LONDON, March 11, 2026, 15:26 GMT.
RELX shares were down about 1.3% in London trade on Wednesday as investors weighed Elsevier’s agreement to buy patient-engagement software firm Mytonomy and the group’s latest stock repurchase. The shares changed hands at 2,593 pence by 15:24 GMT, while broader European equities were also weaker. 1
The move matters because RELX is still trying to rebuild confidence after February’s AI-driven selloff hit legal and data-analytics names. Investors want clearer signs that small deals, cash returns and new AI tools can protect growth as software that automates legal and research work gets better, fast. 2
Chief Executive Erik Engstrom said last month AI would remain a driver of growth for “many years to come” as RELX reported 2025 revenue of 9.59 billion pounds, up 7%, and adjusted operating profit of 3.34 billion pounds, up 9%. The group also said it expected another year of strong underlying revenue growth in 2026. 3
Tuesday’s acquisition gives that story a healthcare angle. Elsevier said Mytonomy’s cloud software and video tools are used at more than 70 hospitals and 200 clinics and plug into electronic health records, the digital files hospitals use to manage care; terms were not disclosed and closing is subject to customary conditions. Omry Bigger, president of Clinical Solutions at Elsevier, said the deal would “unlock important synergies” across content, technology and healthcare expertise. 4
RELX completed five acquisitions for 270 million pounds in 2025, and Mytonomy fits that pattern of targeted expansion. In a separate filing on Tuesday, RELX said it bought back 500,000 shares at an average trading price of 2,635.4771 pence; the company has repurchased 23.73 million shares since Jan. 2 and plans 2.25 billion pounds of buybacks in 2026 after spending 1.5 billion pounds last year. 5
But the bigger debate is not about deal flow or buybacks. RELX’s legal and analytics operations sit in the same lane as Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer, both swept lower with RELX last month after Anthropic launched legal-automation tools that rattled investors across the sector. 2
Schroders analyst Jonathan McMullan said then that the old “visibility premium” was eroding as AI challenged incumbents. RELX’s own annual-results statement also flagged competition and the risk of failing to realise expected acquisition benefits as factors that could hurt future performance. 2
A buyback can lift profit per share by shrinking the number of shares in issue. It does not settle the market’s broader question about how quickly AI will change research, legal and risk workflows, which is why fresh dealmaking alone was unlikely to reset the stock. 6
For now, RELX remains well below its 4,183 pence year high. Wednesday’s dip suggested investors are still reserving judgment on whether targeted acquisitions, new AI features and cash returns are enough to draw a clean line under the sector’s AI worries. 7
