NDAQ
#So I'll say a couple of things and then turn it over to <UNK>.
One is, I would also highlight on the Listings side the strong performance in the Nordics, and That gets overlooked a little bit, I think, too much.
And it really has been a remarkable the success we've had there.
With respect to the US, we are here at the market site today and it's been a wonderful week.
We had the PayPal spinout happening and yesterday, Blue Buffalo had, obviously, a very successful IPO.
We're also very happy to win Pure Storage a week or so ago and as we said before, we have a 70% win rate.
So we have a high degree of issuance.
We have an increased win rate and that certainly is contributing to our performance.
So in terms of the pricing change, we announced the pricing change in the fall and it was primarily related to the annual listing fees.
And we also announced that the potential impact of that as we went into the fourth-quarter earnings.
And we are experiencing the benefits of that pricing change.
The most notable change really is at the top end of our fees where we are now allowing issuers to opt-in to an all-inclusive fee, which means that they will no longer be subject to any listing of additional shares, fees, or any other administrative fees.
And the maximum charge for a listing based on their shares outstanding is $155,000 a year.
We did see significant opt-in to that pricing level and will we will continue to offer the opt-in over the next two years.
So we've just have seen a lot of success in the adoption of the fees that we put out for the firm.
And frankly, a lot of support for that all-inclusive fee.
<UNK>, how are you today.
So I would say, one, we have a version of the product coming out in the July/August timeframe, which will address, in a comprehensive way, a very small subset of the users.
So that's a good experience for us and a good ramp in terms of we get to test the underlying technology and get some user response.
In the meantime, we'll be working on the full production release and your data is correct.
So we expect to have a product in place that should address 85% of the market by the end of this year.
So we're excited about that.
In the beginning, the pricing is not our focus.
It's to make sure it's the best product.
But we certainly think we have upside to both the revenue side.
And probably, as importantly, I think with the new product deployment, once we get beyond the dual cost structure, we'll have a simpler way to deploy this product, which should represent improved margins over time.
So I'll start with the broad strategic direction we have.
So we certainly believe that passive investing, represented by indexing, will continue to grow as a percent of assets under management.
But then we also think, within that category, smart beta will grow even faster.
And that we recognize that passive investing has somewhat of a natural ceiling because you're bound by a set of predetermined rules.
Smart beta allows you to put some more intelligence into the passive space and witness not just the DWA acquisition but obviously, dividend achievers and some internal products that we're developing.
So that certainly represents, looking at <UNK>, put some pressure on her to get a double-digit growth opportunity over time.
Right, <UNK>.
I would agree in the overall growth of smart beta.
Go ahead, <UNK>.
So <UNK>, I'm glad you asked the question and just to kind of ---+ there are a lot of moving pieces in the Information Services business.
As you noted, there was a $6 million change in the overall audit revenues year over year that the audit revenues were down $6 million in this quarter.
And I think it's important to understand if you want to try to get into kind of a clear organic growth for the quarter year over year and you take the operating impact that is, ex-FX, increase of $9 million and you take out the DWA impact of $80 million for the quarter.
But then also keep audit flat from the year-over-year period, our Information Services revenue would have been up $7 million, or 6%, which is very consistent with revenue growth guidance that we have given for that segment.
And I think that's a reasonable basis as we look out over the longer term for that.
I do think that, from an audit revenue standpoint, we are seeing kind of a stabilization in that revenue and so we may have, from quarter to quarter, some upside or downside.
But I think the level that we're at right now is a good baseline to use.
Sure.
Great question.
So I would say, one, let's start with the initial focus and that's cap table management.
We have clear metrics on how many customers are using gotten how sophisticated their use is of cap table.
That's kind of our first foray into the customers.
Then the second stage, we run liquidity programs for them and we track, one, the size of the liquidity program and then, two, how often they're running it.
And then as we evolve over time, it's going to be how broad the participation is in those liquidity programs.
Typically, they are employee programs today, but we certainly see the ability to evolve to a credit investors or early-stage VC firms participating in some of those liquidity programs.
So we definitely are, one, excited about the progress in a short period of time.
Definitely see this market evolving.
And we definitely pay very close attention to what I'd call the non-financial metrics which you are looking at now, which kind of referencing now which will really gauge our progress in the medium term.
Another great quarter for NASDAQ.
Record earnings on a number of different measurements so we're proud of that.
But I also say we're most proud of the fact the we are, again, well-positioned in each of our businesses and I think are taking the lead in innovating in a number of those businesses in our pipeline, on our new products coming, I think, are incredibly strong.
So we are fundamentally excited about our prospects going forward.
We appreciate your support and look forward to getting back together with you next quarter.
Thank you.
