Tradeweb Markets Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 6, 2025

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Tradeweb's Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and will be available for playback. To begin, I'll turn the call over to Head of Treasury, FP and A and Investor Relations, Ashley Sarrau. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and good morning. Joining me today for the call are our CEO, Billy Holt, who will review our business results and key growth initiatives and our CFO, Sarah Ferber, who will review our financial results. We intend to use the website as a means of disclosing material, non public information and complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. I'd like to remind you that certain statements in this presentation and during the Q and A may relate to future events and expectations and as such constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements related to, among other things, our guidance are forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

Actual results may differ materially from these forward looking statements. Information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward looking statements is contained in our earnings release, earnings presentation and periodic reports filed with the SEC. In addition, on today's call, we will reference certain non GAAP measures as well as certain market and industry data. Information regarding these non GAAP measures, including reconciliations to GAAP measures, is in our earnings release and earnings presentation. Information regarding market and industry data, including sources, is in our earnings presentation.

Speaker 1

Now let me turn the call over to Billy.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Ashley. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter earnings call. I'm extremely proud of the Tradeweb team that helped produce the best revenue year and quarter in our history. As I look back at 2024, it was filled with healthy debate and continued market share gains across our core products. Since our IPO in 2019, we have more than doubled our revenues and more than tripled our quarterly adjusted EPS as well as our free cash flow.

Speaker 2

We want to honor that past, build upon our scrappy culture, continue to expand our presence across the fixed income ecosystem and diligently accelerate our revenue growth. We are a technology company with the core focus of electronifying markets by efficiently connecting our buy side clients with their most important liquidity providers. Central to our strategy is always remembering to strike the right balance where innovation not only helps the buy side, but also benefits our dealer clients. In 2024, we expanded our developed market footprint globally across rates, credit, money markets and equities. We also continue to make inroads into emerging markets and we are now run rating at over 60,000,000 in EM revenues annually.

Speaker 2

Additionally, we have deepened and expanded our client relationships with our acquisitions of Yieldbroker and Ratefin and moved into the corporate treasury space with ICD, something we believe will collectively pay dividends for years to come. Looking ahead, we continue to evaluate more opportunities to plant more flags and deepen our multi asset network. Diving into the fourth quarter on Slide four, strong client activity, share gains and a risk on environment drove 25.2% year over year revenue growth on a reported basis. We continue to balance investing for growth and profitability as fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margins expanded by 40 basis points relative to the twenty twenty three full year margins. Turning to Slide five, our rates business produced a record revenue quarter driven by continued organic growth across swaps, global government bonds and mortgages and was also supplemented by the addition of Ratefin and Yieldbroker.

Speaker 2

Credit was led by strength in U. S. And European corporate bonds with our second highest quarterly market share across fully electronic U. S. High grade and record market share across fully electronic high yield and further supported by growth across credit derivatives.

Speaker 2

Money markets was led by the addition of ICD and aided by record quarterly revenues across global repos. Equities posted double digit revenue growth led by growth in our global ETF and equity derivatives business. Finally, market data revenues were driven by growth in our LSEG, market data contract and proprietary data products. Turning to Slide six, our record fourth quarter capped off a record revenue year in 2024. Record volumes across most asset classes translated into 29% revenue growth on a reported basis.

Speaker 2

The scale generated by our strong top line results drove 91 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion and 29% adjusted EPS growth. As our growth initiatives continue to scale, we maintain our tradition of constant and focused investment. Broadly, we enhanced our existing product capabilities adding new clients and forged new partnerships. On the capability front, we completed our integration of Ratefin and Yieldbroker, made meaningful progress across our mortgage specified pool platform and we rolled out our new RFQ Edge offering in Global Cash Credit. On the client side, we continue to scale our credit mortgage and swaps platform as we make inroads with our largest clients.

Speaker 2

Finally, on the collaboration front, we made meaningful progress on the second phase of our integration with BlackRock's Aladdin and expanded our partnership with FTSE Indices. Additionally, we became the first strategic partner for Goldman Sachs' new GS digital assets platform and announced a partnership with the Tokyo Stock Exchange. We believe our investments have not only positioned us well for the future, but also helped to make 2024 another banner year for Tradeweb. Moving to Slide seven, 2024 continued to streak a robust revenue growth that we have worked hard to deliver for multiple years now. Specifically, while the majority of our revenue still come from rates, 46% of our revenue growth came from our other businesses in 2024.

Speaker 2

In fact, over the past six years, over 50% of our revenue growth came from non rates businesses. Over the same period, 40% of our revenue growth was attributable to our international business. International revenues have grown on average 20% per year since 2016. Our international business is anchored by our European business, but our Asia Pacific product suite continues to scale. Our APAC business spans rates, credit, equities and money markets and volumes more than doubled year over year.

Speaker 2

We have seen strong active client growth across our APAC products with global active APAC product users up over 20% year over year. Over 20% of our APAC product variable revenues in 2024 came from products that were generating revenues on the platform in 2019, a testament to the growing product diversity across our APAC business. As we scale our presence across the APAC region, this is also driving strong APAC client engagement across non APAC products. For example, we saw strong APAC active client growth across U. S.

Speaker 2

And European swaps, U. S. Government bonds and European credit. 2025 marks our twentieth anniversary of being in the Japan markets and we have made meaningful progress in scaling our offering. Our Japanese government bond volumes have grown at an average of over 30% since 2020, while our greater than one year YenSwap volumes have increased at an average of 45% over that same timeframe.

Speaker 2

Looking ahead, we believe Asia Pacific and more broadly emerging markets will continue to become a larger component of our growth story over the next few years as we expand our client and product network across the region. Relentless innovation has been critical to our success. Throughout our history, we have prioritized being first to market, which requires constant investment. In the last nine years, we've invested over seven eighty million dollars in technology to help shape the future of electronic markets, growing those investments at an average of 15% since 2016. And as our investments bear fruit, adjusted EBITDA margins have expanded consistently.

Speaker 2

Starting with U. S. Treasuries on Slide eight, record fourth quarter market share of 25% drove revenue growth of 23% year over year. Our institutional business saw record revenues and the leading indicators of the business remain strong. We gained share and achieved record quarterly market share of over 50% in institutional U.

Speaker 2

S. Treasuries versus our main electronic competitor, our third consecutive quarter above 50%. Automation continues to be an important theme with institutional U. S. Treasury AIX average daily trades increasing by over 20% year over year.

Speaker 2

Turning to our U. S. Treasury wholesale business, we achieved our second best revenue quarter in our history. This was led by record streaming activity, growing adoption of our sessions protocol and continued contribution from ReadFin. Wholesale continues to remain a key area of focus as we prioritize onboarding more liquidity providers and enhancing our various liquidity pools as we deliver on our holistic strategy.

Speaker 2

Within equities, our ETF business produced record fourth quarter revenues. Our efforts to expand our equity brand beyond our flagship ETF franchise continue to bear fruit with record equity derivative revenues increasing 20% year over year. Looking ahead, we continue to make inroads by integrating new clients and the client pipeline remains strong as the benefits of our electronic solutions continue to resonate. We believe we are well positioned to capitalize on the long term secular ETF growth story, not just in equities, but across our fixed income business. Turning to Slide nine for a closer look at another strong quarter for credit, revenue growth was driven by 147% year over year revenue growth across U.

Speaker 2

S. And European credit respectively. We also achieved strong double digit revenue growth across credit derivatives. Automation continued to grow with Global Credit AIX average daily trades increasing over 10% year over year. We achieved our second highest fully electronic quarterly market share across U.

Speaker 2

S. IG and the highest fully electronic quarterly market share across U. S. High yield. We also crossed the 1,000 client count threshold in the fourth quarter as clients gravitate towards our deepening liquidity pool and premium client experience.

Speaker 2

Our institutional business continues to scale as clients adopt our diverse set of protocols. Our institutional RFQ average daily volume grew over 30% year over year with strong double digit growth across both IG and high yield. Our RFQ volumes as a percentage of Trace touched a new high in the fourth quarter across both IG and high yield. Moreover, portfolio trading average daily volume rose over 20% year over year with growth of over 30% across IG portfolio trading. Retail credit revenues produced another solid quarter, but revenues were down 11 primarily due to outsized muni tax loss selling in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three.

Speaker 2

All trade produced a solid quarter with over $180,000,000,000 in volume, up over 15% year over year. Specifically, our all to all average daily volume grew over 10% year over year and our dealer RFQ offering grew low single digits year on year. The team continues to be focused on broadening out our network and increasing the number of responders on the Alltrade platform. In the fourth quarter, the average number of responses per All to All Inquiry rose over 15% year on year. Finally, our sessions average daily volume grew over 20% year over year.

Speaker 2

It was a year of innovation and growth with a focus on redefining our diverse set of all weather protocols. We enhanced our portfolio trading offering to incorporate ETF analytics, rolled out RFQ Edge and further enhanced our algorithmic capabilities. Since 2020, we have grown our fully electronic IG share by more than double and we have more than tripled our high yield share. Stepping back, 20% of our IG share growth was driven by RFQ with 3540% coming from portfolio trading and sessions respectively. On the high yield front, 50% of our share growth was driven by RFQ with 4010% being driven by PT and sessions respectively.

Speaker 2

Looking ahead, U. S. Credit remains a key focus area and we like the way we are positioned across our client channels for this asset class. We believe we have a long runway for growth with ample opportunity to innovate alongside our clients. We are focused on further upgrades to our leading PT offering, new tools to further penetrate block trading workflows, enhanced analytics through the trading lifecycle and then improved client user interface experience.

Speaker 2

We also remain very focused on chipping away at high yield. Our average high yield response rate hit a new record in the fourth quarter and remain very focused in 2025 on expanding our client network. We're near the end of Phase two of our Aladdin integration and both teams are formulating plans on the next deliverables with a goal to deliver real differentiated liquidity solutions over pure workflow efficiency. Beyond U. S.

Speaker 2

Credit, we are focused on our EM expansion efforts. We expect to go live with our Saudi Arabian offering in the coming quarters and we are working through regulatory approvals for our Indian offering. Strategically, we're looking to build a robust trading solution and expand our local network, leveraging our global product suite. Moving to Slide 10, Global Swaps produced record revenues driven by a combination of strong client engagement in response to the macro environment, better mix shift towards risk trading and stable weighted average duration. All in, Global Swaps revenue grew 37% year over year.

Speaker 2

Core risk market share, which excludes compression trading, set a new record in the fourth quarter, increasing by over two ten basis points year over year. Overall market share decreased to 20.8%, primarily due to a significant drop in European swap client related compression volumes, which carries a significantly lower fee rate. During the quarter, we also achieved record share across G11 in EM denominated currencies and the second highest share in our history across sterling swaps. The fourth quarter exemplified the diversity of our global swaps revenue growth. We achieved record institutional swap revenues across European and EM swaps and our second highest quarterly revenues across dollar and APAC swaps.

Speaker 2

Across our 27 currencies, we saw the biggest market share increases in 2024 across Taiwan dollar, Swiss franc and Hong Kong dollar with each gaining over 900 basis points of market share year over year. Beyond this, over 60% of our currencies saw at least 500 basis points of market share gains in 2024, yet many remain below 25% market share highlighting the opportunity ahead of us. Finally, we continue to make progress across emerging market swaps and our rapidly growing RFM protocol. Our fourth quarter EM swaps revenue rose over 80% year over year and we believe there is still significant room to grow given the low levels of electronification. Our RFM protocol saw average daily volume rise over 140% year over year with adoption picking up.

Speaker 2

Looking ahead, the global macro backdrop continues to be in flux and we believe the long term swaps revenue growth potential is meaningful. As we build solutions for our clients, adoption can take time, but when it does happen, the upside potential could be significant. For example, we rolled out our electronic inflation swaps offering in 2017. Adoption was slow out of the gate. However, since 2020, industry inflation swaps volume is up 85%.

Speaker 2

Our risk related inflation swaps volumes are up nearly 600% over that same timeframe. We are looking forward to providing more solutions for more parts of the swaps market. With the overall swaps market still about 30% electronified, we believe there remains a lot we can do to help digitize our clients manual workflows, while the global fixed income markets and broader swaps markets grow. And with that, let me turn it over to Sarah to discuss our financials in more detail.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Billy, and good morning. As I go through the numbers, all comparisons will be to the prior year period unless otherwise noted. Slide 11 provides a summary of our quarterly earnings performance. As Billy recapped earlier, this quarter we saw record revenues of $463,000,000 that were up 25.2% year over year on a reported basis and 25.5% on a constant currency basis. We derived approximately 40% of our fourth quarter revenues from international clients and recall that approximately 30% of our revenue base is denominated in currencies other than dollars, predominantly in euros.

Speaker 3

Our variable revenues increased by 30% and total trading revenues increased by 26%. Total fixed revenues related to our four major asset classes were up 10.9 on a reported basis and 11.1% on a constant currency basis. Rates fixed revenue growth was primarily driven by the movement of a dealer to a more fixed schedule and by the addition of dealers to our mortgage and U. S. Government bond platforms.

Speaker 3

Credit fixed revenue growth was primarily driven by increases to our subscription fees and by the movement of dealers to a more fixed plan this year. And other trading revenues were up 21%. As a reminder, this line fluctuates as it reflects revenues tied to periodic technology enhancements performed for our retail clients. Full year 2024 adjusted EBITDA margin of 53.3% increased by 91 basis points on a reported basis when compared to our 2023 full year margins. Moving on to fees per million on Slide 12 and a highlight of the key trends for the quarter.

Speaker 3

You can see Slide 18 of the earnings presentation for additional detail regarding our fee per million performance this quarter. For cash rates products, average fees per million were down 4%, primarily due to lower fee per million across U. S. Government bonds. For long tenure swaps, average fees per million were up 55%, primarily due to a decline in compression activity and greater risk taking volumes.

Speaker 3

For cash credit, average fees per million decreased 12% due to a mix shift away from munis and a change in dealer fee plans from variable to fixed. For cash equities, average fees per million increased 4% due to a mix shift towards EU ETFs, which carry a relatively higher fee per million. And finally, with money markets, average fees per million increased 55% due to the inclusion of ICD. Slide 13 details our adjusted expenses. At a high level, the scalability and variable nature of our expense base allows us to continue to invest for growth and grow margins.

Speaker 3

We have maintained a consistent philosophy here. Adjusted expenses for the fourth quarter increased 25% on both a reported basis and constant currency basis. Given the strong environment to invest for long term growth, during the fourth quarter, we continued investments in marketing, digital assets, consulting and client relationship development. Adjusted compensation costs grew 21%, the vast majority related to variable or discretionary components. Over 50 of the increase came from performance related compensation and the addition of ICD.

Speaker 3

Technology and communication costs increased 34%, primarily due to our previously communicated investments in data strategy and infrastructure. Adjusted professional fees grew 47%, mainly due to an increase in tech consultants as we augment our onshore technology operations and build incremental scalability. Adjusted general and administrative costs increased 34% due to a pickup in travel and entertainment as well as marketing, which was offset by favorable movements in FX that resulted in approximately a $1,100,000 gain in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four versus a $500,000 loss in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Slide 14 details capital management and our guidance. On our cash position and capital return policy, we ended fourth quarter in a strong position with 1,300,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents and free cash flow reached approximately $8.00 $9,000,000 for the trailing twelve months.

Speaker 3

Our net interest income of $14,200,000 decreased due to lower cash balances as we funded our recent ICD acquisition with $771,000,000 of cash on hand. With this quarter's earnings, the Board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per Class A and Class B shares, up 20% year over year. Turning to our guidance for 2025. We will continue to invest in the business in 2025 and are expecting adjusted expenses to range from $970,000,000 to $1,030,000,000 The midpoint of this range would represent an approximate 15% increase year over year. Excluding the impact of acquisitions, the midpoint of this range would represent an approximately 11% increase year over year, relatively in line with our average expense growth since 2016.

Speaker 3

We believe we can drive adjusted EBITDA and operating margin expansion compared to 2024 at either end of this range. Although, we expect the incremental margin expansion to be more muted as overall margins are higher and we continue to focus on balancing margin expansion with investing for the future. Specifically, we continue to invest in credit, rates, emerging markets and ICD as key focus areas with a long runway for growth. We also continue to invest in technology that allows us to sustain and build our leading platform. Some of these investments will take time to drive revenue growth, but we continue to prize innovation and scale our technology pipeline.

Speaker 3

We expect twenty twenty five quarterly run rate technology and communication expenses to grow from the fourth quarter of twenty four levels and we continue to invest in our data strategy and infrastructure to support the growth of our platform and new product initiatives. We expect annual G and A expenses to grow in the mid single digits with seasonally higher levels in the second and fourth quarters due to normal cyclicality in T and E. We expect twenty twenty five quarterly run rate professional fee expenses to be at the fourth quarter twenty twenty four levels as we continue to augment our technology effort with consultants. We expect annual occupancy expenses to increase approximately 40 year over year, primarily due to the move to our new New York City headquarters and overall expansion of our geographic footprint. We expect the first half of twenty twenty five occupancy expenses to rise approximately 30% year over year and second half twenty twenty five expenses to rise 55% year over year, which includes approximately $1,500,000 in duplicate rent related expenses.

Speaker 3

For forecasting purposes, our assumed non GAAP tax rate ranges from 24.5% to 25.5% for the year. We expect CapEx and capitalized software development to range between $99,000,000 and $109,000,000 We estimate that approximately 50% will be spent on software development to support our growth initiatives and approximately 50% will be related to growth and maintenance CapEx. The midpoint of our CapEx guidance implies a roughly 17% year over year increase, primarily driven by building out our new New York City office and the ICD acquisition. Acquisition and Refinitiv transaction related DNA, which we adjust out due to the increase associated with push down accounting, is expected to be 176,000,000 in 2025. Lastly, we continue to expect 2025 revenues generated under the master data agreement with LSEG to be approximately $90,000,000 Of the $90,000,000 we expect to generate $28,000,000 in revenue in the first quarter of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3

Now I'll turn it back to Billy for concluding remarks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Sarah. As I embark on my twenty fifth year at Tradeweb and my third year as CEO, I have never been more excited about the opportunities ahead of us. The ethos of the company has not changed and we constantly ask ourselves what can we do to bring a differentiated offering to the market that improves the overall ecosystem for our clients. Ahead of our IPO, we were known as a leading rates company that had ambitions to grow outside of rates. We believe we are now known as one of the leading financial technology companies that helps to provide innovative solutions to our clients across the fixed income ecosystem.

Speaker 2

Looking ahead, I'm excited to continue to build upon our leading multi asset class footprint. It's a good time to be in the risk intermediation business, but it's an even better time to shape the electronification of a growing fixed income ecosystem. On that note, we reported strong January volumes this morning, which translated into revenue growth in January of 23% year on year. Excluding the $8,000,000 contractual payment related to the LSEG market data agreement that we recognized in January, revenue growth would have been 17% year over year. Before I conclude, I would like to welcome Troy Dixon to Tradeweb, who previously was a member of the Tradeweb Board.

Speaker 2

Troy, in conjunction with Enrico Bruni, will be Co heads of Global Markets. They will share responsibility for overseeing execution of the company's global market strategy, including pursuing both organic and inorganic growth opportunities across products, geographies and our four client channels. I look forward to our ongoing work together to maximize our current potential and to continue to build upon the next legs of our growth. Finally, I would like to conclude my remarks by thanking our clients for their business and partnership in the quarter. And I want to thank my colleagues for their efforts that contributed to the record quarterly and annual revenues and volumes at Tradeweb.

Speaker 2

With that, I will turn it back to Ashley for your questions.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Billy. Operator, you can now take our first question.

Speaker 4

Thank you. And our first question will come from the line of Chris Allen of Citi. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I want to talk about interest rate swaps. Billy, as you noted, the macro backdrop is in flux right now. So maybe you could frame out and flush out the current environment, it's conducive risk on trading.

Speaker 5

On compression activity, that's moderated as a percentage of activity. Is that a function of less opportunities at compression trading, more risk based trading by clients or something else?

Speaker 2

Hey, Chris. Good question. Thank you. Good to hear your voice. It's a little late to say Happy New Year, but Happy New Year.

Speaker 2

And I know we're going to try to get through as many questions obviously as possible. I know there's another call at 10:30. It's like you guys have like a little bit of like a double feature today. So appreciate that. And good question kind of Chris.

Speaker 2

When I kind of step back a little bit on your kind of theme, just a little bit of like a quick context around it when we think about like cadence of volatility in the rates market. Just think about it this way for a second, Chris. Like since I became CEO, think about them as sort of like the major volatility events that have impacted our businesses like the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, collapse of SVB in 2023, which was a little bit more of a credit event, but massive amplifications into rates and then even like the sort of Japanese stock route in early August of last year. And so these are like headline almost like stressful moments in the market that test the participants around the ecosystem. Prices moving in ways that are unexpected and in some ways almost like challenging to rationalize.

Speaker 2

And for us and from our perspective, these become moments when as a leading platform for swaps, from my perspective, we become almost like that destination of choice, the sort of trusted marketplace where our biggest clients, our biggest buy side firms can feel comfortable sort of reshuffling exposure. And that's a part of this kind of like I talk about the global brand that we have in the business and these are ultimately moments that are sort of building blocks of credibility. And so when you enter into a different environment, you now have that ability to grow market share through orientation and micro trading protocols that capture real risk transfer, which is kind of as you know that's sort of like the holy grail of it all in the electronic the electronification world. And so the data tells us that this environment is I think very conducive for what we think of as like risk on trading. Fourth quarter active users was up 15% year over year, January up almost 10% year on year.

Speaker 2

Chris, in January, we saw our total swaps revenue increased by I think it's like 30% year over year. And so I don't have a crystal ball. I know no one has a kind of crystal ball, but we are for sure bullish on the forwards given the fact that there is plenty of headline debate in the markets, geopolitical uncertainty, rising trade war risks, inflation concerns and you know about this sort of better than I do. I say this all the time, the market is going to be the market, but as a company, we are like laser focused on building out solutions for our clients. And so as you mentioned, I highlighted in the script, adoption takes time, but we believe we have a higher success rate with our innovations in part because we go down this path of that sort of hand in hand with our buy side and sell side clients that type of communication and partnership.

Speaker 2

And so looking ahead, we see a long runway for growth in the areas of the market where we can front and center continue to innovate and go after more parts of the voice market and onboard clients. And from my perspective, I remain very optimistic about the swaps business going forward. I think it's a great time to be in that business today. As you know very well, the technique and the tactics that we've had around compression trading was to get into risk transfer. And I think that technique and tactic has worked out very well for us.

Speaker 2

So we feel really good about the performance of our swaps business and the leadership role that we play in that. And thanks very much for your question, Chris.

Speaker 4

And our next question will be coming from the line of Benjamin Butish of Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Billy, in your prepared remarks, you talked a lot about technology innovation. Just wondering if you could talk about digital assets for a moment. There's been a couple of announcements coming from Tradeweb, partnering, I think, with Goldman Sachs' spin out digital assets platform.

Speaker 6

Can you kind of talk about what you're doing here? How do you see blockchain technology, crypto, any and all of the above sort of fitting into the broader Tradeweb business? Or what are you doing and what are you thinking that may come from this over the next many years? Thanks. Yes.

Speaker 2

Hey, Ved, how are you? Good question. And I think you're right when you sort of talked about like the announcement that we've made. I would say like front and center and you know us very well. Our approach in this space quite bluntly is not about creating headlines, right?

Speaker 2

It's about adding value. And so I've kind of talked about this a lot, which is, as you know, like the bones and the ethos of this company is about using technology to remove friction in our clients' workflows across the trade lifecycle. That's who we are. That's been in our DNA since day one as we've created this sort of one stop shop across asset classes. And so, we are very focused kind of in the space because we're an ambitious company as you know.

Speaker 2

And so, we always want to be front foot around change. And so some of the things that we've kind of seen lately I'll highlight for you, that which is it wasn't at Davos, but I watched it on CNBC. I saw Larry Fink talking about the tokenization of ruled assets, treasuries, fixed income, equities and the concept of how sort of transformative and democratizing that will be. I think that's an important concept and something to be aware of. Obviously, I think we're all kind of sitting and hearing the sort of the strong movements that are coming from Apollo.

Speaker 2

And obviously, they announced that they are listing their diversified credit fund via Securitize. We think that's important and we've been defending that space very well with how we partnered with Securitize. And then I think another thing I would just mention is obviously Circle announced their acquisition of Hashnote this month and we think that's important in terms of yielding on chain money market instruments to complement where they are with stablecoins. So a lot kind of happening. From our perspective to your question, as we kind of step back and we have very smart, very strong people at the company very focused on our digital assets strategy, it's essentially laser focused in three areas.

Speaker 2

One is kind of trusted shareable data. The second I would describe to you as kind of smart contracts because we see by utilizing smart contracts, we can automate operations among multiple parties, enabling faster and lower cost asset transfers and lifecycle events and these are kind of very important things as we think about the ecosystem of our world and then tokenization and synchronize data. And those are the sort of like three big areas of focus for us as a company. And so, we've been busy. A lot of partnerships over the last year, I mentioned Securitize.

Speaker 2

In May of twenty twenty four, we made our first strategic investment with them. We think they're very smart and very important players in the space. We also followed that up with a commercial agreement with AlphaLedger. And then in July, this past July, we joined the Canton network and I know you know that. We think the Canton network is important.

Speaker 2

Obviously, Don Wilson and DRW is a firm that historically we've been close to for a while. I'll kind of say this with a little bit of a giggle. He's smart money, and we think being investing and partnering with him is a good idea. So we're doing kind of what you would expect us to do in the space, which is kind of keeping our options open, being front footed about the best partners to invest in and quite excited about this next evolution in this space and how they affect our markets. And this is something that we feel very comfortable in continuing to innovate.

Speaker 2

And I think we are very well positioned in the space. And good question and thank you.

Speaker 6

Thanks for the color, Billy. Yes.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And our next question will be coming from Bloch Alexander Skolstein of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Alex, you may be on mute if you're asking

Speaker 6

Sorry guys, the phone broke up a little bit. I couldn't hear whether it was my name, somebody else's. Hey, good morning. Question for Sarah, just kind of turning to the guidance for a minute. So encouraging you kind of put a comment in there around still delivering positive operating leverage this year, albeit I guess at a lower pace than what you saw last year.

Speaker 6

Can you just talk a little bit about your ability to pivot the expense base given that there's clearly some uncertainty around the revenue environment you guys coming off of really strong growth last year? So if you were at a slower pace of revenue growth, could you be below the guide to still deliver kind of this positive operating leverage or how would that how would those two things work together? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Great. Good morning, Alex. It's a great question. Happy to talk about that. From our perspective, we have significant operating leverage within the business and that operating leverage will let us navigate even in weaker revenue environments.

Speaker 3

So I think I've talked about this before, 50% of our expense base generally is variable or discretionary, which provides a lot of built in flexibility in different revenue environments. So by variable, I'm talking about things like performance linked compensation, commissions, volume driven costs like exchange fees that are going to scale up and down based on the revenue environment. And by discretionary, things like marketing, T and E and obviously the pace of hiring where we have a lot of flexibility on how we want to manage those. Overall, our approach has been pretty consistent. We manage those costs dynamically and we calibrate based on a number of things including what the market opportunities are in front of us, the environment that we're in, but also making sure that we continuously invest in the things that we think are strategic important through the cycle.

Speaker 3

I think you don't really have to look further than going back to the first half of twenty twenty three to kind of see the proofs in the pudding. We had a weaker revenue environment, revenue was top line was mid single digits and we managed to maintain and grow our margins in that environment. Maybe not exactly your question, but I would say equally important, if you look at last year, top line 29%, you saw us able to accelerate spend to take advantage of the environment and momentum and still balance delivering margin improvement. So ultimately, I think we've shown a willingness and we have the flexibility and track record to both invest for the long term, but also to be nimble. And I think that gives you a good sense of our ability to deliver operating leverage regardless of the environment.

Speaker 3

Thanks for the question.

Speaker 6

No. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And our next question will be coming from the line of Dan Follin of Jefferies. Your line is open.

Operator

Great. Thanks. Billy, I was hoping you could talk about just kind of at a high level, you've got looser regulation potentially coming from banks. And as you think about the electronification trends that have been so strong, do you see that changing at all if banks are going to be using more balance sheet or taking on more risk or potentially keep a little bit more in house versus some of the trends that have been so prevalent in the last couple of years?

Speaker 2

Yes. Stan, how are you? Good question. It is kind of amazing like how quickly sort of the pendulum can swing in certain ways and particularly around sort of how regulation has been framed. It does feel like quick kind of kind of quick pendulum swings.

Speaker 2

I would say like headline like the onward march of electronification from our perspective is not a pendulum that swings back and forth. We think that's kind of like one way. And as I kind of think about your question where my kind of brain goes is pretty interesting. It's kind of like if you think about it like the rise in the banks in their market business revenues really like since almost like we want to like define it, Dan, as like the pandemic, it's almost become like the new normal. And this concept of like private sector intermediation, we say this a lot like private sector intermediation being back, from our perspective is like very, very good for our business, because we see ourselves and I think we are this trusted electronic intermediary between the banks and their most important clients.

Speaker 2

And that business thriving is quite good for us. So, banks with sophisticated and invested flow trading operations providing from our perspective almost like that consistent presence for their most important clients, while warehousing in the right way, warehousing and then efficiently recycling risk is good for us as the leading platform in both the institutional side, but then a little bit to your point kind of also having that mirrored liquidity in our wholesale business. So, I kind of said this before, like not anticipating at all, it's a really good question, that the move towards electronification is going to be slow at all as a consequence of the banks feeling healthy and vibrant and strong in the businesses that we live and breathe in. I think that the table stakes around efficiency are kind of here to stay and we think we benefit from the banks being both strong and efficient. And that winds up being quite a good outcome for us.

Speaker 2

But good question, interesting just like the switches that wind up happening around the topics of regulation are quite interesting. And thanks for your question.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And our next question will be coming from the line of Craig Siegenthaler of Bank of America. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Good morning, Billy. Hope everyone is doing well. And I think my name went out a little bit like Alex's, but I'm here.

Speaker 2

Good morning. How are you, Craig? Good. We can hear you.

Speaker 8

I'm good. So our question is on streaming and session trading volumes in U. S. Treasuries. So there's some industry data out there that's pointing towards an accelerating adoption of streaming and session trading in rates over just the last kind of few quarters.

Speaker 8

What are you seeing in terms of protocol usage in treasuries?

Speaker 2

Yes, it's a good question. It's like really interesting dynamic. It's almost like a micro sort of structure shift that's happening and we kind of see it that way too. I think there is a shift happening sort of across what we think about as that sort of wholesale kind of D2D marketplace, that sort of professional kind of marketplace where protocols are taking away market share from that kind of traditional almost out of central casting kind of clob protocol that we all kind of first understood as being central to that D2D market. Our instinct is part of the move away from that clob is really due to obviously like the lower volatility environment that we've seen in rates.

Speaker 2

Our instinct is the streaming business and the session business tends to outperform in a lower volatility environment. And so, in a pretty basic way, our strategy is very straightforward, which is like always how can we be better positioned to deliver an integrated product and product suite across the entire U. S. Treasury marketplace. And so, from our perspective, we've been a driver of that change with our comprehensive protocol offering streams, plob, sweep and rate fin.

Speaker 2

And I do think it's important to be competitive in that clob world, but absolutely there's been a shift around approach and usage. So, in 2024, the wholesale streaming average daily volume from our perspective was up 35% year over year and the wholesale sessions business was up almost actually a little bit over kind of 25%. Ratefin continues to be a sort of important business for us that sort of when I say Ratefin, the best way to describe it, I think is that algorithmic based spreading and aggregation technology. We think that that facilitates the most sophisticated client usage around futures and related cash like trades. That's a driver for us and something very important for us.

Speaker 2

So that's continued to grow as a very high percentage of U. S. Trade Center ownership. I think it's about 40 basis points higher than in 2024. So, we feel good about where we're kind of at in terms of that treasury business with that comprehensive offering.

Speaker 2

Those shifts that are occurring, those micro shifts that are occurring in this environment set up well for us because we've been the leaders in those new emerging protocols. And as I described that and you guys know me very well, we're still very focused on gaining market share in the club. We don't think the club is going away. We think that's a table stakes and important protocol. The combination of myself and Sarah and as you know we hired Troy Dixon, we continue to push that team around increased market share gains in the CLOB because we think that's an important complement to where the market feels like it's going.

Speaker 2

And great question Craig and thanks very much for asking it.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And the next question will be coming from the line of Alex Kramm of UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Yes. Hey, good morning, everyone. Billy, when you walked through the investment priorities earlier in your prepared remarks, credit again was number one. And I'm just wondering how much you're increasing the focus there. I think some people think that into 2025 with all the tailwinds that you have, you're really going to dial up the competitiveness and be more disruptive.

Speaker 9

So just wondering if this is right, how much more of a focus credit can even become and what are you going to do in particular to continue that market share gaining and then of course how much price I will have to ask on that how much price will be a factor as well?

Speaker 2

Yes, I mean, it's a good question. It's like I talk about the concept of like laser focus and I mentioned that around a couple of the initiatives and a couple of the things that we're working on the rate space, but like no one will mistake the company's like extreme focus on credit because we see that as a huge opportunity for the company kind of period. And we started with this basic premise that the market wanted competition in the space. And now as you know very well, it's up to us to continue to differentiate ourselves and innovate in that marketplace along the right themes. So we feel good how we're set up.

Speaker 2

We're going to continue to invest like across the board like around portfolio trading, making sure that we maintain and feeling really good about the leadership position that we have in portfolio trading. We are invested in our partnership with Aladdin in terms of bringing in more responders into the all to all network. I've talked about the concept of getting more into it's a little bit of a question that I was asked about regulation. I've talked about the concept a lot about getting into a little bit more of bankdealer inventory and getting into kind of dealer access and getting those access communicated the right way to the bank's biggest and most important clients in a timely electronic efficient fashion. I think that's like a really big theme and something that we are kind of invested towards.

Speaker 2

Price is not the lead horse and you've heard me kind of say that. We think the client base wants innovation first and foremost. And we think we are positioned to deliver that for our clients. And we're not going to go down the path of that sort of price adjustments to pick up share. We just don't we don't feel like that's the right step.

Speaker 2

But from an investment perspective, I have it at the top of the list because we feel like that opportunity and that wallet and the ability to differentiate ourselves and provide that value to our client base is 100% there. And a very good question and thanks for asking it.

Speaker 9

Of course. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And our next question will be coming from the line of Patrick Moly of Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. So it's been about seven months now since you closed the ICD acquisition. So Billy, I was hoping you could maybe just give a State of the Union on how the integration has gone, any success that you've seen in cross selling their capabilities to your client network and just any kind of milestones that maybe we should be on the lookout for in 2025?

Speaker 7

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Really good question, Patrick. Cheryl, let me hand that to you. You've been so front and center on this.

Speaker 3

Sure. Thanks. Look, I think we've been really quite pleased as a team with the progress on ICD. First and foremost the core business continues to perform out of the gate, whether we're looking at revenue, client growth, balance growth, retention, which is at 99%, client growth at 13%, all the core metrics that we expect to see are on plan and we're really quite excited about that. I think as we think about going ahead, from our perspective some of the milestones, it's not a classic integration.

Speaker 3

The tech platform, the core tech platform that ICD operates on largely will run independently. And so it's less about those types of milestones and really about the long term revenue opportunities that we've talked about that you're referencing around building, I would say, a comprehensive solution for treasurers, particularly ICD's corporate treasurers around investing and liquidity needs. And so when we think about those buckets, it's really two different things. One is expanding their footprint by leveraging our client relationships, our sales force, especially internationally and with financial institutions, which is something we bring to the table. And we're already seeing momentum there internationally.

Speaker 3

We've leveraged our infrastructure, in particular in Asia, to allow the ICD sales force to kind of operate from a regulatory perspective and from a time zone and client reach perspective more efficiently and begun doing joint meetings and engaging with prospects. And so early days, this isn't a sprint, this is a bit of a marathon, but we're seeing really good engagement. And I think our ability to drive that part of the business will materialize in 2025. I would say the other side of the coin, which also has made good progress is around expanding ICD's product offering in particular by bringing our core products onto their platform. That obviously takes a little bit longer.

Speaker 3

So we're expecting this year sort of by the middle of the year to start with U. S. Treasuries and have those be available on ICD's platform. I think once that's there, we expect to see good reception in all of our engagement with clients and we've done formal surveys. 65% of the client base has been asking for treasuries and obviously we think we have a leading platform there.

Speaker 3

So I think we're set up to do quite well. But again, we want to set this up in a really thoughtful way and we're focused on the long term. But we're seeing good engagement, good momentum and obviously we'll report more as the year goes on. I would say just while we're on ICD, I think the other thing that we're focused on as we look forward is on a more macro level, particularly with their client base, we're seeing strong levels of corporate cash and we're expecting that to continue as those clients continue and they're extremely profitable. So all things pointing in the positive direction as it relates to ICD.

Speaker 3

Thanks.

Speaker 9

Yes. Thank you, sir.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And the next question will be coming from the line of Jeff Schmidt of William Blair. Your line is open.

Operator

Hi, Jeff Schmidt here. So in the institutional channel for treasuries, you continue to see strong growth in automated trades. What's changed in that market or with your automated protocol that's driving such strong client adoption? And how much of your treasury mix is automated today?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hey, Jeff, it's Billy. Good question. And so, I think we've done gotten a bunch of things right. And I say that look very humbly, not everything right, but I think we've gotten a bunch of things right.

Speaker 2

I think how we've kind of approached this sort of AIX space, the kind of more algorithmic space with our clients, I I would say it's probably one of the things that we've gotten like right the most or right the best and I'll make a kind of little joke as you guys go to your kind of ten thirty double header. They've gotten it right too and they've done a really good job in terms of like this type of functionality as well. It's like the first sort of the first evolution was the phone to the mouse, the phone to the keyboard. This next evolution is mouse keyboard to the algorithms and a more sophisticated way of finding liquidity. I think it's resonating now particularly because that search for liquidity is so important.

Speaker 2

How do I find liquidity with leaving the least amount of footprints in the marketplace? I think that trend is like one way. And then you layer on the kind of concept of how do I do more with less? How do I continue to approach and attract and find liquidity in the marketplace in a sophisticated way and act as a client to my liquidity providers? There's so much good vibrations in so many ways where this protocol kind of resonates sort of across the board from our perspective.

Speaker 2

And I think it's been the lead differentiator for us in the rates space generally as we've looked at sort of competing there from day one essentially with Bloomberg. I think it's sticky. And so the concept of sort of breaking down like large risk trades into smaller more digestible trades and then those trades finding execution in a seamless way, there's something just very intuitive about that. And I think as we've gotten obviously now well through those dark days of the pandemic, the concept of the buy side continuing to invest in all of this technology is one way. And so it took some thought process from our perspective in terms of a willingness to sort of seed some space around the desktop and really understand, I think, where like client behavior was going to go.

Speaker 2

But getting on the right side of that trend, I think, has done enormous favors to our rates franchise in terms of a differentiator. And we think it's probably the best thing that we've done in the rate space. And thanks very much, Jeff, for your question.

Operator

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And the next question will be coming from the line of Kyle Walt of KBW. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hi, good morning, everyone. So after completing both ratefin and ICD in 2024, Just curious if I could check-in on your appetite for additional M and A in 2025. What capabilities would you look to add? And is there any way to frame whether we should still expect more bolt on type deals or whether large scale M and A is also on the table?

Speaker 2

Yes, very good question. I was asked that question earlier about like focus and I specifically talked about the focus the company has in credit and you've kind of heard us and kind of understand the way we operate. And so, I would start by saying the company's focus and my focus on the organic businesses is extremely strong and the confidence that we have around the growth in those business is extremely strong. I would start there. Second thing I would say is, I do feel good about the concept and Sarah and I have worked like very closely on this.

Speaker 2

You said it two deals in 2024 with Ratefin and ICD, kind of three years excuse me, three deals in the sort of tenure of me as CEO. I think it's important to show the marketplace that we know how to do deals, we know how to integrate and we know how to assess value. I think those are important concepts. When we think about this, it's pretty basic. Is it a culture of a company that we not like that we love?

Speaker 2

And then is there a network out there? We're a network business and that's something hugely important to us. Is there a network out there that we can get through an acquisition? And I say this a lot like we have incredible technologists, but is there a piece of technology? Is there an algorithm?

Speaker 2

Is there something happening through technology that it's better for us to acquire? And so we look at it basically through those criteria, through that lens, culture, network and technology. And we feel like if it's as it was with the two assets in 2024, we feel like if those things add up for us, then we're going to have excitement around it. So I think doing something well gives you credibility, it gives you more opportunity. And I think it's been a pretty important thing for us as a company that has largely gotten here through our organic business to be able to do deals.

Speaker 2

And Sarah, you've been a very big part of that.

Speaker 3

I totally I mean, just building upon what you've said, I think our ambition provided that we think the strategic fit for these types of acquisitions is strong. We have ambition that isn't limited to just bolt on acquisitions, but we also have an extreme focus on being disciplined, particularly financially. So we've talked about financial metrics and the framework that matters to us, but we think the strategy, the culture, the expansion particularly around client networks are important. And financially, we're looking at acquisitions that really amplify what we're doing. So we're accretive to our earnings within a couple years and either helping accelerate growth or profitability.

Speaker 3

So I think that combination that Billy said is we are an ambitious company, but we want to feel the credibility to do things well and then we're going to be very disciplined about how we look at it. A great question, important topic. Thank you.

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And our next question will be coming from the line of Michael Cyprys of Morgan Stanley. Your line is

Speaker 10

open. Hey, thanks for squeezing me in here. Billy, you talked about emerging markets that's going to be a larger part of the growth story for Treba. Can you just talk about some of the initiatives and steps you're thinking about taking there to accelerate growth? How do you see this part of the business contributing over time?

Speaker 10

And what sort of products, countries you think could be most meaningful?

Speaker 2

Yes, absolutely good question. So like big believers in sort of start with strength and that's been from the beginning as we've thought about the EM world, that's been kind of start with what we're good at. So we want to start with the EM swaps, the EM rates world. But I think as we've done really well there, obviously, we are pretty focused on building out our presence in EM Credit, where we see some of the same tenants that we saw in The U. S.

Speaker 2

Around an appetite for competition in the space. So in an overall way, I would say we see our kind of emerging markets business as a multi product offering across rates and credit period. And so our emerging markets business is now I think it's run rating at a little bit over $60,000,000 annually, and those revenues are up about 85% year over year. So feeling good about the progress that we've made there, but obviously seeing a lot more possibility and potential in both the rates world in terms of electronifying that swaps world plus, I think the ability to deliver innovation and efficiency specifically speaking kind of in credit. That EM, we call it like that sort of like hard local currency provided close to 10% of that total EM revenue growth in 24%.

Speaker 2

So, plenty of room for us to go there and confidence that we're kind of on the right track. When we think about that sort of total addressable revenue opportunity, we see the overall kind of EM wallet as well over $1,000,000,000 And so those are big headline kind of numbers for us there. I think 20% of it is around that kind of EM interest rate swap business, maybe 40% of it comes from EM cash and then the rest of it kind of can come from the kind of China bond world. But it's a very big opportunity. It's something that as a company, again, I use the word focus, as a company we are focused on.

Speaker 2

We feel like we've made a lot of progress already on the swap side and the rate side there. Big continued push for us into EM credit. And good question and thank you for asking it. Great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 4

Thank you so much. We've run over on the call and we'd now like to turn the call over to Billy Holt for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Sure. Thank you all very much for joining us this morning. Great questions. As always, if you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to our great team, Ashley, Sameer. Have a great day.

Speaker 2

Enjoy the second feature of the movie. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you for joining today's conference call. You may all disconnect.

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Tradeweb Markets Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00