COVID-19 hasn’t hurt any of the large UK providers of business valuation financial data

BVWire–UKIssue #25-1
April 6, 2021

UK business valuers don’t have to worry that their large financial data sources will disappear any time soon. Refinitiv, now part of the London Stock Exchange Group, and S&P Global have reported strong increases in sales. Late last week, FactSet announced results for its second quarter ended 28 February. Revenue increased 6.0%, or $22.0 million, to $391.8 million, compared with $369.8 million for the same period in fiscal 2020. Customer and user lists increased, suggesting continued activity for both their “buy” and “sell” side customers.

Operating costs, employee costs, and capital expenditures all decreased compared to last year, mirroring a trend in the financial information industry.

The future looks bright, too, since FactSet reported that its deferred revenue (the company refers to paid subscription revenue that hasn’t been earned yet as “annual subscription value,” or ASV) from the EMEA region was $427.6 million, compared with the prior year period of $407.9 million. Organic ASV increased 3.7%, to $426.8 million. EMEA revenues were $105.5 million, compared with $102.1 million from the second quarter of fiscal 2020. Excluding the effects of acquisitions and dispositions completed in the last 12 months and foreign currency impacts, the organic revenue growth rate for the EMEA region was 1.5%.

“I am proud of how we executed this quarter, resulting in a solid first half of our fiscal 2021,” said Phil Snow, FactSet’s CEO. “In our second quarter we saw a number of key wins validating our strategy for long term growth. Our focus on digital transformation, content expansion, and being an open platform continues to resonate with our clients as they navigate a rapidly evolving landscape.”

Other financial data providers continue to offer new expensive products. For instance, LSEG made a big splash with a new infrastructure investment platform release via Refinitiv recently. “Infrastructure 360” offers “an enhanced suite of index, market data and analytics tools to support global infrastructure investors” as an upsell to the Refinitiv Workspace. The new dataset tracks primarily bond financing for over 2,500 projects around the world—with a plurality focused on sustainability.

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