Thomson Reuters Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
February 6, 2025

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Thomson Reuters Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Gary Bisbee, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jenny. Good morning and thank you all for joining us today for our fourth quarter twenty twenty four earnings call. I'm joined by our CEO, Steve Haster and our CFO, Mike Eastwood, each of whom will discuss our results and take your questions following their remarks. To enable us to get to as many questions as possible, we'd appreciate it if you'd limit yourself to one question and one follow-up each when we open the phone lines. Throughout today's presentation, when we compare performance period on period, we discuss revenue growth rates before currency as well as on an organic basis.

Speaker 1

We believe this provides the best basis to measure the underlying performance of our business. Today's presentation contains forward looking statements and non IFRS and other supplementary financial measures, which are discussed on this special note slide. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties discussed in reports and filings that we provide to regulatory agencies. You may access these documents on our website or by contacting our Investor Relations department. Let me now turn it over to Steve Haster.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Gary, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. 2024 was a year of continued progress at Thomson Reuters. So let me start by reviewing some of our key accomplishments. First, we delivered another good another year of good financial results meeting or exceeding key financial targets. Full year organic revenue grew 7%, up from 6% in the prior year.

Speaker 2

The big three segments also accelerated, growing 9% for the year versus 7% in 2023. Amid organic and inorganic investments, our margins eased year over year as expected, but came in modestly ahead of our expectations. And we delivered just over $1,800,000,000 of free cash flow. We continue to see healthy momentum from many areas in our portfolio. Uptake of our generative AI offerings remains strong with Westlaw Precision and Co Council momentum continuing.

Speaker 2

And we have many other products and regions delivering double digit revenue growth, including practical law, confirmation, short prep, yero, indirect tax and our international businesses. 2024 saw significant and important progress from an innovation perspective as we continue to work to deliver on the product vision we shared at our twenty twenty four Investor Day. We had several important product launches last year featuring generative AI capabilities, including Co Council two point zero, Co Council Drafting and Checkpoint Edge with Co Council. We also had dozens of other enhancements across the portfolio and we're progressing with efforts to drive more seamless integration between our products. We continued with our build partner by approach to investing in AI, including the strategic bolt ons of SafeSign and Materia, which bolstered AI capabilities for our legal and tax and accounting businesses.

Speaker 2

All in, our investments in AI grew meaningfully to more than $200,000,000 in 2024, a pace we expect to continue in 2025 and beyond. This continued AI investment is included in our outlook and financial framework that Mike will discuss later. Our capital capacity and liquidity remain a key asset that we are focused on deploying to create shareholder value and we made strong progress on this during 2024. We completed the monetization of our LSEG stake in May, repurchased $639,000,000 of our shares and will raise our common dividend by 10% in 2025, the fourth consecutive year at this pace. Since the beginning of 2024, we have invested approximately $1,600,000,000 in five acquisitions, including Pagaro and SafeSend.

Speaker 2

We also completed the Fine Law divestiture and sold two smaller non core businesses in December. These moves bolster key franchises and improve the quality and growth prospects of our portfolio. Looking forward, our conviction around the medium term growth potential for Thomson Reuters remains strong. As Mike will discuss in more detail, we are guiding for organic revenue growth of 7% to 7.5% in 2025 and updating our financial framework for 2026 to 7.5% to 8%, an improvement over the 6.5% to 8% for 2025 and 2026 that we discussed one year ago. We're also raising the 2026 revenue growth targets for each of the big three segments by 1% from our prior view.

Speaker 2

Now to the results for the quarter. Fourth quarter organic revenues grew by 5%, organic recurring revenues grew 8% and transactions revenue decreased 4%, while print revenues declined 6% in line with expectations. A tough comparison at Reuters from significant transactional generative AI licensing revenue in the prior year impacted growth rates. Adjusted EBITDA increased 2% to $718,000,000 reflecting a 130 basis point margin decline to 37.6%. This lower profitability was expected and resulted from investments to position the company for improving growth and the difficult comparison at Reuters.

Speaker 2

As I previously mentioned, we achieved our full year 2024 EBITDA margin outlook. Turning to the fourth quarter results by segment, the big three segments delivered 8% organic revenue growth. This is the fifth consecutive quarter of 8% or better growth for the big three. Legal organic revenue grew 7% driven by continued momentum from Westlaw Precision and Co counsel. Corporates organic revenue grew 10% driven by offerings from our legal tax and risk portfolios.

Speaker 2

Tax and accounting organic revenues grew 7%. Our Latin American business and tax compliance offerings were key contributors. Reuters News organic revenues declined 3% driven by the difficult comparison to prior year period. Lastly, Global Print organic revenues met our expectations declining 6% year on year. In summary, we're pleased with our results.

Speaker 2

Full year organic revenues grew 7%, organic recurring and transactional revenue grew 810% respectively, while print revenues declined 7% in line with expectations. Adjusted EBITDA increased 4% to $2,800,000,000 yielding a margin of 38.2 and adjusted earnings per share for the year was $3.77 compared to $3.51 dollars per share in the prior year. Let me finish on the results for the full year by noting we met or exceeded nearly all of our 2024 guidance metrics. A loan exception was the big three adjusted EBITDA margin, which fell slightly short amid investments including dilutive M and A and other higher incentive compensation based on the strong 2024 performance. Now I'll spend a few minutes discussing our Tax and Accounting Professionals business, including the recent SafeSend acquisition.

Speaker 2

Our Tax and Accounting Professionals segment, which we refer to as TAP, is a great business that one could argue we haven't discussed enough with you. It has been our fastest growing segment for many years driven by a large and attractive market opportunity, deeply embedded offerings and market leadership positions in both The U. S. And Brazil. At our Investor Day last March, we detailed a favorable industry backdrop that benefits our TAP business.

Speaker 2

CPA firms faced ongoing talent shortages, increasing regulatory complexity and growing demand, including for advisory services. This is fueling a relentless drive for efficiency and automation and rising technology investments by our customers as they transform their practices. Our organic product investments, M and A strategy and open ecosystem approach are focused squarely on helping our customers thrive in this complex environment by automating tax and audit workflows, bringing enhanced efficiency and freeing up time for higher value work. One important aspect of tax and accounting growth has been its strong track record of M and A as is illustrated through the success of Diminio, Confirmation and SurePrep acquisitions. In the ten, five and two years since we acquired these businesses, all three have compounded their revenue in excess of 20% growth annually.

Speaker 2

Given this history of success, we are very excited about the latest additions to our TAP portfolio. Materia, which we discussed last quarter and SafeSend, which we acquired on January 2. SafeSend is a best in class provider of tax workflow automation software. Its cloud native SaaS offerings automate the last mile of the tax return workflow, including assembly, review, e signature and secure delivery for both the individual and entity returns. We see SafeSend as a compelling strategic fit that continues our tax automation strategy, building on the successful 2023 acquisition of SurePrep, which provides first mile automation.

Speaker 2

Similar to SurePrep, SafeSend solves key pain points for our customers and their clients by eliminating time consuming manual tasks through the use of modern software. We expect SafeSend to deliver approximately $60,000,000 of 2025 revenue, but the fair value adjustment to acquired deferred revenue that Mike will discuss in a few minutes. SafeSend is also solidly profitable before integration costs and expected growth investments. We're focused on executing our proven TR acquisition playbook to drive significant growth from SafeSend over time. Let me now discuss the forward product vision for our TAP business and why we remain bullish on its growth prospects.

Speaker 2

This slide shows key steps in the tax preparation workflow and how our offerings help with each step. SurePrep and SafeSend have bought important first mile and last mile automation capabilities, which in combination with our leading research and compliance software allows us to provide a truly automated end to end tax workflow solution that is unmatched in the market. The October acquisition of Materia, which has developed Agentic and Generative AI capabilities for tax, audit and accounting meaningfully accelerates our roadmap and will power co counsel for the TAP segment. We are especially excited about Materia's agentic capabilities, which we see as a key to enhancing and connecting our leading content and software offerings into a unified, automated and intelligent customer experience across tax, audit and advisory workflows. This provides several opportunities for further innovation that we believe will increase the value we provide to customers.

Speaker 2

In 2025, we expect to pilot a new review ready offering that brings significant automation to the tax workflow, addressing some of the most time consuming tasks for tax professionals and their clients. We also plan to introduce additional AI powered audit automation capabilities, building on our 2024 launch of Audit Intelligence Analyze. As we free up our customers from manual low value tasks, we plan to bring additional advisory capabilities, starting with tax planning later this year through our Agentic AI assistant that allows our customers to provide incremental value to their clients while generating additional revenue for their practices. Looking forward, we have a number of growth opportunities to continue the strong momentum from our TAP franchise. This includes executing our M and A playbook on Materia and SafeSend and delivering on a deep innovation roadmap across our tax and audit businesses to both enhance existing capabilities and extend the new product categories like advisory services.

Speaker 2

Our Domenio business in Brazil remains a key contributor, both as it grows its core offerings to CPAs and also introduces new adjacent capabilities. We're focused on executing against these opportunities and believe our Tax and Accounting segment is positioned to continue double digit revenue growth and strong profits over the next few years. I'll now turn it over to Mike to review our financial performance.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Steve. Thanks again for joining us today. As a reminder, I will talk to revenue growth before currency and on an organic basis. Let me start by discussing the fourth quarter revenue performance for our big three segments. Organic revenue grew 8% for the fourth quarter, continuing the trend of 8% or better growth we have delivered in recent quarters.

Speaker 3

Legal Professionals organic revenue grew 7%. Key drivers from a product perspective remain Westlaw, co counsel, practical law and our international businesses. Government grew 4% in the quarter. Legal Professionals revenue growth continued to benefit from the migration of customers from a global print product to Westlaw. This added nearly $5,000,000 to year over year revenue growth in the quarter.

Speaker 3

Our corporate segment had another strong quarter with organic revenue growth of 10%. Recurring revenues grew 10%, while transactions rose 12%. Practical law, direct tax, indirect tax, Figuero, Trust and our international businesses were key contributors. Tax and accounting organic revenue increased 7%. In addition to the expected impact of revenue mix seasonality, tax growth was also affected by the unfavorable revenue adjustment.

Speaker 3

This adjustment impacted growth by approximately 2% in the quarter. Recurring and transactionals revenue grew 521% respectively. Our Latin America business and Ultra Tax were key drivers. Moving to Reuters news, organic revenue decreased 3% for the quarter, driven by a difficult comparison to the prior year period, which included $18,000,000 of generative AI related transactional content licensing revenue. Adjusting for this, Reuters organic revenue increased approximately 6%.

Speaker 3

On a full year basis, we have recorded $34,000,000 of transactional revenue from the AI content licensing agreements, up from $18,000,000 in 2023. As a reminder, we will face difficult comparisons for Reuters and for Total TR in the first quarter of twenty twenty five as we lap the $25,000,000 of transactional revenue that occurred in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Lastly, Global Print organic revenues declined 6% or 4% when excluding the impact of the migration of customers from a Global Print product to Westlaw. This was in line with our expectations. On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter organic revenues increased 5%.

Speaker 3

At year end, the percent of our annualized contract value or ACV from products that are GenAI enabled was 18%, up from 15% last quarter. As a reminder, we began to provide this metric with our Q3 results as a way to help you assess our success at bringing GenAI capabilities to our portfolio. One point of the sequential increase resulted from divestitures being removed from the calculation with the remainder from growth, most notably at Westlaw Precision and Cocancel. Turning to our profitability, adjusted EBITDA for the big three segments was $648,000,000 up 4% from the prior year period with a 41.7% margin. The lower year over year margin results from organic and inorganic investments we made in 2024 to position the company for improving profitable revenue growth in addition to higher incentive compensation costs driven by 2024 performance.

Speaker 3

Moving to Reuters news, adjusted EBITDA was $45,000,000 with a margin of 20.8%. Global Prints adjusted EBITDA was $55,000,000 with a margin of 38.2%. In aggregate, total company adjusted EBITDA was $718,000,000 a 2% increase versus Q4 twenty twenty three. Turning to earnings per share, adjusted EPS was $1.01 for the quarter versus $0.98 in the prior year period. Currency had a $0.02 positive impact on adjusted EPS in the quarter.

Speaker 3

Let me now turn to our free cash flow. For the full year 2024, our free cash flow was $1,830,000,000 beating our approximately $1,800,000,000 outlook. The slight year over year decline in free cash flow resulted from higher cash taxes and CapEx and lower LSAG dividends as we had previewed at the beginning of the year. I will now provide an update on our capital structure and several capital allocation items. From a liquidity and capital structure standpoint, we remain in an enviable position with below target leverage and healthy cash flow.

Speaker 3

This strong financial position is illustrated by capitalization. We had $2,000,000,000 of cash on hand at year end. We have an undrawn $2,000,000,000 revolving credit facility and we also have $2,000,000,000 available for issuance under our commercial paper program. Our December 31 leverage ratio was 0.4 times below our 2.5 times internal target as noted in our value creation model. When we pro form a full to $600,000,000 of cash paid on January 2 to complete the SafeSend acquisition, our leverage remains well below our target at 0.6 times.

Speaker 3

And we continue to estimate approximately $10,000,000,000 of capital capacity through 2027 after accounting for the SafeSend acquisition. We remain focused on value creation and we expect to continue with our balanced capital allocation approach that includes annual dividend growth, strategic M and A and capital returns. We have ample capacity to pursue all three of these strategies in 2025 and beyond. In the first half of twenty twenty four, we acquired $639,000,000 of our shares, completing the $1,000,000,000 NCIB we had announced in November 2023. For the year, we returned 87% of our 2024 free cash flow through dividends and buybacks, meeting the 75% return commitment we made last February.

Speaker 3

Our focus since completing the NCIB has been on strategic M and A and we are excited about the SafeSign, Materia and SafeSend acquisitions. While strategic M and A remains a key focus, we are likely to repurchase shares in the future, which along with our dividend would allow us to deliver to the 75% capital return we discussed at the twenty twenty four Investor Day. And finally, today we announced a 10% increase in our annual dividend to $2.38 per share, up $0.22 from $2.16 in 2024. This marks the thirty second consecutive year of annual dividend increases for the company and the fourth consecutive 10% increase. The increase will be effective with our Q1 dividend payable next month.

Speaker 3

I will conclude with a few thoughts on the financial impact of recent M and A and our outlook. As Steve mentioned, we closed the SafeSend acquisition on January 2. We expect SafeSend to deliver approximately $60,000,000 of revenue in 2025. However, due to the timing of their collections, there is a meaningful fair value adjustment to acquire deferred revenue. We estimate this haircut will reduce the reported revenue in 2025 by approximately $22,000,000 As a reminder, we add back this haircut to our adjusted profit metrics and it is excluded from our organic revenue growth calculation.

Speaker 3

We already have been recognizing approximately $5,000,000 of revenue from commission sharing agreements through our partnership with SafeSend. As a result of these two items, we expect the acquisition to add approximately $30,000,000 to $35,000,000 of incremental revenue in 2025, rising in 2026 as the deferred revenue haircut is lapped. SafeSend is solidly profitable, though with expected integration costs and investments, we expect it to be roughly neutral to adjusted EBITDA this year. We expect healthy profits from the business in 2026 with its margins rising towards the overall TR level over the next few years. Moving beyond SafeSend, I am happy to confirm the Findlaw divestiture closed on December 2.

Speaker 3

Note, we also completed two much smaller divestitures at year end, both in corporates, contributed approximately $30,000,000 to full year 2024 revenue. Lastly, following the success of our Thompson Reuters Ventures team, I am pleased to announce we will be launching a 150,000,000 second fund. Now, I will turn to our outlook. Starting with 2025, we forecast organic revenue growth in a range of 7% to 7.5%. We see total revenue growth of 3% to 3.5% below the organic growth rate primarily due to the Feynman divestiture.

Speaker 3

We see the big three segments growing revenue by approximately 9%, which is at the high end of the framework we provided last February for 8% to 9% growth in 2025 and 2026. Our outlook calls for continued modest organic revenue growth acceleration again in 2025. This acceleration will be driven by underlying improvement from our GenAI initiatives, scaling revenue from acquisitions and a slight benefit from the Fine Law divestiture. These tailwinds more than offset a tough comparison from the meaningful GenAI content licensing transactional revenue of $34,000,000 earned in 2024. This tough comp is expected to be a roughly 50 basis point drag to our year over year revenue growth in 2025.

Speaker 3

We are forecasting a 2025 outlook. The improving profitability comes despite continued investment, including dilution we have absorbed from the strategic tuck ins of SafeSign, Materia and SafeSend. As I mentioned last quarter, we expect our effective tax rate to rise this year from approximately 18% in 2024 due to the full impact of the global minimum tax regulations. We have refined our forecast and now expect a 2025 and 2026 tax rate of approximately 19% from the prior 19% to 19.5% view. We continue to expect our cash tax rate to be approximately 5% below this book tax rate.

Speaker 3

Moving to capital intensity, we see 2025 accrued CapEx as a percent of revenue of approximately 8%, down slightly from 2024, but broadly in line with the trend in recent years. This level of investment is supportive of our continued focus on investing in product innovation as we strive to deliver stronger revenue growth. We expect 2025 free cash flow to be approximately $1,900,000,000 up modestly from 2024 as growing profitability and stable capital intensity more than offset higher cash taxes, the impact of the fine law divestiture and higher incentive compensation based on 2024 performance. Looking beyond 2025, we have sharpened our financial framework for 2026 and now see organic revenue growth of 7.5% to 8%, driven by Big three growth of approximately 9.5%. This is the upper end of the prior 6.5% to 8% range for total TR and above the prior 8% to 9% range for the big three.

Speaker 3

We continue to expect 50 or more basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in 2026. I would note this is an organic outlook and could be impacted by future M and A. We expect our capital intensity to remain at approximately 8% and we continue to expect our free cash flow to be in a range of $2,000,000,000 to $2,100,000,000 in 2026. This is in line with our initial view provided last February despite the Fine Law divestiture reducing our free cash flow. I would also like to provide an update on the 2026 organic revenue growth targets that our big three segments provided at our twenty twenty four Investor Day.

Speaker 3

We are raising the initial ranges for each of the big three segments by 1% and now see 2026 legal professionals growth of 8% to 9% corporates of 9% to 11% and tax and accounting professionals of 11% to 13%. Turning to the first quarter, we expect organic revenue growth in the range of 5% to 6% and our adjusted EBITDA margin to be approximately 40%. As a reminder, Q1 revenue growth will be impacted by more than 1% from a tough comparison driven by the $25,000,000 dollars of Reuters generative AI transactional content licensing revenue recognized in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Let me now turn it back to Gary for questions.

Speaker 1

Thanks Mike. Jenny, we'd like to begin the Q and A session.

Operator

Thank And our first question is going to come from Scott Fletcher from CIBC. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the details on the 2025 and 2026 outlook. I want to ask on the 2026 outlook, you're taking the organic growth numbers up a percent in each of the segments.

Speaker 3

Could you

Operator

just dig into what's giving you the confidence to take those numbers up?

Speaker 3

Sure, Scott. I'm happy to start there. Certainly the foundation is the performance in 2024. That 2024 performance is not only the revenue, but more importantly as we look into 2025 and 2026 is the underlying book of business or net sales. We're very pleased with the overall book of business and net sales for each of the big three segments as we closed out December.

Speaker 3

As I've mentioned in prior calls, Scott, Q4 in December is always a heavy quota period for us and each of our teams did a terrific job there. You couple that in regards to the overall demand and what our customers are needing and seeking, especially in this Gen AI enabled world, we're quite optimistic with it. Certainly, we take nothing for granted with it. But coupled with our underlying results in 2024 book of business, our forecast for 2025 sales and renewals and ongoing conversations with our customers, those are the level of optimism. Steve?

Speaker 3

Allstate, Mike.

Operator

Okay. Thanks. And then sort of a follow-up on the Gen AI piece of that adoption. Can you sort of give us has anything changed since we spoke last in terms of what customers are looking for, what they're reacting to positively as they sort of take a look and get a better look at your product suite?

Speaker 2

Scott, no. We continue to be pleased with the adoption of our GenAI products and our translation of those into revenue growth. So specifically, as we've talked about Westlaw Precision AI ACV is now up above 40%. Co counsel drafting adoption has been exciting for us since we launched and improved those products. And Gen Aon more broadly across our customer segment sits at about adoption sits at about 18% of the ACV or book of business and that's ticked up from the last time we reported out.

Speaker 2

So for each of our Gen AI offerings, we like the trajectory and the customer uptake and the feedback we're getting. The only sort of additional color I'd provide is, as we said at our Investor Day in March of last year, the thing that's uncertain is the sort of broader pace of change management within the professional services that we serve in terms of them morphing their business models and broadly adopting technologies changing their practices. That remains a work on for most of our customers. Some are moving very quickly, some are more cautious. And so I don't think we have full visibility into sort of what that broader adoption curve looks like.

Speaker 2

But certainly as I said for the specific offerings that we've put into the marketplace, we're very pleased with the traction to date and the trajectory of those offerings.

Speaker 3

Scott, I would just supplement it. If you look at the adoption of the products Steve mentioned and I would just add Check Point with co counsel that's in the market. We're pleased with the adoption and to further supplement that we're making incremental investments in 2025 and what we refer to as customer success, who will work directly with our customers on the adoption and usage of our Gen AI enabled products.

Operator

Okay. Great color there. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2

Thanks Scott.

Operator

Our next question is going to come from Tim Casey from BMO.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Steve, could you talk a little bit about if you're seeing any or expecting any increased demand, given what appears to be an accelerated pace of change from the new administration in Washington? I realize we're in the usual cycle and every new administration brings change, but I'm wondering if you think that is going to be at an accelerated pace and that will work its way back to demand for you. And second question is, you've talked about 2025 as a year of execution that there's items that you would like to do better at internally. And I'm just wondering how you'll measure success on that initiative in 2025?

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate the questions. So, look, we're cautiously optimistic that as we always are when there's a change of administration and a whole slew of new rules and regulations and stands toward taxation and global trade and so forth. So I would say cautiously optimistic, but it is too early to tell.

Speaker 2

I think similar to the other folks that you follow, we're all sort of in that stance of understanding how this is going to play out. But certainly, as an example, our offerings in and around global trade are very, very important for companies that have a changing tariff environment. Our content in and around taxation schema in various countries is critical to tax and accounting professionals as they serve their clients in a changing environment. And then the sort of broader offerings that we serve the U. S.

Speaker 2

Government and certainly on issues of security, we see some potential there. So I would say, yes, Tim, but too early to tell. In terms of better execution, we are very focused, as you know, on for example, customer success, supporting our software offerings across the portfolio. We're very focused on increasing the rate of product innovation, and we're very focused on rolling GenAI out across our entire employee base and being able to improve the productivity and efficiency of everything we do. We're going to apply the same sort of rigor of execution in each of those amongst others that we apply to the change program.

Speaker 2

So as you know, Kirsty Roth oversaw that program and is world class at sort of putting the right metrics in place and holding each and every one of us accountable. And Mary Alice Future will support that process in her role as Chief People Officer. So it's really the same playbook for us as we think about executing in 2025 and beyond as it was in 2021 and 2022. And we've got a bit of confidence around that. I hope not overconfidence, but we've got some confidence that we'll keep each other accountable and make the improvements that we need to make.

Speaker 3

Yes. Tim, I would just add two additional items in that year of execution and laser focus. Certainly, our retention is which is not a new topic for us and also solution selling, which is being led by Laura Clayton McDonald, who leads our corporate segment that applies across Doctor, but she's been the leader there.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is going to come from George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, thanks. Good morning. You've talked about in the past the goal to drive an acceleration in legal organic revenue growth. And can you just elaborate on some of the traction you're seeing with that acceleration? I know with rounding and reporting, it's difficult to see just based on reported numbers of 7%.

Speaker 4

But talk about that and how you expect the acceleration curve to play out over the next one to two years?

Speaker 3

Sure, George. Happy to start there. Certainly in Q4 and in the second semester of twenty twenty four, on a rounded basis, legal professionals was stable at 7%. We did see a modest improvement in the recurring revenue within legal professionals. Full transparency, there were two drags to legal professionals organic revenue in Q4.

Speaker 3

First, we had a slight decrease in transactional revenue. Second, we did sunset two small products. But But if you look at it in the big and take a step back, excluding the impact of migrating that global print product to online, year over year legal professionals improved 40 basis points in Q4 twenty twenty four versus Q4 twenty twenty three. And on a full year basis, it's about 95 basis points improvement, call it 100 basis points year over year. So that provides momentum, that provides confidence.

Speaker 3

Certainly as we go into 2025, we're optimistic. Legal revenue growth will continue to accelerate in 2025, really driven by some of the points Steve mentioned earlier with our Precision Gen AI enabled product. I think Steve mentioned 40 plus percent, I'll be a little more precise, 43% penetration there, which is very comparable. If you go back to the Westlaw Edge product on a timeline basis, it's very comparable in regards to adoption. So more runway there.

Speaker 3

George?

Speaker 4

That's helpful context. And then your corporate segment has now sustained double digit growth for several quarters. Can you talk about the sustainability of that growth trajectory and what you think are the top tailwinds that should support it?

Speaker 3

Yes, I'll start with leadership there with in corporates with Larclay and Madonna who I just mentioned just did an amazing job leading the group in 2024. We had 300 basis points improvement in corporates going from 7% organic in 2023 up to 10%. Given, George, that we increased the 2026 range earlier in my prepared remarks, our confidence remains in that sustainability. From our perspective, there's no meaningful change in the external environment. We talked many quarters ago about the prolonged sales cycle.

Speaker 3

Has the external environment changed meaningfully? Probably not. What has changed is Lars leadership in driving the internal operational improvement, which includes really rigorous daily management of our sales pipeline, improved connections with our customers. Additionally, George, you'll remember that we acquired Paguero one year ago. So we did get modest benefit in 2024 from the Paguero acquisition that will continue into 2025.

Speaker 3

So we're quite confident and optimistic on the continued trajectory of the corporate segment.

Speaker 4

Very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, George.

Operator

And our next question is going to come from Jason Hawes, Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning. This is Aude on for Jason Haas. Thanks for taking our questions. Appreciate the color you guys gave around the ACV penetration across Total TR and then for the Westlaw.

Speaker 3

Can you just give us

Speaker 5

a sense for how your ACV penetration varies across the different client sizes? And then just any sort of update on your ability to price with these Gen AI products versus the level of the pricing that you guys have taken historically? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Sure. If you look at the I'll call it the lifecycle kind of value change in regards to the launches, when we launch something like Westlaw Precision, normally the penetration is strongest and earliest with what we refer to as our large law within legal professionals. As a reminder, we break it between large law, medium law, small law based on the number of attorneys in a given firm. So we have consistently historically and even now with Westlaw Precision and GenAI enhancement, we see adoption and penetration first in the largest law firms that's holding true today followed by mid law and small law. So we do follow the penetration curves and adoptions by a subsegment and even a more granular level there.

Speaker 3

So once again, that's very consistent with what we saw with the Westlaw Edge adoption. What we're seeing now with some of the GenAI enabled products, you'll see a smoother adoption across the different sizes of the firms and it's not as much differentiated with the newer products. And Steve wants to add

Speaker 2

Just to add to that, I think the we're sort of cautiously optimistic and I think we're seeing positive signs in the marketplace around the pricing the ability to sort of get more price from our GenAI offerings. And one of the primary reasons for that is they enable us to play an expanded role in the success of our customers. So let me give you a couple of examples. If you think about Westlaw and Westlaw Precision, one of the big innovations that Mike Dane has driven, he's the, as you know, the product leader for the Westlaw franchise. One of the big things that he's done, he and his team have done is extended into the Westlaw Precision AI Research memo.

Speaker 2

So in other words, instead of providing the synthesized and most accurate list relevant case law, the product now produces a first draft of the research. So that's an expanded role for us. That's a big time saver for litigators and legal researchers and enables us to drive more value within our customer base. That's one example. The extension of practical among other tools into drafting is another example.

Speaker 2

Previously haven't been in the drafting space and obviously drafting is very important for legal practitioners. So that enables us to charge accordingly. And then on the tax and accounting side with the acquisition of Materia, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, our customer base is looking to automate every piece of the tax and accounting workflow or the tax preparation workflow that they can in order to meet increasing demand from their clients to provide advisory services. And so Materia is a key piece of enabling us to plan expanded role in that growth that tax and accounting practitioners will experience. And that's the basis on which we're able to increase our prices in sensible ways.

Speaker 5

Got it. Appreciate the color there. Super helpful. And then just had a follow-up on the back of some of the comments you guys gave earlier for your expectations under the new administration. Can you maybe just remind us of your government exposure, both of them legal and I think maybe some in print and sort of why you guys would or wouldn't be concerned about this business under the new administration with Doge?

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. I think if you look at our government business, overall, we'll approach nearly $600,000,000 in revenue for full year 2024. If you look forward, we're looking at about 8% organic growth would be our expectations for 2025 and 2026. As a reminder, if you look at the government business, it is quite diverse in regards to the product offerings that we provide, our government customers, which are at the federal, state and local level. By far the largest portion of that is within what we call Westlaw, our legal research product offering there.

Speaker 3

We also have a sizable position of print within government business. And we also have our Thompson Broader special services business that is a component there along with our risk, fraud and compliance with Clear. So we have quite a diverse product portfolio offerings within government overall. So hopefully that's helpful.

Speaker 5

Yes, definitely helpful. Thank you and congrats on the strong results and updated forward outlook.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

I have no questions in the queue at this moment.

Speaker 2

All right. Thanks everyone. Thanks

Speaker 1

Jamie. Thank you.

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Earnings Conference Call
Thomson Reuters Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00
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