London Stock Exchange Group (LON:LSEG) reported what it described as another year of strong financial execution in 2025, alongside continued progress on its strategy across data, analytics, markets, and post-trade. On the company’s full-year results call, CEO David Schwimmer and CFO Matt (identified on the call as “Map”) highlighted broad-based revenue growth, margin expansion, higher earnings, and increased shareholder returns, while also addressing investor questions about how artificial intelligence is affecting demand for the group’s data and products.
2025 results: revenue growth, margin expansion, and higher EPS
Schwimmer said group revenues rose 7.6% in 2025, with all businesses contributing and Data & Analytics (DNA) accelerating. He also pointed to 210 basis points of margin expansion, taking full-year EBITDA margin above 50% for the first time, and said adjusted EPS increased 16%.
On EBITDA margin, management said the year-over-year improvement was 210 basis points once adjusted for specific items. The CFO also discussed the impact of the SwapClear revenue surplus agreement and noted the disposal of LSEG’s Euroclear stake reduced margin by about 30 basis points due to the loss of dividend income.
Cash generation and capital allocation: record free cash flow and larger buybacks
LSEG posted record free cash flow of GBP 2.45 billion, beating its guidance of at least GBP 2.4 billion (at constant rates), according to the CFO. He said free cash flow performance included a GBP 400 million working capital outflow, driven by several factors including a lower pay accrual for SwapClear partners, reduced creditors tied to net treasury income, and earlier supplier payments aimed at securing procurement terms.
The CFO said LSEG deployed GBP 3.5 billion in 2025 across shareholder returns and M&A. Dividends totaled just over GBP 700 million, and the company proposed a final dividend of GBP 1.03, up 15.7% in line with EPS growth. LSEG also completed GBP 2.1 billion of share buybacks during the year.
Management announced a further GBP 3 billion share buyback to be executed over the next 12 months, with Schwimmer calling it an opportunity to invest in the company’s own shares amid “market dislocation.” The CFO said the buyback plan, along with dividends and the Post Trade Solutions transaction, is expected to bring leverage to about 2.0x net debt to EBITDA by the end of 2026, while “keep[ing] firepower for M&A” where opportunities fit strategically and financially.
Business performance: DNA acceleration, strong subscription KPIs, and markets momentum
Management described growth as broad-based. Risk Intelligence continued double-digit momentum, Markets grew at high single digits against what the CFO called a “huge year” in 2024, FTSE Russell remained on its revenue trajectory, and DNA accelerated versus 2024. Across the group’s subscription businesses (DNA, FTSE Russell, and Risk Intelligence), the CFO said revenue grew 6% for the year, in line with guidance.
Within DNA, management said Workflows benefited from completion of the Eikon-to-Workspace migration, which the CFO characterized as the “largest ever” of its kind in financial markets. Data & Feeds maintained momentum, supported by new datasets (including private markets) and the rollout of “LSEG Everywhere” for AI-ready data. Analytics was described as being on an “acceleration journey,” aided by the Microsoft partnership and the launch of an analytics API. The company also announced a “Model-as-a-Service” platform, with Société Générale as the first partner bank to onboard its own models.
Risk Intelligence performance was led by World-Check, where management said the product continues to innovate, including the launch of World-Check On Demand for real-time updates. The CFO also said the digital identity and fraud business accelerated in 2025, with transaction volumes up 16% and a global account verification platform launch.
LSEG introduced new KPIs for its subscription businesses, with the CFO saying the company will provide both the new measures and ASV in 2026 (reported twice per year), and will retire ASV beginning in 2027. The new disclosures included:
- Gross sales: annualized total amount of new business over the last 12 months; the rolling figure increased about 11% in the second half versus the first half.
- Revenue retention: 92.4% on a consolidated basis, described as stable versus the first half.
- New Product Vitality Index (NPVI): 24% across the subscription businesses, measuring revenue from products new or enhanced in the last five years.
In Markets, the CFO said Tradeweb delivered a strong year in fixed income, foreign exchange revenue grew 7.5% (the best performance in recent years, according to management), and equities revenue rose 5.1%. LSEG also said it launched a Private Securities Market, with the first transaction “taking place right now,” and went live with digital market infrastructure built with Microsoft.
AI strategy and demand signals: “trusted data” and new distribution channels
Schwimmer devoted a significant portion of the call to AI, arguing that the company disagrees with a “negative market narrative” about AI’s impact on the business. He emphasized that most of LSEG’s revenues come from proprietary, regulated, and workflow-embedded data rather than “public data,” and said customers require accurate and auditable content, including historical records.
He cited Q4 activity as evidence of demand, saying global investment banks and asset managers signed GBP 1.9 billion of long-term data agreements, with contract terms “up to 7 years” and values that often step up over time. He also highlighted growth in the company’s real-time data feed, which exceeded 15 million new data points per second in December, and said customers make more than 5 million Tick History requests per month.
On “LSEG Everywhere,” Schwimmer said LSEG added a partnership with OpenAI, describing it as the first financial data provider enabling customers to access their data through ChatGPT. He said more than 60 financial institutions have connected to LSEG’s MCP servers directly or via AI partners, and that hundreds of prospective customers have attempted to access LSEG data through AI partners—requests that create sales leads because the data requires an LSEG license.
In Q&A, management said it is currently focused on adoption and usage growth, but expects a longer-term opportunity to incorporate consumption-based pricing into a hybrid model alongside subscriptions. Schwimmer also described MCP distribution as a potential “cross-selling machine,” because AI tools can draw on multiple datasets to answer customer questions.
2026 outlook and updated medium-term guidance
For 2026, the CFO guided to organic revenue growth of 6.5% to 7.5%, with “steady acceleration” in subscription businesses and further acceleration in DNA. The company expects 80 to 100 basis points of EBITDA margin improvement (constant currency), CapEx intensity of about 9.5%, and at least GBP 2.7 billion of free cash flow. Net financial expense is expected to be GBP 260 million to GBP 270 million, reflecting refinancing and the impact of buybacks, and the tax guidance remains 24% to 25%.
Looking further out, management updated medium-term guidance for 2027 to 2029, citing confidence in mid- to high-single-digit revenue growth and an acceleration in subscription businesses. The CFO also guided to cumulative EBITDA margin improvement of about 150 basis points over the period, with CapEx intensity trending to around 8% by 2029, and said the company is moving to a free cash flow per share metric with double-digit compound annual growth.
About London Stock Exchange Group (LON:LSEG)
LSEG is a leading global financial markets infrastructure and data provider that operates connected businesses to serve customers across the entire financial markets value chain.
With capabilities in data, indices and analytics, capital formation, trade execution, clearing and risk management, we operate at the heart of the world’s financial ecosystem and enable the sustainable growth and stability of our customers and their communities.
Together, our five business divisions – Data and Analytics, FTSE Russell, Risk Intelligence, Capital Markets and Post Trade – offer customers seamless access to global financial markets, across the trading lifecycle.
LSEG is headquartered in London and has a major presence throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and emerging markets.
