Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Lynn Martin: And then just to follow that up, this is Lynn. On the macro side, we’ve seen re-engagement on the fixed income fund side of the business with the amount of fixed income funds having increased by about 7% versus the prior year, which again, makes us incredibly well positioned given the suite of assets that we have both on the end of day pricing, the reference data, the years of history there, plus on the more modern tools that we have rolled out to the market like CEP, where we see continued strong adoption and continued strong demand. And then obviously, the fixed income index business that I referenced earlier in my comments.

Operator: Our next question comes from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Craig Siegenthaler: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Our question is on the acceleration and ASV in the fixed income business. We’re curious which channels are driving upside to wins. Has there been any noticeable changes in attrition? And how will this translate into future revenue growth?

Warren Gardiner: Hey, Craig, it’s Warren. So, I think Chris and Lynn just covered kind of what we were seeing on the customer front. That’s a big part of why you’re seeing that pickup in ASV in the fixed income, and data and analytics business. And so, we’ve seen pretty stable retention trends. We’re seeing an improvement in the sales cycle. We’re seeing, as I said in the prepared remarks, more of a reengagement from the customer base within the fixed income ecosystem around those products whether it’s the pricing and reference data business or the index business. And that’s really a big reason of why we’re seeing the improvement there. And it’s really, as we spoke to you guys throughout the course of last year, we were having some pressures on that business.

We mentioned that it was because we had a really sharp move higher in interest rates. There was sort of a period of time there, where customers were sitting on their hands trying to sort of licking their wounds, if you will, in a way. And now that we’ve seen somewhat of a stabilization here at these kinds of interest rates, fixed income becomes a really attractive asset class. I think that’s a lot of the reason you’re seeing that reengagement, you’re seeing fund growth, you’re seeing index purchases, things of that nature that’s really starting to help that business pick up versus, where it was a couple of quarters ago.

Operator: The next question comes from Kyle Voigt with KBW. Please go ahead.

Kyle Voigt: Thanks for taking my question. Maybe, just on the Exchange segment, I think the recurring revenues there were flat. and I think only 1% growth from the dating connectivity side. I guess, are you still expecting low single-digit growth in recurring fees for the full year in that segment? And then if so, is that dependent on the IPO environment opening up further or would you expect some acceleration in the data and connectivity line into the back half of the year that could still drive full-year growth into that low single-digit range?

Warren Gardiner: Hey, Kyle, it’s Warren. So, yes, we still expect that to be in the low single-digit range. Really, what happened this quarter, I mentioned a little bit in my prepared remarks was more on the New York Stock Exchange data side; where in the prior year, we had the administrative tape C kind of overbilled people and our allocation was a little bit higher. So, we had to reverse some of that in the Q1. You’ll see revenue in the Q2 pick back up as that kind of is no longer the case for us. And so, I think you start to see a little bit better growth as we kind of move to the balance of the year within that segment, because the underlying trends there are still the same as what we’ve been seeing in the last couple of quarters.

Certainly, on the exchange data side things are positive. We’re seeing some momentum in listings for sure. but at the same time, there is M&A, there is still an element of de-listings on the SPAC side that’s weighing a little bit. So, to get to that low single digit, I don’t think you necessarily need to see a big acceleration in listings. But certainly, we are seeing some positive things that I think are encouraging on that front. And then I think the trends on the exchange data side particularly on the future side, I think, will continue to be strong through the balance of the year.

Kyle Voigt: Great. Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Brian Bedell: Great. thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe, just a two-parter on mortgage for Warren and Ben. Just on the guidance for the segment, maybe, just your view on the trend of recurring revenue throughout the year as we progress sequentially each quarter. Just generally, the trend given the pullback in some of the renewals, the Black Knight servicing headwinds contrasted with and this links into probably Ben. but contrasted with the really good progress you’re making on the new business wins. And then if you could update us on the — I think you were at $30 million out of the $125 million revenue synergy goal at the end of fourth quarter. If you could update that number on a run rate basis?

Warren Gardiner: That sounds like three questions, Brian.

Brian Bedell: Sorry.

Warren Gardiner: I’ll take one and three, Brian. Ben will take two. So, I think towards the higher end of the total — of the range for total revenue. We’re talking about originations down more in the higher single-digit — mid-to-high single digit range versus 2023, which was also by the way the worst year for originations in probably about 30 years. I think you’d expect recurring revenues to be down a little bit year-over-year. I mean renewals will come in a little bit — will be under a little bit of pressure, continue to be under a little bit of pressure. I would imagine decisions get pushed out a little bit, things of that nature. Towards the higher end, I think flat to maybe potentially a little bit softer versus last year’s fair and really for the same reasons, which is not really to the same magnitude that you would see probably in the higher single-digit range, if you will, on that front.

So, look, I think importantly, through all of this and what’s kind of driving some of this is just uncertainty across this asset class, uncertainty across a number of asset classes. And that uncertainty is helping to propel a lot of growth in other areas of our business. We’ve seen some better trends in both bonds. we’ve seen better trends in CDS in April. Obviously our futures business is doing really well. And so, this mortgage is part of a bigger and broader business that is proven to continue to compound through a lot of different environments. And I think that will continue to be the case despite what is kind of a really a generational low in industry origination bonds for the mortgage market at the moment. Quickly just on the revenue synergies, we continue to make progress there.

As we said, we’re sort of around that $30 million or so range last quarter. We continue to make progress on that front. We’ll give you guys more of an update as we kind of move into closer to next year though.

Benjamin Jackson: Okay. And I’ll pick up on some of the comments that I made earlier around sales. So, we continue to have great sales success. We’re really happy with the success that we’re having with our clients and the fact that even in this environment and I use the analogy, the tides out. we’re so pleased to see that clients right now are making investments at this point in time, to be able to better position them when the tide comes in and when volumes start to return that they don’t have to just throw bodies to the business in a very inefficient way that they can actually leverage technology and automation that we’re providing to help them grow. So, we’re very pleased in what we’re seeing there. We’re actually using it as also Brian as an opportunity to help our clients.

So, I’ll give you an example. In our DNA business, we had some noise in our DNA line, this past quarter, where we had some clients that were legacy clients of our data and document automation platform that were not on encompass and they were struggling in terms of volumes and in this environment. We took it as an opportunity to restructure their agreement to in some cases get them onto encompass coupled with DDA. so that they can get the full value that that combined solution provides by having the loans originated on Encompass and then the automation capabilities to flow straight through, because we have wedded that DDA platform directly into the Encompass platform. So, we’re using it as an opportunity that even though we now have to implement that client, it’s going to take time to get them implemented.

From a strategic perspective, we’re in a much better situation with that client to continue to grow with them and provide value to that client going forward. And that example is specifically, Citizens Bank as they’re now on encompass, they have the DDA platform and they have MSP as a complete front-to-back solution set for them. So, we’re using it as an opportunity for clients as well.

Brian Bedell: Okay. That’s good color. Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, Alex.

Alex Blostein: Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you for the question. I wanted to pivot a little bit, maybe focus on the energy markets for a couple of minutes. And specifically, just zoning in an oil, now volatility has been a little bit more conducive to the environment here. But it looks like the open interest has been growing really nicely north of 20% or so year-over-year. So, a couple of questions here, I guess, what is driving, I guess, the accelerated growth in oil for you guys across the board? It’s not just Brent and WTI, but it seems a little bit broader. And then how do you think about the sort of the structural versus cyclical benefits in that market? Are we in a kind of higher run rate growth from here? And if so, why? And maybe, you can just expand out sort of the sources of growth there? Thanks.

Benjamin Jackson: Thanks, Alex. It’s Ben. And for us, we see it as a long-term growth trend for us to answer the tail end of that question that you asked there. Because in our view, the trends within energy broadly, as well as within oil specifically are still that there’s been under investment in legacy energy infrastructure. The markets are still electronifying. The market wants the efficiency that that can be provided by the electronification. You have energy markets that are more global. Supply chains are continuing to evolve. Clients want more precision in their ability to manage risk at the points of production and consumption and the world’s moving more green. So, you have that confluence of issues and we’ve been managing our portfolio across energy as a portfolio that helps to solve all of those problems.

So, we’ve built deep liquid products across our gas business, hundreds of locations and benchmark products within our gas business. We’ve done the same exact thing within our oil business, and we’ve done the same thing in our environmental business. So there’s a relationship between all of those that we think is strong. And you can’t discount that as an underlying thing that’s growing our overall complex, because customers want to manage all this risk in one place. So we continue to be very well positioned. You have Brent as the cornerstone of this business. I went through in my prepared remarks and we’ve talked about a lot of the innovation that we’ve introduced to this market over the last three years with our Murban contract growing significantly, with our HOU contract, which now has Midland WTI, Oil Basis Houston flowing into the Brent contracts, we are so well positioned across that complex to grow as our clients need the precision of these risk management tools, that it’s fantastic for us.