S&P Global Inc. (SPGI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right, guys. Good afternoon or perhaps high tea time to our European listeners, and a late good morning to the folk in North America. For those of you that I have not met in person, my name is Manav Patnaik, and I'm Barclays' business and information services analyst. Now typically, I would look forward to my next chat in-person the most, but I'm delighted that at least we are going ahead with this virtually, and we actually have a record 14 of our coverage universe participating in this conference as well. And I'm sure our virtual conversation with the S&P CFO, Ewout Steenbergen, is going to be equally engaging. So Ewout, thank you very much for being here.

Hello, Manav.

Before we get started, just 1 quick logistical item. We're not going to be doing live Q&A, but if you do have any pressing questions, please do e-mail me, and I will try and get that in time permitting.

So Ewout, maybe if I can just start with the broader big picture question, which is how S&P was quick and prepared for this near-complete work-from-home situation that's been forced upon us? We -- on the one hand, people, again, you just go home, log in from your computer and do your work. But on an enterprise level, that's a much heavier lift. So if you could just give us a flavor of how S&P went through that, that would be helpful?

Absolutely. And I think our first priority was the health and well-being of our employees and to take care of them in the very best way. I personally believe this is a period where cultures are being shaped for companies, where you're being tested every day, do you lift towards the values you have stated. And certainly, this is not something on paper on the wall anymore, this is what people will see and experience every day. So we have been very quick about making sure that our people are well, are safe, are healthy. And then we had to make sure that we're able to deliver all of our products, services, all the insights, all the analytics from a virtual environment. No BCP plan, I think, of any company could have foreseen that you are basically having all your offices around the world suddenly closed. But I'm actually very proud because we were able to move 20,000 people to a work-from-home situation. I think we took a big benefit from all the investments we have been doing in our technology infrastructure and upgrading that over the last few years. And we have been doing this in a quite seamless way. We have been able to deliver all of our products and services from this new virtual environment. There's been even a much higher demand for many of our services because what we see is that research, analytics, data insights, all of our products are more in demand than ever. We see very high demand for webinars. We see log-ins to our platforms, to the research that's on our website is really going through the roof and that we're able to deliver all of that in the current environment. Again, I'm very proud how the company has operated and moved forward in this environment.

Got it. And just from your CFO hat on, I think you've always talked about over the years, preparing for a downturn or the downturn playbook that everyone talks about. But I don't think anyone could have envisioned or forecasted this. So how -- was that downturn playbook prepared for this? Or how quickly and what adjustments did you have to make with that?

Yes. I'm truly a believer that you can't adjust at the moment itself. You need to be prepared for it. And in my view, we have been repairing the roof when the sun was shining and we're taking benefits from that right now. And that's why our results are good. That's why our balance sheet is solid. That's why our liquidity position is strong, and we are taking benefits from that right now. We don't need to take draconian decisions. Already, the effects of our productivity programs are taking effect this year. It was already embedded to some extent in our first quarter results, and that will continue. Then of course, we'll have other expense benefits this year. There are some variable expenses. Think about commissions, think about cost of sales, variable compensation. Of course, we have taken decisions with respect to discretionary spend, hiring and hiring freeze, travel speaks for itself that there is hardly any travel right now, consulting spend and lower spend on defense, et cetera. So it's quite a significant amount of expense reduction that we're able to show in this environment to offset some of the pressure on the top line. So what we have shown 2 weeks ago during the earnings call is that even in the 3 scenarios that we laid out and the middle scenario of a late third quarter recovery, we're able to show quite good results, still margin expansion, still EPS growth year-over-year. And that's a result of a lot of the work that we have been doing in the past over the last few quarters. From a commercial perspective, I think there is also, of course, some opportunities that come out of this period, and we can maybe talk about that later on as well.

Yes, for sure. And just on the cost side, in terms of thinking about a little bit longer term, structurally, we've heard a lot of executives. And I think Doug might have said it, too, like work-from-home is probably the new norm. So you have some real estate costs. Travel and expense, probably self-adjusts. Are there any other buckets in there? And is there a way to think about, over a longer period of time, of course, what that level of cost savings might look like?

Absolutely. Of course, this whole crisis is a human tragedy with all the losses around the world. But it is also a phase where we have a lot of learnings, and we could not have imagined that we could run the company with 20,000 people work from home. And this will leapfrog a lot of developments that otherwise would have come very slowly and incrementally over time. So we're thinking very hard about how can we reimagine the way we work. And what we're really, probably wouldn't be 20,000 working from home forever. But it probably also is not the way we used to work in the past. So the level of collaboration, interaction, how much should we do through digital infrastructure, there will be less probably travel, there's less probably going to be a requirement on physical infrastructure and office space going forward. So there's a lot of inspiration that we can get out of this situation. And certainly, we want to think about how we reimagine the way we work as a company going forward.

Got it. Maybe if you can just move to the segments for a bit. So let's start with the Ratings business. Your base case assumption for Ratings was down, I think, low single digits, which was slightly better than your competitor. Do you think it's -- from your perspective, maybe perhaps, was it just the tone of more constructivism? Or do you think there's mix differences to consider here?

Well, I cannot respond to others, as you understand. But let me explain what we have tried to say when we put out our scenarios and assumptions on April 28. We have a fundamental research group in Ratings that looks at the issuance market and the forecast. And they have said that overall global issuance is now expected to decline close to 10% for the full year. What we have shown as well is a step between the overall market issuance and what we call build issuance. That was an insight we have never shown to you before. It might be only a one timer, by the way, we will show this. But what we're telling is that we're thinking about more a mid-single-digit decline of build issuance. And there is then a differentiation underneath with a low single-digit increase, low single-digit growth for investment grade and about 20% decline in the high-yield market. And then if you put all the pieces together, if you think about the guidance we gave at year-end, the sensitivities for Ratings in this scenario, you're looking at a low single-digit decline from a top line perspective. So that's how we have built this up. But of course, mix matters. We have transaction, non-transaction. Our position in some submarkets is stronger than in other submarkets. So the mix in the end really matters. I do want to point out one thing, Manav. And that is that today, we are seeing 2 very large opposite forces in the issuance market. And it's actually going to be really interesting to see how this is going to play out. And what I mean with these opposite forces is, on the one hand, if you look at the current issuance levels, including the month of April, the first week of May, it's very high. It's very high for investment grade, very high for U.S. high yield. Not for European high yield, but U.S. high yield is very strong, clearly helped by the liquidity facilities and bond purchasing by the Fed. And what we see is a lot of initiatives and issuance related to liquidity. Companies adding liquidity, if it is, for example, Boeing. Boeing was talking to the U.S. government about a $40 billion rescue package in the end due to the Fed actions, so that they could tap the bond markets and 1.5 weeks ago came to the market with a $25 billion issuance, clearly liquidity driven. Like yesterday, there were 3 companies: Disney, PayPal and Fiserv that came to the market called large issuance. And they all stated that a part of the proceeds will be used to repay revolvers, repay CP, the commercial paper that they issued to the market. So clearly, a part of those proceeds are used for liquidity and repayment of some of the facility. So that's just one driver. And it's going to be very interesting how long that will take and how large that will be because that's a bit of a onetime step-up in issuance. And then on the other hand, there will be the impact of the real economy on the issuance. We have always said that there is a direct correlation with GDP. It's hard to believe if you are an investor, you're not going to develop a new car factory, you're not going to probably put up a new hotel and borrow for that. So when is the real economy going to catch up with the issuance market versus what is the liquidity in the market, the liquidity needs and the low rate environment? How much is that going to stimulate the current issuance level? So that's the really interesting thing that is happening right now. And like you, everyone will be monitoring this very closely.

Got it. Just a few quick follow-ups there. So first, in the build versus total issuance, like, what are the main differentials in those 2 numbers?

It's categories where we are not really active or where our position is very minimal. So think about medium-term notes, think about the Chinese domestic bond market, although we are, of course, developing a position. But largely, that's not really where we are taking current revenues. So there's definitely several of those categories that -- where we make a differentiation between what is the total growth on a global basis or global development of issuance on a global basis versus what is our build issuance.

Got it. And in terms of what you're hearing from your own internal research teams and so forth, the bigger question of what happens to the leverage profile of Corporate America. I mean, on the one hand, you're seeing everyone raise more liquidity driven, lever up near term. But looking forward, is this a wake-up call for people to delever? Or any early reads there?

It's really hard to say. It's clear that a lot of companies that have drawn on their revolvers, at this moment, needs to consider, do I payback to revolver and delever? Or do I want to make this a part of my permanent debt structure by going to the bond market and using that as a way to refinance my revolver because the interest rates on those are, of course, quite punitive? And I -- what we have seen over the last couple of days, it's more of the latter, that some companies are saying, I'll just add it to my new debt level for the time being. When there's a moment to bring it down again, is, of course, to be seen and that's hard to predict. But it might be a bit of a step-up in overall debt that we will see on corporate balance sheets in the near term.

Got it. And you pointed out how Boeing came to the market after the Fed stepped in to help support investment grade, fallen angels, those kind of things. Do you think that's what's needed for the lower part of high yield, leverage on structure to find some signs of life here?

Definitely, it has helped for the U.S. high-yield market with a lot of additional capacity. So if you look at the total high-yield market in April, it more than doubled from a year ago. And that's clear that the higher end of high yield that there is a lot of capacity with help of the Fed's facilities to absorb some of the fallen angels. And by the way, that's a very important statement. Because I remember over the last few years, there was always a discussion around, is the high-yield marketable to absorb all the BBBs once they become below investment grade. And clearly, the high-yield market in the U.S. is proving that, that is the case. And because the higher end of high yield is doing well, there's, of course, also capacity for the midpoint and the lower end of high yields. There's clearly a difference with Europe. There's hardly any activity in high yields in Europe, and there's also hardly any levered loan activity in Europe. So clearly, the Central Bank actions matter here.

Got it. And maybe on the investment grade side, particularly, what we've noticed is that the dollar number of issuance is obviously a record. But at least in the last few weeks, call it, the number of deals have been lower, right? So in that kind of mix difference, can you just remind us of your contract structures, the frequent issuers versus transaction, how we should interpret that across the categories?

Sure. It's, by the way, very hard to read through. So I would really like to warn that, that should lead to a certain expectation on revenues. Because, as you know, you have to go many layers deeper in terms of granularity in all the different bond categories. And then we also have the distinction between transaction and non-transaction. Approximately half of our revenue base on average over time is non-transaction. So these are companies that are on frequent issuer programs. These are surveillance fees and rating evaluation services, and many other categories go into that. And then we have transaction fees where the customers pay by issuance. And the first quarter, clearly, transaction was a little higher than non-transaction given the favorable market. We don't disclose which customers are on the frequent issuer program. You have to be very large. So it's -- it's, of course, always a mix of those items, how it ultimately will affect our Ratings revenue.

Got it. And maybe just to touch on China, you brought it up briefly before. Obviously, it's a long-term investment. I think you said you maybe have somewhere like 6 to 12 ratings in there. But does the situation change the trajectory of that? I guess, everything has to be more virtual. You can't travel there. Is the government still serious about it?

We don't see any change in the trajectory, no change with respect to our strategic plans and no change with respect to our market interactions. Actually, we were encouraged that during the first quarter when China was hit so hard by COVID, we actually issued 5 new ratings. And we continue to see a lot of market interaction, a lot of educational sessions, a lot of interest of potential issuers. And so that clearly continues. So overall, the funnel that we see of activities, to interactions, to qualifications to contracts, to the waiting period, to actual issuance of ratings, that looks still very, very healthy. Why have we always said that this is a more midterm, a 3- to 5-year kind of opportunity is that we are playing a completely different sport than the existing rating agencies in China. Why is that? Because the existing rating agencies, they compete for ratings outcomes. That is the main difference. And actually, one fact point is that last year -- and you know that most companies are rated AAA and AA. Last year, 92 companies were upgraded to AAA. So the number of AAAs increased last year in a deteriorating credit environment, so which is clearly showing that the way how that market competes, the rating agencies is on ratings outcomes. What we do is completely different. It's fundamental credit risk analytics. It is very transparent. It is based on a much wider range of rating spectrum with respect to outcomes, and I think very deep reports that we publish to the market. So that needs time to get everyone comfortable and to understand that A rating from us in the end could be more valuable than an existing rating because of the credibility of the product that we put out to the market. So that's why it takes time to develop a market. But again, we are encouraged by the level of response we get from everyone in China, including the regulators and the other institutions.

All right. And just one quick follow-up here. Like what makes China such a big hot opportunity? Is it just the sheer size? Because there was always talk about India and all these other markets. And they're obviously smaller, but they never really, I guess, lived up to at least the hype on our end. So what makes China different?

It's clearly the size of the market, and it is the overarching strategy that the country has to further develop and mature their financial markets. And we are just a piece into that, but very aligned in terms of interest to say, how can we develop these markets? How can we get to higher standards? How can they open up? How can it attract more foreign investors? How can China become a larger part of the economic and financial market's ecosystem around the world and reliable credit ratings that are trustworthy that are attracting foreign investors into the Chinese bond market is an element to that. So I think that's why this is attractive because it's part of a much larger direction where the Chinese market is going.

Got it. And maybe just the last one on the Ratings business before we move to the others is the margins. You've -- especially since you came in, and it's been very impressive, the discipline and the margin expansion. And even during tough quarters and months, you've shown that. I understand if there's revenue growth, obviously, margins keep expanding. But on a base level, like, is there that much more productivity and efficiency to keep showing that sort of margin resiliency even in tough quarters?

Yes. And this is actually an example, Manav, of what I said before. Our expense -- minimal expense growth in the first quarter, which was just up 1% for the company as a whole. And actually, it was an expense decline in Ratings, wasn't due to COVID or COVID actions because that just came later in March. That was because of all the work we have done in the previous quarters. So what was that related to? This is process automation, more technology. This is a lot of productivity programs around the company with respect to our functions. It's the real estate and the opportunities we have in real estate. Even before the COVID, we had a lot of opportunities with respect to real estate. We told you last year that we had in-sourced a part of our technology engineering group in Ratings that was with some outsourcing partners before. Our headcount numbers, therefore, went up, and so it was going to be a better model. We were able to retain better talent, keep better talent to us, as well as a result, we're able to do that at a lower cost level. So Ratings is clearly benefiting from all of those actions. And we still have a long list of other opportunities in the company, not only for Ratings, for all different divisions -- for all the divisions. So yes, we continue -- we will continue with that as well.

Got it. If you can shift gears to Market Intelligence real quickly. I think like other companies, you've pointed out potential delays in new sales and implementations and those kind of things. The first broader question is, is that a factor of your customers not being ready to do virtual implementations? Or you guys need a little bit more time as well? Or maybe it's a little bit of both?

No, it's not so much that we are not ready. I think this is just normal course of that business. So let me explain that a little bit. So if you think about our subscription business, actually, on the 1st of January of a year, you know, with a very high level of probability, what's the level of revenue you will book. Because your actual sales during the year, your contract renewals, the impact is only an average a few months. So therefore, it's a relatively minimal impact. And therefore, the existing book of business at the beginning of the year and your annualized contract value of your subscriptions is the main driver of revenues during the year. The following year is, of course, different because your sales this year and your renewals this year will impact more the full 12-months effect that is coming the following year. So what we are seeing is we have a normal course renewals. Obviously, there are some companies that are doing well in this environment, and there are some companies that are more under pressure. We expect to see longer renewal cycles, but that's a normal course. And sales is a little bit more difficult to do that without any face-to-face contact because you need sometimes to do some hand-holding, some explanations, you need to do some implementations really at the office of the customer, and that's, of course, a bit more difficult. So how much that ultimately will impact 2021 depends on the duration of the economic downturn. So it's very hard to foresee at this moment. We're tracking and monitoring very closely all the impacts from a sales pipeline and the duration and the type of discussions we're having to the collections and so on. We have very detailed dashboards of that. And I would say, so far so good for what we are seeing. But obviously, there is some impact. We are not immune as a company, and there is an impact on this as well.

Got it. And I think in this segment, as you talked about before, you were fixing the roof while the sun was out. I think the shift to enterprise-based was obviously pretty timely, and I think you were more or less done with that. Can you just give us an update there and also on the Market Intelligence platform rollout, if that just gets pushed out because of all this?

Yes. The transition to enterprise contract is done. That is the standard, and we have effectively almost all of our book of business on enterprise-wide contracts. The integration of the platforms is still a process that will take more time. And what -- the reason is that we want to do this in a very careful way because if we go too fast, we would lose customers along the way, that wouldn't be really good. And so what I mean with that is we have the Market Intelligence platform, and we have the CapIQ platform. We need to build all the data sets on the new platform, the Market Intelligence platform. We need to make sure that all the capabilities and features are on that particular platform. And then we are able to move customers over, but we can't have customers that are missing data or missing features or missing plug-ins, missing the ways how it's linked to their models. Because if you annoy customers, we upset them and they might decide to go out to the market with an RFP, then, of course, that wouldn't be a good outcome. So that's why we do this very gradually over time. We expect this year, and this is, by the way, the #1 priority for the Market Intelligence business. And we expect over the course of this year to add more and more data sets, more and more features on the new platform. We expect that we will, by year-end, have dual access for all the customers. So customers can get used to the new platform. And then later this year -- but I think this will go into 2021 or even potentially beyond. Step-by-step, we're going to move customers over. So very gradual, very step-by-step, but for a very deliberate reason.

Got it. And maybe that's a good segue into just getting a quick update on Kensho as well. I mean, you talked about more and more content and data sets, and that was a big part of your play in terms of integrating all that. Maybe just some quick thoughts on how you're thinking about how great that acquisition was or not?

Yes. Kensho is playing out to be really a great acquisition, a catalyst for innovation of S&P Global. And what I really like is last year, Kensho started to be really embedded within the organization. And that was, of course, a big question because culturally, it's such a different group. But I think the way of interaction and collaboration really has fallen in place last year. We have many examples within the company, I think market-on-close in Platts. This is the core process in Platts where the price assessors come together 3 times a day, one time in Singapore, one time in London, one time in Houston. And where they take in all of the data that we receive and there, the prices are being assessed. That whole process has been redesigned with Kensho. It's now much faster, more reliable, more transparent, more visibility to our customers. And that's actually has gone live and in production for our most important price benchmarks. So a lot of enthusiasm there. The Transcript business, Scribe, is doing well. Even in this environment, virtual environment, some technology adjustment had to be made, but it has been able to do well, and we were able to cover the whole earnings season in our Transcript business with Scribe. Data ingestion, data intake, there's a product called Codex, which is just for analysts to take in a lot of data and to present to the analysts the most important to them. And there's many more that is going well. We have, of course, the Omnisearch. So overall, I think the organization is very happy with Kensho and how Kensho is creating value for the company.

Got it. And maybe that's a good segue into Platts for a second because I think a lot of people understand the Indices business. So if we have time, we'll get to that. But on Platts, is mid-single digits still the right long-term or medium-term growth profile for the company? And perhaps you could also just give us an update on how we should think about the impact today versus what we saw in '15, '16 because the oil crisis seems to be a lot different, clearly?

Yes. We said at the year-end earnings call that Platts would have a mid-single-digit growth level for 2020. You've seen in our scenario-based guidance that the actual impact this year is relatively modest for Platts. And again, that is due to the nature of the subscription business that I explained before. So therefore, mid-single-digit is still, if you put those pieces together, where you end up for this year. Again, I'm not predicting what is happening in 2021 to be seen, depending on the duration of the economic downturn. But longer term, we think that mid-single-digit is the right expectation. This is probably more of a combination of price reporting on the one hand, which is growing a little slower and then some higher growth in analytics and global trading services that recently have shown some very healthy growth. So it's a mix of that. Obviously, we're also looking at the customer base. We have seen so far a number of smaller customers going out of business. Not midsize or larger customers, that is not currently our expectations. Fortunately, the oil price has moved up a little bit. The data at Brent, around $30. Our experts believe it will end up at year-end about $35. So as long as we would see the impact of actual customers not going out of business in line with the most recent observations, I think that's still the best expectation.

Got it and, Ewout, can you just talk about the analytics opportunity in Platts? That's been an effort that's been ongoing. And I think there's a platform move going on there as well. So just some updates on how much of a mix that is today and where we head there?

Yes, we acquired several companies over the years that had commodity analytics products. And they were all on different platforms. So a lot of effort has been put on bringing that all together on the same platform and to have a better proposition to the market. So over the last few months, we have been able to develop a new commercial strategy around our analytics proposition. And actually, we are encouraged what we have seen in terms of the results over the last period.

Got it. And I mean, in terms of M&A, I think this is the one area that you've been a little bit more active, albeit all tuck-ins. But maybe just a broader question. You guys have amazingly strong balance sheet. And you've been very disciplined as well at the same time on the M&A front. Do you think that changes? Or do we still have to wait for valuation expectations to come down first?

Well, it's -- that's obviously a question I need to be careful in terms of answering. So let me say, in general terms, we're always looking at opportunities to grow inorganically. We would like to invest in organic growth initiatives. We also like to grow through inorganic initiatives. And we're always looking at opportunities in the market that would be good add-ons to the company. You're right. We are very fortunate with a very strong balance sheet, good cash, good liquidity position, very low leverage. So we do have a lot of capacity. At the same time, we have been very disciplined. And we have had moments that we said that we couldn't get to a certain outcome with respect to an M&A opportunity, and we were fine with that. And actually, the current times with hindsight is always easy, but in the current times, we're actually saying that, that was the right decision that we said that we couldn't get there. How much there will be opportunities going forward? I would say it very much depends. And clearly risk tolerance levels are relatively limited today in the markets. But clearly, there are more opportunities. And the companies that are stronger might take, at some point, a benefit out of that. So we'll continue to monitor this. And if we believe there's the right strategic opportunity at the right valuation points, and we might be having the opportunity, given our financial capacity, we might take that step. But that's not so much different than what we have done in the past. That's just our normal course.

Got it. And maybe shifting quickly to the Indices business. I think the moving pieces there are fairly explanatory. So maybe some big picture questions. The first being, do you think COVID helps, hurts, accelerates the shift, the active to passive that we've been talking for a long, long time? Or is just such a big market, it's irrelevant?

It's really an observation that we like that in the periods when there is some market stress like during the first quarter of this year, like the fourth quarter of 2018, like 2015, actually, we have continued to see positive flows going into our index products, indices that are being used for ETFs or mutual funds and so on. So it's a great signal that we don't see flows moving away from our products, on the contrary. So that's the first. The second is, I think the market has always been very concerned around our index business in a downturn. If you look at the sensitivities that we have provided and the scenario-based guidance, actually, the business has been showing to be quite resilient. Of course, we have the offset in exchange-traded derivatives. And then I think the business is growing with flows, as you have mentioned. The other thing is new product development. We are continuing to try to expand. ESG is very critical. We have launched a lot of new ESG indices. And 2 weeks ago, we also have come out with a press release together with BlackRock that we are going to develop with BlackRock, new sustainable indices on our prime U.S. equity benchmarks, which are going to be really a tremendous boost. Factor index investing, we have announced a collaboration with IHS Markit with respect to their fixed income indices and our equity indices and that we can have combined product development going forward. So there's a lot going on in that business as well. So that's why we believe that business will continue to be robust also in an environment like this.

Got it. The other element that falls into the segment, but I know it's across your organization is ESG, and you brought that up a little bit. We had Evan Greenfield from your organization talk at the ESG Day, and his view is obviously that the COVID situation accelerates the focus on ESG. So -- but from your perspective, maybe can you just give us a flavor of how big ESG is, if you can quantify it? Where does it sit across your organization? And how we should think about that growth profile?

Yes. The size, during the first quarter, approximately $15 million in revenues. That was a growth of about 25% to 30% from a year ago. We still believe, longer term, we will be able to have an annual growth more closer to a 40% level. It's all across the company. It's in Platts with renewable energy, hydrogen and many other categories. It's in Ratings with green bond evaluation and ESG evaluations, and we see ESG evaluations being a very popular product. We have now 65 ESG evaluations underway or being issued. We see in the index business, as we just discussed, the launch of many new ESG indices, and we had $1 billion of positive flows to ESG indices in the first quarter. And then Market Intelligence is putting a lot of the Trucost and SAM scoring data on that platform and in the data feeds. So we believe we have all the pieces together to deal with the 2 main questions that are out there in the market, improvement of quality of data and standardization. And we should be able to help market participant with both of those. And by the way, I agree that the current environment will only create an acceleration of the focus on ESG. It will help to define the S. The S is the least well defined, as we well know. But I think companies will be assessed over the next period how well have done from a social perspective with their employees dealing from the balance of working from home, taking care of their health situation. Other aspect is supply chain. I think there will be far more focus on supply chain, companies that have well-differentiated supply chains coming from countries with transparent governments. So the acceleration of ESG will only continue. And certainly, the current environment will help with that.

Got it. And just back to my question on M&A, not that I want you to time or tell us what you're going to acquire. But in terms of your priorities, like it sounds like this ESG area would easily be one of the top ones. Or maybe put it in another way where you've been active. So you've been active in ESG, you've been active in Platts, while the others seem like there's more of just organic focus. Is that fair? Or how would you answer that?

And we have been active in Market Intelligence. As an example, we acquired 451 Research, which is clearly the proprietary data that we'd like to add to our platform. This is technology research. Panjiva is another example in Market Intelligence. Proprietary, very important data around supply chain, very valuable and well sought after in the current environment. Ratings, of course, always a little bit more difficult, but we continue to look at emerging market opportunities for Ratings. So I think all of that, we will continue to look at across the board. And if we find good strategic opportunities, we'll certainly be interested.

Got it. And maybe just the last question here is that the stock has obviously held up really well. And it sounds like it is being appreciated for all the strength and qualities you've outlined on this call. But do you think there's 1 or 2 underappreciated items where maybe people don't realize how different a company you are today versus maybe in the past?

Yes. What I would say is I still believe that there is often too much focus on short-term issuance for Ratings. And we know that in the end, issuance, it doesn't matter if it's coming this quarter or next quarter or 3 quarters in the future. It is coming to us. It's ultimately -- the largest part of the bond issuance market is refinancing. So that's a timing matter. So I still sometimes feel there's too much of a short-term focus on issuance. And the way to look at this company is it's a tremendous Ratings business, and then we have 3 other really world-class businesses on top of it, in the commodity space with Platts, in the index space with S&P Dow Jones Indices and in the Market Intelligence space. And the benefit of having 4 companies together and the way we manage it, the way we collaborate, the way we use data across the board, the way we have a combined ESG strategy across the board, the way how we leverage Kensho capabilities across the board. So up to us to continue to show improve to our shareholders and prospective shareholders in the future what a great set of assets and why those 4 assets together are even more valuable. And we like to be transparent, as you know, and put more and more information out so that everyone can see that. And that's the plan we have also for the future.

Got it. Well, thank you so much, Ewout. I think we'll leave it there. I really appreciate you even doing this and doing it virtually as well.

Thank you, Manav. Always a pleasure. Good seeing you.

Take care, everybody.

Bye-bye.