London Stock Exchange Group Pretax Profit Falls Despite Higher Income; Plans GBP1.0 Billion Buyback

By Najat Kantouar

London Stock Exchange Group reported lower pretax profit despite higher income reflecting profitable growth across all segments, and said it plans to execute a share buyback program in 2024.

The stock-exchange and financial-information company said Thursday that pretax profit for the year ended Dec. 31 was 1.195 billion pounds ($1.512 billion) compared with GBP1.24 billion for the same period a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization--a metric that strips out exceptional and other one-off items--was GBP3.78 billion compared with GBP3.55 billion and a consensus of GBP3.78 billion, taken from the company's website.

Adjusted Ebitda margin was down to 47.2% from 47.8%, in line with a consensus of 47.3%.

The group's total income excluding recoveries rose to GBP8.009 billion from GBP7.43 billion, ahead of the company's consensus for the year of GBP7.99 billion.

Within this, data and analytics income rose 7.3%, capital-markets income increased 6.1%, and post-trade income grew 17.4%.

Recoveries mainly relate to fees for third-party content, such as exchange data, that is distributed directly to customers.

The board declared a full-year total dividend of 115 pence a share, up from 107.0 pence a share a year earlier. LSEG also plans to execute up to GBP1 billion of buybacks in 2024, intending to acquire directly from the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters consortium.

"2023 was another strong year for LSEG. We continued our track record of broad-based growth, despite an uncertain environment, and delivered on all the targets we set at the time of the Refinitiv acquisition," Chief Executive David Schwimmer said.

Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 29, 2024 02:56 ET (07:56 GMT)

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