London, May 9, 2026, 17:04 BST
RELX PLC ended the week under renewed pressure, with its London shares little changed on Friday after a sharp ex-dividend drop and a Morgan Stanley downgrade revived questions over how much artificial intelligence could dent its legal and risk data businesses. The stock closed at 2,460 pence on May 8, down 0.08%, after falling 6.21% the day before.
The timing matters because RELX has just passed the record date for its 2025 final dividend, putting cash returns in focus while investors debate whether the FTSE 100 data group can defend its high-margin subscription products against faster AI tools. The ordinary share record date was May 8, with payment due June 18; U.S. American depositary receipts, or ADRs, have their payment date on June 24.
Ex-dividend means new buyers no longer qualify for the pending payout. Barclays data showed RELX’s 2025 final dividend at 48.00 pence a share, with a total 2025 dividend of 67.50 pence, up from 63.00 pence for 2024.
Morgan Stanley cut RELX to “equal-weight” from “overweight” on May 7 and lowered its price target to 2,970 pence from 3,320 pence, according to market summaries of the broker note. The bank cited a more balanced risk-reward and stronger competition, including workflow-focused startups that are scaling quickly. Morningstar
RELX has pushed back on the idea that AI is simply a threat. In its April trading update, the company said it had started the year well across all four business areas and expected another year of strong underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth; underlying growth strips out items such as currency moves, acquisitions and disposals to show the performance of the existing business.
Chief Executive Erik Engstrom said in February that RELX had delivered “strong underlying revenue and profit growth” in 2025, helped by Risk, Scientific, Technical & Medical, Legal and Exhibitions. He also said the company’s long-term growth was being driven by a shift toward analytics and decision tools. Relx
RELX reported 2025 revenue of 9.59 billion pounds, up 7% on an underlying basis, and adjusted operating profit of 3.34 billion pounds, up 9%. It also said it planned to deploy 2.25 billion pounds on share buybacks in 2026, after spending 1.50 billion pounds in 2025.
The company has kept buying back stock. A regulatory announcement showed RELX purchased 3.1 million ordinary shares between April 27 and May 1 through J.P. Morgan Securities, taking purchases since Jan. 2 to 45.7 million shares.
The risk is that investors may not give RELX full credit for those returns if AI tools make legal research, compliance checks or risk analysis cheaper and easier to build outside established databases. Reuters reported in February that RELX, Wolters Kluwer and Thomson Reuters had all been hit by investor concern after Anthropic unveiled AI tools aimed at professional workflows.
RELX’s finance chief Nick Luff told Reuters that the group’s data, content and proprietary algorithms helped users reach “the right judgments” and interpretations. That is the core defence: RELX says AI improves its products, while bears argue AI lowers the barriers around them. Reuters
For now, the stock is caught between those two stories. Dividend and buyback support is visible. The market’s worry is visible too.
