FactSet Research Systems Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
March 20, 2025

There are 17 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the FactSet Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press 11 on your telephone.

Operator

You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is phrased. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Yette He with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to FactSet's second fiscal quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. Before we begin, the slides we reference during this presentation can be found through the webcast on the Investor Relations section of our website at factset.com. A replay of today's call will be available on our website. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions from investors.

Speaker 1

The call is scheduled to last for one hour. To be fair to everyone, please limit yourself to one question. You may reenter the queue for additional follow-up questions, which we will take if time permits. Before we discuss our results, I encourage all listeners to review the legal notice on Slide two, which explains the risk of forward looking statements and the use of non GAAP financial measures. Additionally, please refer to our Forms 10 K and 10 Q for a discussion of risks, factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

Our slide presentation and discussions on this call will include certain non GAAP financial measures. For such measures, reconciliations to the most direct comparable GAAP measures are in the appendix to the presentation in our earnings release issued earlier today. During this call, unless otherwise noted, relative performance metrics reflect changes as compared to the respective fiscal twenty twenty four period. Also, consistent with the last quarter, please note that starting fiscal twenty twenty five, FactSet is reporting organic ASV rather than organic ASV plus professional services to focus on the recurring nature of our revenues. Joining me today are Phil Snow, Chief Executive Officer Helen Shan, Chief Financial Officer and Goran Scocco, Chief Revenue Officer.

Speaker 1

I will now turn the discussion over to Phil Snow.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Yed, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Before I begin, let me start by welcoming Kevin Toomey as our new Head of Investor Relations and thanking YET for serving in the role on an interim basis, maintaining strong investor engagement during the past six months, in addition to his role as Head of Corporate Development. Kevin brings to FactSet over two decades of experience in Investor Relations, Equity Research and Financial Markets and I look forward to working with him to continue growing our Investor Relations program. Now on to the results.

Speaker 2

In the second quarter, we grew organic ASV 4.1% year over year, delivering adjusted operating margin of 37.3% and adjusted diluted EPS of $4.28 We are encouraged by the positive momentum of deals progressing through the sales cycle this past quarter and have confidence that we are reaching an inflection point in ASV growth heading into the back half of the year. We anticipated a slow start to fiscal twenty twenty five and continue to operate in a challenging market environment. Lower CPI has resulted in a lower year over year annual price increase and softer results in asset management and banking masked the significant progress we made developing and executing against our pipeline during the quarter. While acknowledging there remains market uncertainty, I'm pleased with the strength of our pipeline and the product led innovation FactSet is bringing to the market. Our dialogue with clients continues to be constructive, positioning our business positively for the growth acceleration we anticipate in the second half of the year.

Speaker 2

With increased visibility into the remainder of the fiscal year, we are reaffirming the 5% midpoint of our organic ASV growth guidance and narrowing the range of anticipated top line outcomes. Helen will cover the rest of our revised guidance in more detail later in her remarks. Turning back to the second quarter, ASV retention remained greater than 95 and client retention was 91%. We grew our client base to over 8,600 led by an increase in corporates, wealth and partners and our used account increased to over 219,000 driven by our continued success in wealth. Starting with our performance by region.

Speaker 2

In The Americas, we grew organic ASV by 4%. Strength in wealth and hedge funds was offset by mixed results for asset managers, asset owners and partners where a few large losses masked the benefit of strategic seven figure wins. In EMEA, organic ASV growth was 3%. We're continuing to see momentum with hedge funds and PEVC firms in the region, but these gains were offset by erosion headwinds faced in the quarter. This trend was most notable in asset management and banking.

Speaker 2

In Asia Pacific we maintained 7% organic ASV growth driven by continued strong sales of data solutions particularly among wealth, corporates, hedge funds and PEVC firms. Now turning to our results from a firm type perspective. Wealth reaccelerated to double digit growth in the quarter lapping last year's large cancellation. We continue to gain market share with leading clients in wealth evidenced by UBS selecting FactSet to power their advisor desktops and client facing portal in The Americas. This is another example of an enterprise deal where our digital and technology capabilities are winning in the market, our differentiating Wealth Advisor solution and industry leading client service were key to this success.

Speaker 2

Implementation and rollout are expected to occur throughout the remainder of the year. With this latest win, FactSet is now the primary market data partner to half of the world's top 20 wealth management firms, including three of the four US wirehouses and three of the top five Canadian wealth managers. The opportunity for our Wealth business is global and we are seeing traction with clients outside North America. As we execute against our sales pipeline, I'm confident there is continued runway to extend our success both geographically and beyond the Advisor Desktop into the Wealth Home Office and adjacent workflows. Within dealmakers, while banking was a drag to growth, we still saw renewal activity increase notably in the quarter.

Speaker 2

We signed more than a dozen large banking renewals, securing multi year contracts on many of them to reinforce FactSet as a trusted partner and opening the opportunity for future upsells. We are confident FactSet's focus on workflow efficiency and total cost of ownership is top of mind for many of our banking clients. We launched PitchCreator midway through the quarter and already have a robust pipeline with more than 50 opportunities. Almost two dozen of our largest banking clients actively trialing a product and several of our clients in the latest stages of commercial negotiation. PitchCreator and our recently acquired Logo Intern solution are extending FactSet's lead empowering junior bankers by streamlining their daily workload.

Speaker 2

Clients are telling us they welcome the practical workhorse approach FactSet is taking to boost the productivity of their junior employees who are increasingly asked to do more in the current environment. We expect acceleration of our banking business in the second half of the year notwithstanding the more cautious sentiment and macro uncertainty of recent weeks. Outside of banking PEVC remains a bright spot with accelerated double digit growth in the second quarter. Corporates also added to growth fueled by the momentum from our Erwin acquisition in the first quarter. Within the institutional buy side, headwinds from cost rationalization and budget tightening persisted among our asset manager and asset owner clients.

Speaker 2

While retention pressured growth, particularly among active asset managers facing AUM outflows, the impact in the second quarter included a 7 figure cancel due to our proactive retirements of a legacy and bespoke solution that we are no longer supporting. As clients continue to cut costs and optimize headcount, our managed services offering is providing a natural hedge and an additional growth channel. We gained further momentum with a large 7 figure win displacing a legacy performance system with attached managed services to support the operational workflows of a leading asset management client. Edge funds were also a bright spot in the second quarter as we capitalized on fund launches, higher workstation retention and strong data solution sales. During the second quarter, we announced the acquisition of Liquidity Book to enhance FactSet's ability to serve the integrated workflow needs of our clients across the entire portfolio lifecycle.

Speaker 2

Adding Liquidity Book's technology forward OMS, free trade compliance and IBOR capabilities to our workstation enables us to more seamlessly link adjacent steps in the front office trade workflow. We are excited about the bi directional cross sell opportunities that we are already executing on and expect this acquisition to be immediately accretive to FactSet's growth. For partnerships and CGS, growth in the second quarter remains solid. We are seeing robust new business and expansion activity across multiple partner segments, particularly amongst index providers, exchanges and AI focused fintechs. Similar to last quarter, CGS benefited from the continued strong new issuance market across several asset classes.

Speaker 2

In summary, I want to reiterate that our number one priority is to drive top line growth. As we head into the second half of the fiscal year, we have increasing visibility into a robust sales pipeline and positive underlying momentum. Wealth will continue to be a growth engine. Not only are we gaining market share and extending our track record of success displacing the incumbent in this market, but we are also widening the aperture on the breadth of workflows our solutions can address. Leading clients are choosing FactSet to be their enterprise partner and we continue to receive validating feedback that our products and service levels are positive differentiators versus the competition.

Speaker 2

There is ample runway for accretive growth across our smaller firm types. The acquisitions of Erwin and Liquidity Book in recent months are already driving cross selling opportunities and pulling FactSet into higher volume, shorter sales cycle opportunities with corporates and hedge funds where client purchase decisions are more rapid. Additionally, Cobalt which we acquired a few years ago continues to open doors and position us to cross sell PEVC clients seeking enterprise solutions. Our banking products remain best in class strengthened by content investments across private markets, deep sector and fundamental data. Our clients consistently provide positive feedback on the breadth and quality of our data that we feel is a competitive advantage.

Speaker 2

We believe FactSet has the best banking product in the market and we continue to extend this lead with our focus on workflow productivity. In the past eighteen months we renewed more than a third of our banking ASV representing over 40% of banking users including more than half of our top 25 investment banking clients to multi year contracts limiting downside risk in the second half of the year and positioning FactSet to grow wallet share with our expanded enterprise data and workflow productivity solutions. For the institutional buy side, we are making steady progress driving clients engagement at the enterprise level with a focus on improving their total cost of ownership. Managed services and our expanded data solutions offering are contributing to a healthy second half pipeline and lowering the risk of large client cancellations. Our teams are intensely focused on capitalizing on FactSet's early mover status on GenAI products, executing our go to market strategies across our new and differentiated solutions, and mitigating the headwinds that pressured retention in the first half.

Speaker 2

We are well positioned to deliver on our mission to supercharge financial intelligence and I am confident in our path forward. I'll now turn it over to Helen to take you through our second quarter and first half twenty twenty five performance in more detail.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Phil, and hello to everyone on the call. Over the first two quarters of the fiscal year, we delivered solid financial and operating performance that sets us up for a strong second half as we previously guided. We utilized our balance sheet to acquire essential capabilities for our buy side, corporate and banking workflows while continuing to return capital to our shareholders. As Phil mentioned, we have a promising pipeline across all firm types, which should boost ASV in the remainder of the fiscal year. As a result, we have updated our fiscal twenty twenty five guidance by narrowing our organic ASV growth range to reflect our confidence in achieving the 5% midpoint.

Speaker 3

We are also reaffirming the ranges for adjusted operating margin and adjusted diluted EPS with our productivity and expense management efforts expected to absorb the dilution from recent acquisitions. More detailed information to follow, but first, I will review our quarterly results. Organic ASV grew by $19,600,000 in the quarter and 4.1% year over year. It is important to remember that our annual price increase partly depends on CPI, which has declined compared to last year, thus impacting the price increase for this fiscal year. We captured over $18,000,000 in price increases, primarily in The Americas versus $25,000,000 in the prior year, resulting in a nearly $7,000,000 headwind to ASV growth this quarter.

Speaker 3

GAAP revenues increased 4.5 year over year to $571,000,000 while organic revenues, which exclude foreign exchange movements and impact from acquisitions or dispositions over the past twelve months, increased 4% to $568,000,000 For our geographic segments, organic revenues grew by 4% in The Americas, 3 Percent in EMEA and 7% in Asia Pacific. GAAP operating expenses, which include one time non recurring items, rose 5.8% year over year to $385,000,000 This increase resulted from higher acquisition related professional fees and technology expenses, partly offset by lapping a one time restructuring charge in the prior year. Due to these factors, GAAP operating margin decreased by approximately 80 basis points to 32.5% compared to last year's second quarter. On an adjusted basis, operating expenses grew 6.3% and operating margin decreased 100 basis points year over year to 37.3%. This was primarily driven by a 31% increase in technology related spend due to higher cloud and software expenses and greater amortization of internal use software, reflecting our ongoing investment in generative AI.

Speaker 3

Technology costs accounted for over 10% of revenue in the quarter, up from 8% in the prior year. Employee expenses increased 3% year over year, primarily due to last year's lower bonus accrual. Excluding this factor, our employee expenses would have been flat to down year over year. People expenses are our largest cost category, constituting 40% of revenue, which is down nearly 60 basis points versus the prior year. By streamlining processes and utilizing automation, we continuously find ways to enhance workforce efficiency and maintain cost discipline while investing in strategic priorities.

Speaker 3

Third party content costs rose 7% year over year, but remain less than 5% of revenues, similar to the prior year's quarter. With increased data demand, we have actively managed this growth. For example, in the second quarter, we replaced several providers with our own self collected data. We not only reduce licensing fees we pay third parties, but also now offer superior content with full redistribution rates that align seamlessly with FactSet's proprietary identifiers. Real estate and related facilities expense decreased 6% year over year, staying under 3% of revenues, about 30 basis points lower than the prior year.

Speaker 3

Please refer to the appendix for today's earnings presentation for a more detailed expense walk from revenue to adjusted operating income. During the quarter, our cost of services as a percentage of revenue was higher year over year by approximately 50 basis points on a GAAP basis and more than 180 basis points on an adjusted basis, primarily due to higher technology expenses, partially offset by lower compensation expense. SG and A as a percentage of revenue was approximately 30 basis points higher year over year on a GAAP basis, primarily due to increased professional fees linked to acquisitions, offset by reduced bad debt expense. On an adjusted basis, SG and A was about 75 basis points lower after excluding one time non recurring items. Our GAAP effective tax rate in the second quarter was 15.9%, a decrease when compared to the 16.4% tax rate in the second quarter of last year.

Speaker 3

This change was mainly due to lower US tax on foreign earnings, partially offset by discrete items like reduced tax benefits from stock based compensation. Our GAAP diluted EPS increased $0.11 or 3 percent to $3.76 this quarter versus $3.65 in the same period last year, primarily due to higher revenue, partially offset by an increase in acquisition related professional fees and technology related expenses. Adjusted EPS increased by $0.06 or 1.4% to $4.28 EBITDA for the quarter grew 3.6% compared to the prior year period to $225,000,000 driven by higher net income. Free cash flow, which we define as cash generated from operations minus capital spending, was $150,000,000 in the second quarter, up 23% over the same period last year. This result was driven by positive working capital shifts due to decreased income tax payables and improved accounts receivable collections.

Speaker 3

Turning to return of capital to shareholders. In the quarter, we repurchased nearly 137,000 shares for approximately $64,000,000 at an average share price of $470.7 At fiscal quarter end, we had a capacity of $187,000,000 remaining under the $300,000,000 share repurchase authorization approved by our board of directors last September. Today, we paid a quarterly dividend of $1.04 per share to holders of record as of 02/28/2025. We remain diligent with our buyback program and are committed to delivering long term value to our shareholders. Combining dividends and share repurchases, we returned $392,000,000 to our shareholders over the last twelve months.

Speaker 3

At the end of the second quarter, we paid off the remaining principal of the $1,000,000,000 term loan we took out for our CGS acquisition three years ago. We funded the recent liquidity book acquisition with new borrowings under our revolving credit facility with $480,000,000 drawn at quarter end. Our gross leverage ratio was 1.7 times consistent with our aim to maintain investment grade ratings. Finally, we remain confident in our second half top line acceleration and are reaffirming the 5% midpoint of our prior guidance on organic ASV growth. We are also narrowing our ASV growth range by adjusting both the top and bottom ends of the range by $10,000,000 to $100,000,000 to $130,000,000 reflecting a growth rate range of approximately 4.4% to 5.8%.

Speaker 3

Our guidance for revenue is now a range of $2,305,000,000 to $2,325,000,000 a $20,000,000 increase from our previous guidance. The change factors in the expected impact for the rest of the year from our recent acquisitions of Erwin in November, liquidity book in February and logo intern in early March. Based on our solid performance and conscientious cost management in the first half, we are maintaining our guidance range for adjusted operating margin at 36% to 37% and adjusted diluted EPS at $16.8 to $17.4 This decision illustrates our ability to mitigate the modest margin and EPS dilution from the aggregate impact of our recent acquisitions. On a GAAP basis, we expect operating margin in the range of 32% to 33% and EPS to be between $14.8 to $15.4 for the year. This decrease from prior guidance of 50 basis points and $0.3 respectively reflect one time non recurring expenses incurred in connection with these acquisitions.

Speaker 3

The guidance range for our effective tax rate remains unchanged between 17% to 18%. As Phil indicated, our teams are well equipped to deliver second half growth. We have clearer visibility into our pipeline strength based on our increased breadth of solutions and growing client interest in our Gen AI solutions. We will continue to leverage our expense base and invest smartly, focusing on differentiated products and internal efficiencies. We anticipate higher expenses in the second half for planned Gen AI and infrastructure projects alongside go to market initiatives to further boost pipeline volume and quality over the next twelve months.

Speaker 3

In conclusion, we are prioritizing ASV growth, operational focus and strategic capital allocation to enable FactSet to deliver sustainable long term value for shareholders. And with that, we are now ready for your questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Our first question comes from the line of Kelsey Xu with Autonomous. Your line is now open.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I know I want to start with a J and A question. I think in this space, Faxa definitely has a first mover advantage. And I was wondering if you can provide more colors around the traction you've been gaining with clients, especially when it comes to Pitch Creator and some of the other Gen AI products that you piloted before.

Speaker 4

And how are you thinking about the pricing for these products and how receptive are clients to add those FM additional service and not as part of the current subscription?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Kelsey. It's, Phil. I'll start and I think Goran may have some, extra words to say here. So, yeah, we're pleased with the momentum. You know, we're well on our way to, getting to the 30 to 50 bps that we spoke about in terms of monetizing, these assets this year.

Speaker 2

And we've got six SKUs now that, you know, we've sold and and are out there and more coming. I would say the one, SKU that sort of got the most momentum is pitch Creator, which I spoke about in my opening comments. So very good reception from the banks, obviously sitting on top of, you know, the best banking product in the industry already. So this has been very exciting for us. And during the quarter, you know getting a logo intern was a was a nice little ad there to kind of to put into the product so it's just been released we had tons of people trialing it giving us feedback but I do think we're now on the cusp of being able to monetize that more seriously as we get into Q3 and Q4.

Speaker 2

I would say the second SKU that we've got the most traction on is the conversational API. So that's really taking, the ability to take, you know, what you can do in FactSet to search with AI capabilities and plugging it into your own environment. And we're seeing reset receptivity for that across all phone types. So there are many firms, particularly the larger ones, that want to control, the research environment and combine the best of, you know, something like FactSet with their own data that sometimes they're reluctant to release out to anyone, and maybe some other sources. So that's going really well.

Speaker 2

And then we are beginning to monetize portfolio commentary. That has been a bit slower, although what we've done is we've packaged that together with a bunch of other things that are, you know, a bit more sort of usage based for the buy side. So we think that's going to be a good approach. People love the product. I think they're waiting for all the asset classes in some cases to be filled out.

Speaker 2

We've done equity risk, but we have begun to sell it. So those are the three today. And we're coming out with some other SKUs in Q3 and Q4, but I guess I'll pause there. Goran, do you wanna add?

Speaker 5

Yeah. Just, to add a couple of things. You know, one is clients are reacting very well to the pricing structure that we have put in place. Certainly are realizing productivity gains from the, from the products that we have launched in particular, you know, pitch creator. We have almost two dozen active trials and, and late stages of negotiation with a number of, of, of large of larger clients.

Speaker 5

We are also, you know, helping clients drive their internal initiative via conversational API, as well as as as well as vectorized data packages that are ready for call for clients to implement in their own environment. So all of those solutions are resonating well and as is as is our pricing structure for those.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shlomo Rosenbaum with Stifel. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Hi. Thank you. Phil, it sounds like your tone is definitely getting better as the year goes on. And what I'm trying to understand is if you could parse out, is the environment getting better? Or do you feel like the company is doing better in an environment that's not really changing that much with all the proactive items that you guys have been doing?

Speaker 6

So, I guess, it sounds like the grading sheets have been turning greener and I guess I'm looking for the reasons for it just to to understand how you guys are are progressing.

Speaker 2

Yeah. We'll tag team that. So I appreciate that you've recognized my tone is improving. Thanks, Shlomo. Yes.

Speaker 2

So I think what we feel really good about is, I think we've de risked all of the big rocks for the year, basically. So we now have visibility, on almost all of those. And I think a lot of the things that we were battling for, in terms of the bigger renewals and so on, I think of, you know, the majority of those have fallen our way. So I think we feel good about sort of where we stand there. And then I think we're seeing, we're definitely seeing strength across, every market.

Speaker 2

So I would say The Americas, Europe, and Asia, all look like they're going to come in, you know, they're going to accelerate in the second half, if the pipeline proves out. And then we're seeing really good I think resurgence in asset management so the the environment is not getting any easier that's for sure but I do think that we're really beginning to see some real progress at selling at the enterprise level you know on the buy side I really want to talk to kind of performance reporting the managed services which I know you've asked about that continues to do well our feeds business which decelerated a bit over the last year or two is having a really strong comeback so it's not just the real time and reference data feeds that we've released more recently but our benchmark data feeds are doing really well and and some of our core data is doing well also. And you know the smaller firm types are doing great like hedge funds, private equity, corporates, you know, and wealth obviously they're growing at a high clip. And what I want to stress is we're not relying on banking for the numbers that we talked about you know today and the narrowing of the range so banking's tough I don't think that you know the environment's getting in you know any more there's not more deals coming to market I think we saw that in January and February so we're not relying on some beta from the banking business to hit the numbers that we spoke about today if that comes through that'll be great that'll be a tailwind for us Goran you want to add anything

Speaker 5

Yeah. Just in addition to everything Phil said about the buy side improvement, I think in addition to our traditional strength and the middle office solutions, performance solutions, we're also seeing improvement and are quite pleased with activity in in EMS space with our Portware solution as well as our front office solutions are gaining more and more traction. Last in the buy side, I think the liquidity book really helps us, you know, complete the the PLC life cycle. It makes us the go to for consolidation for our, you know, for hedge fund and smaller to mid size, you know, buy side clients. So we're quite excited about that.

Speaker 5

It creates a cross sell opportunity for us of FactSet solutions and, as Helen said, in a bi directional cross sell opportunity. So, you know, we're excited about the second half. See, you know, there is there is, you know, a lot lot in front of us, and we have the tools to do it.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Kramm with UBS. Your line is now open.

Speaker 7

Yes. Hey, good morning, everyone. Just actually to follow-up on the last question. Phil, you just mentioned you're not relying on banking or the sell side, but obviously there is a range. So maybe you can be a little bit more specific.

Speaker 7

Does that mean you don't need banking to pick up to hit the low end? Or are you talking about the midpoint? Because clearly post election, there was a lot of enthusiasm about capital markets picking up and then hiring picking up, and clearly, that continues to get pushed out. So it should continue to be a swing factor. So just want to figure out where exactly does that swing factor lie in your guidance range?

Speaker 2

Thanks. Yes. So I think we've been fairly conservative in sort of what we've put in the pipeline in terms of banking hiring. So that's in our numbers. I think the bright spot is definitely pitch creative, so that could actually you know, help them.

Speaker 2

Goran, what do you want to say

Speaker 5

here? So as Phil said, I think what we are what we are baking in for our midpoint in terms of guidance is really, you know, slightly lower or, you know, even headcount compared to the last year. So there is no there is no upside in those numbers that we are that we are counting on. I think it would be a swing towards higher, higher, higher end of the range.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Faiza Alway with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Speaker 8

Yes. Hi. Thank you. I had a couple of quick questions about, you know, ASV in the quarter. One, just for avoidance of doubt, I want to make sure is the UBS Vault deal included in the ASV this quarter?

Speaker 8

And, if you could help quantify that, that would be helpful. And then just secondly, you talked about the proactive retirement of legacy solution. Maybe if you can help quantify that also and if there's any sort of are there any more you know, legacy contracts like that or products that are expected to be retired, whether it's this particular product or something else in in the future? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Hi, Faiza. It's it's it's Goran. So, you know, it's a couple of things. Absent the lower price increase that, that, you know, that we implemented, this quarter and, and couple strategic, deals to be proactively canceled, you know, we would have actually seen acceleration in the quarter. So, you know, there is no further retirement of the products that we are planning on for for for the rest of the year.

Speaker 5

So you've already seen the impact of that in, in in q two. Back to your question about the UBS deal, you know, we signed the contract in the quarter. We are thrilled with it. You know, it's another strategic win for the fastest growing segment of of our portfolio. So, you know, we are we're quite pleased with it.

Speaker 5

I think it speaks to the strength of the project product. We purely want this on on on a better product, you know, product suite, really. And, you know, it enables us to further expand this relationship as we, you know, as the years progress. Implementation of it will will take place throughout, you know, the next five or six months. You know, I think we will be starting that in the in the in the quarter three in in in q three.

Speaker 5

It's a, you know, very strategic win for us. We we love our position in that space, and it really position us to land and expand as we expand additional services to all of these, clients in the markets here we have won over the last few years.

Speaker 2

So, yeah, Faiza, just to add on. So, yes, it is it was booked in q two. The users for UBS, won't come through until the next quarter or '2 as we roll it out. So, you know, the ASV that we captured, at least in the initial stages of UBS, is not part of the second half where we, you know, we see like a really robust pipeline so that, you can model that out.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ashish Sabadra with RBC. Your line is now open.

Speaker 9

Thank you for the question. Just wanted to clarify the pricing in the quarter. So there was a reference to lower CPI weighing on pricing. So I was just wondering if you could provide any color on pricing versus pricing realization for existing deal versus new and renewals, any color on that front? And then similarly on international, should we expect similar pressure on the international pricing in the third quarter as well?

Speaker 9

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Hey, Ashish, it's Helen. I'll take that one. So thank you for clarifying your thoughts there. Our standard contracts include annual price increases based on the higher of CPI or RPI or 3%. So our guidance range does reflect the lower inflation rate versus last year.

Speaker 3

So we expect the international price increases to align proportionally to that what we've seen in The Americas. We do adjust rate cards throughout the year. So in January, we activated on that. We actually raised global rate cards depending on the package. And we've seen higher price realization in certain firm types like corporates and hedge funds, also along with street account.

Speaker 3

On new business, we are seeing price realization slightly lower year over year, but the volume is up nearly 25%. So driving our total ASV from new business up nearly 10%. So that reflects, our positioning and taking more market share. So we do believe in the sort of land and expand type of strategy. So these impacts will come through our renewals and new business that's separate from the annual price increase.

Speaker 3

So the annual price increase is expected to be lower than last year, but we're capturing additional ASV either through higher pricing via rate cards or through higher quantity in new business.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Manav Patnaik with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Speaker 10

Good morning. This is Brendan on for Manav. Just wanted to ask on the margin guide given I believe you guys have already talked about tech costs going up quite a bit this year, I think 25%. And then obviously if the acquisitions coming in some costs there. It seems like the people cost has to be held down, I guess, net of those acquisitions quite a bit to get to the midpoint.

Speaker 10

And normally, we can see those float up a little bit throughout the year. So I guess what you mentioned some efficiency programs, some initiatives, I guess, any color on what you guys are doing and how to kind of bridge to the midpoint?

Speaker 3

Sure. I'll take that one as well. Thanks for the question. So, yes, we have seen in this quarter, this half, the way we've benefited from lower people costs despite sort of higher year on year comparison, because last year there was a change in that bonus accrual. Without this though, the adjusted people expenses would have been lower.

Speaker 3

So we're actively managing that. We've got mix that continues to float that way. We are managing our content and technology costs as well, including having vendor credits and cancellations of contracts, which I mentioned in my earlier remarks. And we're also seeing some benefit in the first half on FX, which is also helping us as well. So those are those are the things that are helping on, on the on the first half.

Speaker 3

We'll expect to see a ramp up in expenses in the second half, as we prioritize strategic investments. The tech costs, like you said, are gonna continue to ramp up in Gen AI and the infrastructure. And our go to market, we're actually going to put more money in to really build the pipeline in the next twelve months. And we're not we're not looking for FX benefit either. So that's really how we're coming through.

Speaker 3

And absolutely, the benefit here is that we're able to absorb the dilution that comes from the acquisitions, which is about 40 to 50 basis points.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Owen Lau with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Speaker 11

Hi, good morning and thank you for taking my questions. So I have a follow-up with the previous question about the data and fits business and sales. So is it fair to say that the market uncertainty actually helps your data fit business because people want more data, people want more kind of information, that's why that part of the business outperformed compared to your initial expectation. And then the M and A part, it looks like it cooled down a little bit, so that's why, you know, you can still maintain the, like full year ASV guidance or narrow to like a narrower range? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yeah, maybe I'll start. So I think FactSet always does very well, you know, through all types of cycles. So we, you know, will manage through whatever market we're in. I'm not sure that, you know, that's the main reason for the data feed, you know, predicted growth or growth. I think a lot of a lot more of it has to do with us becoming increasingly an enterprise partner for our clients.

Speaker 2

So we're selling at the top of the house. Very often now, we're constructing agreements where clients can, really take value from fax at any way they want, whether it's through the desktop, analytics, an API, GenAI, some other provider. So that all feeds into that. And again, I think the fact that we've released some new products here, is super exciting. So, Goran, I don't know if you wanna talk a little bit more about the feeds, and then we'll come back to your, acquisition question.

Speaker 5

Yeah. So just just to follow-up on what one what Phil said, it is the quality of our content that's really driving the improvement in in in our numbers in the data feed business as well. We have put some more sales focus on it, but I think there is a high demand for high quality data, by hedge funds, by other players in by by other players in the industry. But also as you see all of these new tech startups that are, you know, that are really AI focused, you know, I think our best of breed data is really the the fuel that drives that entire their entire development and potential growth. So we are focused on developing partnerships that we think will will help us in the future.

Speaker 5

There is higher demand for our our data in traditional business as well With the development of our real time, data feeds, exchange data feeds, as well as our security master offering, we are seeing more and more success. We do have a superior delivery and superior technological solutions for our clients that really improve the efficiency of their operation as they switch to, you know, to to our products. That's evidenced by a number of wins in this quarter. We had about four or five that were very specific to some of the hardest to deliver Exchange data feed sets in particular options. We're quite pleased pleased with that progress, and we believe that the data feed business will be a driver of our success for the rest of the year and going forward.

Speaker 9

And maybe

Speaker 3

I can just add one other piece that we're beginning to see, growth in, which is our data management services piece, which is, where we're helping clients be able to concord not only our data, but also with the client data. And that's quite difficult. And that is largely done through technology with some people, services as well. So that is a very profitable service for us. And we expect to see that continue to grow going forward.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Owen, you asked about, M and A. And I and I do think, you know, the two or three things that we've done, you know, this fiscal year are really gonna help. They're smaller, but there's so many great synergies and cross sell opportunities for the team. So the, you know, the liquidity book acquisition, which we just announced, you know, when we acquired it was about 22,000,000 of ASV.

Speaker 2

ON previously was about 9. And that, you know, liquidity book comes with around 170 clients. I would say more than half of those are hedge funds, but there's also sort of a healthy group of clients. There's a sell side offering, and then there's a great opportunity for us to serve kind of the middle of the bell curve in the buy side for those firms that need, you know, the entire portfolio life cycle from FactSet. So this is really the missing piece and combining the OMS and the IBOR, you know with Faxuty EMS and some of our other portfolio managing capabilities really does open up a lot more market for us you know with a lot of our existing clients so we couldn't be more excited it also comes with a fixed network I think that was probably in the press release but there's some great synergies that we expect to capture from that as well.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Nicholas with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Speaker 12

Hi, good morning and thanks for taking my question. I wanted to double back to the commentary on wealth, in particular, ASV growth accelerated, some big wins there and you talked about your strong share within the top 20. Can you help outline maybe what the land and expand strategy has skewed towards on a go forward basis within that market? Is it adding additional services to existing clients? Is it selling additional users within those contracts, new regions?

Speaker 12

I'm just trying to understand kind of where, the growth opportunities are once you have signed up, as many flagship clients as you have at this point? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Okay. Hi. It's Goran. I will take that. So all of the above.

Speaker 5

You know, I think we certainly see, opportunity for regional expansions expansion. We have done very well in The Americas. We have made good progress in Europe, and we are focusing on kind of what we have done in US and Canada, really, you know, copying that to, you know, to our to what we are doing in in Europe. Particularly, we're focused on Switzerland and UK's to growth markets for us in the near future and then further expansion in in in Asia as well. Asia is growing, you know, quite nicely for us, and we see see those geographic opportunities as significant.

Speaker 5

We do see opportunities for more users, especially in the home office and replacing some of the higher end terminals. So that is another area of focus, and we have been actually quite successful there. But then, you know, what the real, you know, extension of our strategy is layering on additional services to to support additional workflows or our clients. You know, for example, you know, we we supported their business development with with some of, some some of our lead generation tools that we have recently launched, and they are resonating quite quite well in the market. And then all of the other, you know, portfolio management workflows that our clients undertake are other areas that we are building for and expanding into.

Speaker 5

I hope that answers your question.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners LLC. Your line is now open.

Speaker 2

Can't hear you. I don't know if that's on our side or your side.

Speaker 13

Can you hear me here?

Speaker 2

Yes, we can now, yes, if you could speak up.

Speaker 13

Okay. I'm not sure what happened there. Coming into this decade, I recall you guys announced a large three year internal investment program with a goal of accelerating your organic revenue growth to the high single digits and it successfully worked as you recall. You had high single digit growth for two plus years and stuff. And now you're I think you talked about 31% increase in technology spend.

Speaker 13

Now, are you anticipating a significant ramp up in your organic revenue growth because of these internal investment spending here as you think out over the next couple of years? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Hey, Greg, it's Helen. Let me try to answer that one. So when we talked about this at our Investor Day, as you know, in our three year plan, we plan to be in that mid to high single digits. And the investments that we're making in technology is to help support that. So there's no specific additional large investment plan that we had done, that you rightfully said, back in 2019, '20 '20.

Speaker 3

This is part of our consistent, investment back into the business in technology and GenAI and funding that through rationalization of cost of our, of our existing client existing expense base.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of George Tong with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Speaker 14

Thanks. Good morning. In light of the recent market downturn and volatility, can you talk a little bit more about changes you're seeing with buy side budgets and broader sales cycles, especially among large asset managers and asset owners?

Speaker 2

Sure. Hey George, it's Phil. So, yeah, I don't think we're really seeing much of a change, at least not yet. So, I think we've been working, you know, through, like a great period of uncertainty for a number of years. And the pressures that are on the buy side in terms of the shift from active to passive obviously are not new.

Speaker 2

So I just I think that probably is the forcing function, honestly. So we're addressing that with, you know, the enterprise solutions we have, the generative AI offerings. Yes, it could be choppy, but again, I think we're very resilient through these markets and, you know, we've built a very strong pipeline for the second half. A lot of that is the buy side and we don't anticipate that the current market environment could influence that pipeline that strongly.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Speaker 15

Thanks so much. I wanted to go back to the price increase. You mentioned, you know, the CPI being the lower CPI being a driver there. And so I guess when I was doing the calculation, I was getting about 2% price increase versus roughly 3% last year. That obviously does impact the organic ASV growth, and puts pressure on that.

Speaker 15

But you are, it sounds like, aiming for inflection here. And so is it is your confidence coming from your strong pipeline in deals? It sounds like the international price increase you're expecting to be sort of similar to U. S, so that probably doesn't help that much. So is it the pipeline or is there something you know, that that is really gonna drive this inflection higher in the organic ASV?

Speaker 15

And maybe, competitive environment might might be relevant here as well if if that's a factor. Thanks.

Speaker 5

Tony, it's, it it it's Goran. So there's a number of factors that, you know, I think we can point to is, you know, point point in time, our booked ASV is actually quite a bit higher year over year, you know, and as compared to 2024 and 2023. So that gives us quite a bit of confidence. The pipeline is better, again, compared to the both, to the both years. And in terms of our selling environment, we see it more equivalent to 2023 than 2024.

Speaker 5

We have better visibility into the downside for us. And as Phil and Helen mentioned, you know, we do not see any any large any material losses in the second half. So the year over year retention will improve in the second half, and we have a very solid and diverse pipeline. So what we are quite happy with is that that pipeline represents, you know, large 7 figure deals, but also those mid sized deals that are easier to execute on. So that all of that gives us confidence that, you know, that we will that we are the inflection point for, for the organic growth for the rest of the year.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Speaker 12

Hey, good morning. This is Ryan on for Jeff. We talked in the past about selling more into the tech budgets. We're just wondering what type of sensitivity that has seen as the macro is unwound a bit compared to what you might see in the financial services and market data budgets? And then just more broadly, how have clients conversations and sales cycles been trending over the last few weeks?

Speaker 12

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Well, I'll start. So, yeah, so I think selling into the tech budgets is good. I think everyone, including ourselves, is investing very heavily in technology as we, you know as we sort of transition to a new paradigm I think in terms of how we're all going to be working over the next few years so I think we've got you know good data to support that you know some of the deals that we're going out there and selling aren't always into the market data budget, which is, you know, the one that not surprisingly has been under a bunch of pressure. And I'm not sure that we've seen much of a change in the last few weeks.

Speaker 5

So on, on the, so the question was specific to the sell side and, in the, we are not seeing much of a change. I think clients, you know, do appreciate, you know, we have best of breed products. And I think some of the, you know, in general, I think lots of the conversations are about our GenAI tools in that space, and the conversations have been have been good. I will just add, you know, we are having, you know, we are having, you know, that level of c level tech technical discussions with some of the clients. And some of the larger deals in the second half will come from the tech tech technological budget rather than traditional market data.

Speaker 5

So that's definitely shifting more and more as as clients invest more and more in in, in their Gen AI, efforts.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jason Haas with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Speaker 16

Hey, good morning and thanks for taking my question. So there was a nice uptick in the client count growth year over year. But then on the flip side, it looks like the amount of users per client declined for the first time in a while. So I wasn't sure what was causing that dynamic, if it was M and A or something or maybe the type of clients that you're bringing on. So if you could explain that, that'd be helpful.

Speaker 16

Thank you.

Speaker 5

So I'll take that. You know, so I think, you know, we have seen a significant uptick in private equity in terms of, you know, the the clients we're bringing on. Those are usually a smaller number of users for us. So, you know, I think both competitively and in terms of our pricing and packaging as well as the improvement in the private markets product, we're seeing more success there. So that is really what is impacting the number of users per client that you're seeing this quarter.

Speaker 2

I think it may also, be a be a function of we put in, all of the clients from the Erwin acquisition this quarter. So that thing that was a few hundred clients. Right?

Speaker 3

Yes. And, you know, there's a little bit of continued integration, so the users were not included. So that might be driving your number there as well.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Surinder Thind with Jefferies LLC. Your line is now open.

Speaker 14

Thank you.

Speaker 16

It sounds like the confidence

Speaker 14

in the second half comes from the fact or part of it is just not having as much renewal activity. And it sounds like you've gone through a really solid period where you've seen some really good strength in your renewals. Have you guys been more proactive about trying to get ahead of deals before renewal cycles? Or do we just happen to go through a renewal cycle where maybe there is just a lot more elevated activity or renewals coming up in the past a little bit? Just trying to understand the forward cadence and how we should think about renewals and risk in the cycle at this point in time.

Speaker 14

And if just clients maybe are trying to take advantage of pricing at this point and so you just they themselves have been pushing for more renewals.

Speaker 5

So I think what you're seeing in the current cycle is really related to the contract expiration dates. Going forward, I think we're being a lot more organized around renewals. We are, you know, I think we spoke about this during our investor investor day and are creating as we have a very large number of clients now, you know, we are we are creating playbooks for renewals. We're being proactive, you know, wherever we can. We are trying to get ahead of those renewals and renew renew them prior to the expiration date.

Speaker 5

So we're trying to make sure that we have a, you know, better dispersion of renewals across the entire year rather than them being bunched up. So all of that is something that we are paying lots of attention to in terms of our sales operations and how we're addressing those health.

Speaker 3

Yeah. And as Goran mentioned, to get your point on pricing, for example, the dozen large banking renewals that we that we completed, all of them were either flat or up. And in aggregate, they were up. So it is not a case where we're sacrificing price, in terms of total ASV per contract, to to be able to renew it. But as as Goran talked about at our investor day, retention is a huge focus of ours.

Speaker 3

And, I think you're seeing some of the benefits from that.

Speaker 2

I'm not gonna be able to stop myself here. So a lot of what we talked about today with these banking renewals, we have an amazing banking product. So we've always had the best product in the industry, and we're leaning into the technology part of this with Pitch Creator. But we've also made a massive investment in data over the last five years or so. So we continue to build out, you know, fact, the core facts at fundamental data and the other data, but our investment in private company data has been significant.

Speaker 2

We've, I think, gone from like three or 4,000,000 to almost nine or nine plus million private companies with much higher quality data. And we're not relying now on some third party sources. We're doing a lot of this ourselves because we can do it better. And then the deep sector initiative that we started in '19, that's, that's a long road, but that's beginning to pay off. So I just want to really stress, like for our banking clients, you know, the the combination of the technology, the integration with office, the Gen AI work we're doing, as well as the data is just such a powerful combination.

Speaker 2

And obviously it's a lot to do with, the banks wanting to renew with FactSet. So I think that's the last question. Thank you for joining us today in closing our solid financial performance and disciplined execution against our full year pipeline in the first two quarters of this year has positioned us well for the acceleration we anticipate in the second half. Thanks for all the great questions today and we'll see you next quarter. Operator, that ends today's call.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
FactSet Research Systems Q2 2025
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