it up for the first question, please? Definitely. Just a quick reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, again, participants can continue to submit questions in written format either via the webcast page by clicking the 'Ask a Question' button or via email to the LSEG investor relations team at ir@lseg.com. We will pause for a moment to assemble the queue. Our first question is coming from Mike Werner of UBS. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Two quick questions, please. First, on the Customer and Third-Party Risk business, we saw about 8% constant currency revenue growth in Q1. Obviously, I think this is lower than the underlying growth rates due to some divestments. I was just wondering if you could get a better sense of what the ongoing or you know revenue growth rate from that business was on an organic basis. Then second, with the sale of BETA+, you know, how should we think about the revenue growth rate over the medium term for the, I guess, new Wealth Solutions business? Is that still thought about as a low single-digit revenue grower? Thank you. Thanks, Mike. On your first question, Customer and Third-Party Risk. Yes, it was impacted by a disposal in the period. The underlying organic performance was, you know, of the order of 15%, and that is consistent organic growth with what we've been seeing previously. We're really pleased with that business. It's performing really nicely. Secondly, BETA+. Post the disposal of BETA+, we guided that you should expect wealth growth to be mid-single-digit, and that's unchanged, and, you know, we're well on track for that. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mike. Can we have the next question, please? Our next question is coming from the line of Haley Tam from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Morning. Thank you. Two questions for me, please. First of all, thank you for confirming there's no change to your overall targets despite the Russia-Ukraine impact. Can you tell us how much of that GBP 60 million will actually sit within Trading and Banking? And whether you think it's still reasonable for us to expect revenue stability this year versus last year in that segment, even after the Russia-Ukraine impact? And the second question, given the ongoing strength of the Tradeweb contribution, can you give us any update on your view on the level of your shareholding there and whether you might increase it in the future? Thank you. Thanks, Haley. I'll answer the second one and then turn it over to Anna for your first question there. Just with respect to Tradeweb, really happy with the performance, really happy with the continuing development of our broader relationship there and working together, and very comfortable with our current ownership stake. Nothing further to add there. Yeah. Haley, we said the impact of Russia-Ukraine on revenue is about GBP 60 million in the year. About 80% of that is sitting in Data and Analytics. By far the majority of that, and I'm not gonna give you precision here, is sitting in Trading and Banking. That's where the biggest impact will be felt. We're absolutely confident that we're going to see Trading and Banking coming back to low single-digit growth. We haven't put a date on that, and I'm not going to. As you see from the underlying improvement we're delivering, we're making really good progress. Thank you very much. Thanks, Haley. Thank you. Next question, please. Our next question is coming from Philip Middleton from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Again, the obligatory two questions. Firstly, David Schwimmer, sticking with Trading and Banking, it actually grew this quarter, which is of course a celebration. You've been a bit modest about this. Could you talk in a little bit more detail about what's underlying this? Is it the rollout of Workspace? What exactly is going on here? And do you think that's sustainable? And secondly, Investment Solutions. If you comp this to MSCI didn't have a great looking quarter as far as I can tell, this quarter. You seem to do a lot better, and in particular, your ETF revenue seemed a lot better. What's going on there, please? Thanks, Philip. With respect to Trading and Banking, it's the same story that we talked about at the full year results. What was that? Six weeks, two months ago. We are spending more time getting closer to our customers, understanding what they need, what they're using the offering for. We are investing in the capabilities. We're improving some of the content. We're adding functionality with things like Yield Book. We're also working on the alignment of the product team, the sales team with the customers. It's a lot of, I'll say, nuts and bolts better execution of that business. With respect to the specific question around Workspace, we have only started the rollout of Workspace for FX trading on the trading side, and that continues to go well. Other traded asset classes to come. We've also made good progress on the Workspace for banking, and that continues to go well. Those products, I would say, while still early stage, particularly on the trading side, are continuing to improve the retention. With respect to Investment Solutions, I don't think we'll comment on any competitor performance. I think that's another area where we continue to focus on the business, investing in the product, investing in our capabilities, aligning the sales force. We've rolled out a number of new products over the last year, and a number of those are gaining traction. We are also seeing some of the early benefits of the synergies of the cross-selling of the underlying PRS data as well as the index product. Those are a few of the things that are just driving strong performance. I don't know, Anna, if there's anything you add? You comment on the assets under management numbers, Philip. I mean, you know, yeah, there is a bit of a lag in the way we account for that, which means, you know, we sort of lag the movement in assets under management. That said, David's point is absolutely right. We've launched a good number of new products, and with that comes new assets under management, and you know, that benefits us too. Really pleased. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Philip. Can we have the next question, operator, please? Our next question is coming from Arnaud Giblat from BNP. Please proceed. Yeah, good morning. If I could just have three questions, please. First, I'd like to follow up on Philip's question. With regards to the rollout of Workspace, you mentioned you've done an entry in FX trading and with some banking clients. Are you seeing a pickup in the consumption of data with these clients? Are you or are clients taking advantage of the new functionality to use the products more? That's my first question. Secondly, if I could just ask you about the current backdrop for consolidation market structure. Are you seeing opportunities out there to do some further add-ons on an inorganic basis? Finally, could you perhaps give us a bit of an update on what's happening with regards to the push from the European regulator to force European participants to clear your interest rates options in Europe? Thank you. Got it. Thanks. Thanks, Arnaud. With respect to Workspace, not too much more to add, frankly. We have seen improved retention. The customers like it, and it's performing very well. I'm not gonna get into the specifics about whether we're seeing, you know, a higher quantum of data usage because we don't really think about it that way. The rollout is going very well, and the customers like it. With respect to your question on consolidation and potential for more add-ons, I would say we will continue to consider what might make sense out there. You've seen in the transactions that we have announced this quarter as well as Quantile at the end of last year, if there are opportunities that make sense for us from a strategic perspective, and it makes sense from a financial perspective, we certainly are in the position to continue doing that. We, as I have mentioned in the past, we're very focused on continuing to deliver on our existing targets and on the integration that we have before us here. You should not expect us to go out and do something large or transformational. Some of these smaller bolt-ons, we will continue to see what might make sense in the marketplace. Your third question on European clearing. Look, we now have been recognized as systemically important. I think that's been very clear that how important our business is to our European domiciled members and clients. We are able to continue serving them, I will say, at least, through June 2025, and we continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders, whether that is the members and clients, whether that's the European Central Bank. Whether that's ESMA, various national regulators, to maintain our service in the EU going forward. I am both optimistic and hopeful that we will be able to do that. Great. Thanks. Thank you. That's all right. Right. We'll move on with the next question. Thank you. Our next question is coming from Ian White from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Hi. Morning. Thanks for the presentation. Two questions from my side, please. The first one, I guess I'm wondering how should we think about the resilience of the group's monetization or pricing power, particularly in data analytics, in a more challenging financial environment for your clients? If we've seen further declines in equity market levels, for example, do you still expect to be able to deliver broadly similar growth rates in data analytics? Are there any sort of pre-agreed price increments there you could walk us through that would kind of make that business any more resilient, please? That's question one. Question two, just wondered if you could provide a bit more detail on the risk business, given the increase in complexity in the sanctions environment. Is that kind of all part of the service at risk? Is there a revenue increment that might be derived from all the issues that have gone on with Russia? If there is sort of revenue tailwind, is that already in ASV in Q1 numbers, or is that still to come? Thank you. Thanks, Ian. In terms of pricing power, in our Data and Analytics business, we are really working to build a medium-term, strong win-win relationship with our customers. Frankly, you see the improvements that we're making in that coming through ASV. It is that structural win-win relationship where they can't operate without us because we're providing critical data and infrastructure, and we're meeting their needs that gives us the medium-term pricing power that you're talking about. You know, that's a business that if you look back in time, has been incredibly resilient because of the strength of the assets, and I would expect it to continue to be. In terms of the risk business, World-Check has had a really strong quarter. I mean, you know, World-Check has seen incremental volumes coming from what's going on in the world and sanctions and has been growing near enough 20%. So real strength there. Interestingly, you know, as the world changes, we've had other impact in that GIACT benefited substantially from fiscal stimulus, and so its strong growth rate has slowed a little bit as we've seen an end to fiscal stimulus. But overall, you know, really strong performance across that business and I think, you know, real opportunity for World-Check. This whole environment has gone to show what an important product that is for people. Got it. Thank you. Our next question is coming from Thank you. Is coming from Gurjit Kambo from JP Morgan. Please proceed. Hi. Good morning. Just a few questions. Firstly, in terms of the synergy, I think you've achieved GBP 25 million in Q1. If I'm right, I think you said GBP 40 million-GBP 50 million is the target for the full year. I'm just wondering, is that somewhat conservative given, you know, you've already done GBP 25 million in Q1? That's the first question. Second one is, if I look at the impact on ASV, I think it goes from 4.9% to 3.6% when you adjust for the impact of Ukraine and Russia. That impact seems quite high given, I guess, you know, the business is relatively small part of the revenues, as you said, 1% on the group. Okay, admittedly, probably slightly higher on the DNA, but you know, is it just a consequence of weaker in Q1 just to sort of understand that change? Then finally, just on the capital, I think you said most of, you know, a large chunk of the proceeds and BETA+ will be returned in the form of a buy-back. You know, is that sort of set in stone or if there was some sort of attractive bolt-ons that you saw, you know, could that be used for bolt-ons rather than the share buy-back? Thank you. Shall I do the first two? On the first one, synergies. We have guided to GBP 40 million-GBP 60 million run rate synergies, not benefit in the year, annualized run rate synergies by the end of 2022. What we've said is that we have achieved GBP 25 million of run rate synergies by the end of Q1. Those are just the numbers. I think we feel confident that we're on track for the GBP 40 million-GBP 60 million. If we thought we were not on track, we would have, you know, if we thought that we were going to substantially beat it, we would upgrade our guidance. GBP 40 million-GBP 60 million is it, and we're making really good progress. On the ASV, just to give you the math of it, if you take that GBP 60 million of Russia impact and apply it to and take, you know, call it 80% a little bit more, which is in data and analytics and all impacting our recurring revenue, if you take that number and apply it to our book of business or the annualized revenues of DNA, you're going to be able to see where we've got our 3.6% from. No, it's not that there's any funny comp. It's just that you're seeing the full impact in the ASV metric immediately because we've exited those contracts already. Okay. On your third question, we will give more specifics around how we're thinking about buyback at the half year results. I think the important thing to take away is that this is a business that generates a very healthy amount of cash flow. We are in a position to invest internally, invest in the organic growth, and you're starting to see the results of that. We also have the capital cash flow to continue to do the bolt-on M&A transactions. Then we are also in a position to return capital to shareholders. We'll give more details on that at the half year. As I said, the key message here, this is a very strong model with a healthy amount of cash generation. I think the BETA+ divestiture in this context, you know, it adds to that, and we'll give the details at the half year results. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Gurjit. Thanks. We'll move on to the next question, please. Our next question is coming from Martin Price, calling in from Jefferies. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, if I may. The first on the FX business. I wonder if you could provide an update on the key initiatives you're planning to enhance performance within the dealer-to-dealer business matching. Secondly, just the obligatory question on NTI. I was just wondering if you could share some thoughts on how you expect net treasury income to develop this year, given elevated cash balances and how you see the yield environment developing. Thank you. Thanks, Martin. I'll take the first one, and I hope you can do the NTI question. The FX business, as you mentioned, Martin, we are continuing to work on the replatforming of the matching business, so our dealer-to-dealer venue, and that continues to go well. It is a multi-year program where we started this last year. We're making good progress this year, and we expect to see the implementation next year. We've been, I think, pretty transparent about the fact that this is a tech platform. The existing matching platform is a tech platform that is out of date. That means it does not have the product functionality that we would like to implement, and that our customers would like. It doesn't have the speed and flexibility that we would like and that our customers would like. It's going to be a full replatforming. We will be introducing that, as I said, next year. NTI. As you know, the biggest driver for NTI really is the cost of cash collateral that we hold. Listen, while I don't have a crystal ball, I would say Q1 is as good an indicator as any. For modeling purposes, using Q1 for the balance of the year would be a good way to think about it. That's great. Many thanks. Thank you. Thanks, Martin. I think we've got a couple more questions left. Our next question is coming from Johannes Thormann from HSBC. Please go ahead. Good morning, everybody. Johannes Thormann, HSBC. Just one question left regarding your Enterprise Data Solutions. Nice 9% growth, the constant currency. Should we expect this rate to remain, or should we rather focus on the absolute revenue levels for the next quarters? As you guided also for the NTI. Thank you. Just looking at our Enterprise Data Solutions, I think I would focus you on the growth rate excluding the deferred revenue haircut, which for Enterprise Data Solutions is. Okay. 6.5. I think we should continue to see strong momentum in our PRS business, where we're gaining share nicely, and I'm really pleased with the progress we're making there. In real time, we've seen 6%, 6.6% growth in the quarter. Again, really great progress, given that was a business that was, you know, flattish a year ago. There I would caution that the Q1 comp is a little bit weaker, so I wouldn't extrapolate that number for the year. Great underlying progress in that business and, you know, sustained improvement in growth rates. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks, Johannes. Next question, please. The next question is coming from Andrew Coombs of Citi. Please proceed. Morning. Just a couple of follow-up questions on the ASV metric. The first one is, I guess just the timing of when you think the Russia-Ukraine situation will flow through in full. When would you expect your adjusted ASV, also your reported ASV metric of 3.6 to converge with the 4.9? Would that happen by the end of June, for example? Do you think it will take a bit longer? That's the first question. Second question is perhaps me being pedantic, but if I take GBP 60 million, which is the number you flagged, that's equivalent to 1.3% of Data and Analytics revenues, broadly speaking. And that therefore would explain the 4.9 versus 3.6. I think in your earlier commentary, you said only 80% of that 60 is expected to flow through Data and Analytics. If you could just try to square the circle on that one. Presumably, ASV doesn't factor in some of the Investment Solutions contribution, but any help would be appreciated. Why don't I do that second one first? The ASV metric refers or focuses on the recurring revenue, the subscription revenue, which isn't all of Data and Analytics revenue. It's only circa 90%. That's where mathematically the circle gets squared. Maybe it's worth just looking that through with the IR team that who can show you through the moving parts. On your question about Russia, again, the way to think about this is the ASV metric reflects all of the contracts that have been exited immediately. Of course, therefore, we will see that impact year-over-year versus a year ago where we had those contracts for a 12-month period, effectively. You'll see growth off a lower 3.6 number, but 12 months from now, we'll roll through it. Again, it may be worth just walking through that with the IR team. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. Next question is coming from Gurjit Kambo again from JP Morgan. Please proceed. Hi. Sorry, guys. Just one follow-up question. In terms of the reclassification, I think you highlight, which I know you flagged the 2021 results, but could you just remind us within Data and Analytics, where do the numbers go, either GBP 7 million and the GBP 6 million respectively? Which parts of DNA? Oh, I think it's in the Customer and Third-Party Risk business, Gurjit. Okay. Thank you. Thanks so much. Okay. I think that was the last of the questions. We've had no more written submissions to us, so I think we're through the end of this call. Thank you very much everyone for joining. Thank you for your questions. If there's anything else, or if you want to step through any more detail about anything, then obviously, you know, onto the IR team after this, we're happy to help you with anything else that you've got. Otherwise, we'll end the call there. Thank you.