London, April 24, 2026, 12:04 BST
London Stock Exchange Group plc raised its 2026 revenue-growth outlook after a record first quarter, as volatile markets lifted trading volumes and its data businesses kept growing despite investor concern over artificial intelligence. The group now expects organic constant-currency growth in total income, excluding recoveries, to come in the upper half of its 6.5% to 7.5% range.
The update lands at a sensitive time for LSEG. Its shares have been pressured by fears that AI tools could weaken the economics of financial data, while activist investor Elliott Management has pushed for portfolio changes and margin improvement. Reuters reported that LSEG shares rose as much as 4% on Thursday after the numbers, though they remained down about 12% over the past year.
There is also a market reason the quarter mattered. UK stocks were falling again on Friday as investors watched the Iran war, oil prices and Bank of England warnings on stretched valuations, but LSEG’s markets arm tends to benefit when clients trade more to manage risk.
Total income excluding recoveries rose to 2.42 billion pounds in the three months ended March 31, up 9.8% on an organic constant-currency basis, a measure that strips out currency moves and portfolio changes. That beat LSEG’s company-compiled analyst consensus for 8.0% growth and 2.36 billion pounds of total income excluding recoveries.
The markets division led the move, up 15.5%, helped by broad trading activity across equities, fixed income, derivatives, foreign exchange and clearing. Data & Analytics grew 5.1%, FTSE Russell rose 8.8%, and Risk Intelligence gained 10.5%, giving the update a broader base than a simple volatility windfall.
LSEG said it bought back 1.1 billion pounds of shares in the quarter and remained on track to return 3 billion pounds by February 2027. It also kept guidance for an 80 to 100 basis-point improvement in constant-currency EBITDA margin, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, a common measure of operating profitability.
Chief Executive David Schwimmer said LSEG had made a “great start to 2026” and pointed to progress in pushing its data into AI workflows. The company said more than 150 customers were connected or being onboarded to its Model Context Protocol server, a system that lets AI models connect to external data sources with controls around access and use. LSEG
The AI detail was not cosmetic. LSEG said 90 customers had connected to the server since its December launch and another 64 were in the pipeline, while Workspace AI tools were being rolled out. The group has made licensed data available through models and cloud environments including Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, Databricks and Snowflake.
Will Howlett, financials analyst at Quilter Cheviot, which Reuters identified as an LSEG investor, said the first-quarter beat and guidance move “should help ease concerns” about the durability of growth. That matters because the stock has been pulled into a wider debate over whether AI will help financial-data providers or undercut parts of their revenue. Reuters
The competitive read-through is mixed but useful. MSCI, a key rival in indexes and analytics, said this week that first-quarter profit rose as index products and analytics benefited from investors rebalancing portfolios during volatile markets. LSEG’s FTSE Russell result points to a similar demand pattern, though across a different product mix.
Shareholders also gave the board a clean governance vote at Thursday’s annual meeting. A filing showed all 24 resolutions passed, including the annual report, dividend approval and authority to buy back shares.
But the quarter does not remove the risk. A calmer market could slow trading-driven gains, and LSEG still has to prove that AI access will add revenue rather than compress pricing for data and workflow products. Elliott’s pressure is another live issue: the activist has called for more action to close LSEG’s valuation gap with peers, while LSEG has said it remains focused on executing its strategy.
