S&P Global 10-Q 2023-09-30

UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-Q

For the quarterly period ended September 30, 2023

OR

For the transition period from to

Commission File Number: 1-1023

S&P Global Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: 212-438-1000

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Date File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☑ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer”, “smaller reporting company”, and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). YES ☐ NO ☑

As of October 27, 2023 (latest practicable date), 316.8 million shares of the issuer's classes of common stock (par value $1.00 per share) were outstanding excluding 7.2 million outstanding common shares held by the Markit Group Holdings Limited Employee Benefit Trust.

S&P Global Inc.

INDEX

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the Shareholders and Board of Directors of S&P Global Inc.

Results of Review of Interim Financial Statements

We have reviewed the accompanying consolidated balance sheet of S&P Global Inc. and subsidiaries (the Company) as of September 30, 2023, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, and equity for the three- and nine-month periods ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, the related consolidated statements of cash flows for the nine-month periods ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “consolidated interim financial statements”). Based on our reviews, we are not aware of any material modifications that should be made to the consolidated interim financial statements for them to be in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

We have previously audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the consolidated balance sheet of the Company as of December 31, 2022, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, equity and cash flows for the year then ended, and the related notes and schedule (not presented herein); and in our report dated February 9, 2023, we expressed an unqualified audit opinion on those consolidated financial statements. In our opinion, the information set forth in the accompanying consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2022, is fairly stated, in all material respects, in relation to the consolidated balance sheet from which it has been derived.

Basis for Review Results

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company's management. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the SEC and the PCAOB. We conducted our review in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. A review of interim financial statements consists principally of applying analytical procedures and making inquiries of persons responsible for financial and accounting matters. It is substantially less in scope than an audit conducted in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB, the objective of which is the expression of an opinion regarding the financial statements taken as a whole. Accordingly, we do not express such an opinion.

/s/ ERNST & YOUNG LLP

New York, New York

November 2, 2023

PART I — FINANCIAL INFORMATION

S&P Global Inc.

Consolidated Statements of Income

(Unaudited)

See accompanying notes to the unaudited consolidated financial statements.

S&P Global Inc.

Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income

(Unaudited)

See accompanying notes to the unaudited consolidated financial statements.

S&P Global Inc.

Consolidated Balance Sheets

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The following Management's Discussion and Analysis (“MD&A”) provides a narrative of the results of operations and financial condition of S&P Global Inc. (together with its consolidated subsidiaries, “S&P Global,” the “Company,” “we,” “us” or “our”) for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023. The MD&A should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements, accompanying notes and MD&A included in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 (our “Form 10-K”), which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“U.S. GAAP”). The MD&A includes the following sections:

• Overview

• Results of Operations — Comparing the Three and Nine Months Ended September 30, 2023 and 2022

• Liquidity and Capital Resources

• Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Information

• Critical Accounting Estimates

• Recently Issued or Adopted Accounting Standards

• Forward-Looking Statements

OVERVIEW

We are a provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity and automotive markets. The capital markets include asset managers, investment banks, commercial banks, insurance companies, exchanges, trading firms and issuers; the commodity markets include producers, traders and intermediaries within energy, petrochemicals, metals & steel and agriculture; and the automotive markets include manufacturers, suppliers, dealerships and service shops.

Our operations consist of six reportable segments: S&P Global Market Intelligence (“Market Intelligence”), S&P Global Ratings (“Ratings”), S&P Global Commodity Insights (“Commodity Insights”), S&P Global Mobility (“Mobility”), S&P Dow Jones Indices (“Indices”) and S&P Global Engineering Solutions (“Engineering Solutions”).

• Market Intelligence is a global provider of multi-asset-class data and analytics integrated with purpose-built workflow solutions.

• Ratings is an independent provider of credit ratings, research, and analytics, offering investors and other market participants information, ratings and benchmarks.

• Commodity Insights is a leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodity and energy markets.

• Mobility is a leading provider of solutions serving the full automotive value chain including vehicle manufacturers (OEMs), automotive suppliers, mobility service providers, retailers, consumers, and finance and insurance companies.

• Indices is a global index provider maintaining a wide variety of valuation and index benchmarks for investment advisors, wealth managers and institutional investors.

• As of May 2, 2023, we completed the sale of Engineering Solutions, a leading provider of engineering standards and related technical knowledge, and the results are included through that date.

On May 2, 2023, we completed the sale of Engineering Solutions to Allium Buyer LLC, a Delaware limited liability company controlled by funds affiliated with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (“KKR”). We received the full proceeds from the sale of $975 million in cash, subject to purchase price adjustments, which we expect to result in approximately $750 million in after-tax proceeds. The assets and liabilities of Engineering Solutions were classified as held for sale in our consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2022. During the nine months ended September 30, 2023, we recorded a pre-tax loss of $120 million in Loss (gain) on dispositions and disposition-related costs of $16 million in selling and general expenses in the consolidated statement of income ($182 million after-tax, net of a release of a deferred tax liability of $157 million) related to the sale of Engineering Solutions. The transaction followed our announced intent in November of 2022 to divest the business. Engineering Solutions became part of the Company following our merger with IHS Markit. See Note 2 - Acquisitions and Divestitures for additional information.

On February 28, 2022, we completed the merger with IHS Markit Ltd (“IHS Markit”), and as a result, IHS Markit and its subsidiaries became wholly owned consolidated subsidiaries of S&P Global, and the financial results include IHS Markit from the date of acquisition. See Note 2 - Acquisitions and Divestitures for additional information.

Key results for the periods ended September 30 are as follows:

1 % changes in the tables throughout the MD&A are calculated off of the actual number, not the rounded number presented.

2 Operating profit for the three months ended September 30, 2023 includes IHS Markit merger costs of $58 million, employee severance charges of $38 million, disposition-related costs of $3 million, acquisition-related costs of $2 million and an asset write-off of $1 million. Operating profit for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 includes IHS Markit merger costs of $173 million, employee severance charges of $101 million, a loss on disposition of $70 million, disposition-related costs of $19 million, lease impairments of $15 million, an asset impairment of $5 million, acquisition-related costs of $5 million and an asset write-off of $1 million. Operating profit for the three months ended September 30, 2022 includes IHS Markit merger costs of $144 million, employee severance charges of $55 million, an acquisition-related benefit of $18 million, a gain on acquisition of $10 million, an asset impairment of $9 million, a loss on dispositions of $2 million and an asset write-off of $1 million. Operating profit for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 includes a gain on dispositions of $1.9 billion, IHS Markit merger costs of $523 million, a S&P Foundation grant of $200 million, employee severance charges of $195 million, a gain on acquisition of $10 million, an asset impairment of $9 million, an acquisition-related benefit of $6 million, lease impairments of $5 million and an asset write-off of $4 million. Operating profit also includes amortization of intangibles from acquisitions of $274 million and $280 million for the three months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively, and $824 million and $687 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

Three Months

Revenue increased 8% driven by increases at Ratings, Market Intelligence, Commodity Insights, Mobility and Indices, partially offset by a decrease at Engineering Solutions due to its sale on May 2, 2023. The increase at Ratings was driven by growth in both transaction revenue and non-transaction revenue. Transaction revenue increased due to growth in corporate bond ratings revenue driven by increased high-yield and bank loan

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Our exposure to market risk includes changes in foreign exchange rates and interest rates. We have operations in foreign countries where the functional currency is primarily the local currency. For international operations that are determined to be extensions of the parent company, the U.S. dollar is the functional currency. We typically have naturally hedged positions in most countries from a local currency perspective with offsetting assets and liabilities. As of September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, we entered into foreign exchange forward contracts in order to mitigate the change in fair value of specific assets and liabilities in the consolidated balance sheet. These forward contracts are not designated as hedges and do not qualify for hedge accounting. As of September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, we entered into foreign exchange forward contracts to hedge the effect of adverse fluctuations in foreign exchange rates and held cross-currency swap contracts to hedge a portion of our net investment in a foreign subsidiary against volatility in foreign exchange rates. As of September 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, we held positions in a series of interest rate swaps to mitigate or hedge the adverse fluctuations in interest rates. We have not entered into any derivative financial instruments for speculative purposes. See Note 5 - Derivative Instruments to the consolidated financial statements of this Form 10-Q for further discussion.

Disclosure Controls and Procedures

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed so that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to management, including our Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) and Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”), as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

As of September 30, 2023, an evaluation was performed under the supervision and with the participation of management, including the CEO and CFO, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934). Based on that evaluation, management, including the CEO and CFO, concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of September 30, 2023.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

There have been no changes in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the most recent quarter that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

PART II – OTHER INFORMATION

Item 1. Legal Proceedings

See Note 12 – Commitments and Contingencies - Legal & Regulatory Matters to the consolidated financial statements of this Form 10-Q for information on our legal proceedings.

In addition to the other information set forth in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, you should carefully consider the risk factors we have previously disclosed in Item 1A, Risk Factors, in our most recent Form 10-K, and the additional risk factor below.

Cybersecurity, Technology and Innovation Risks

Our approach to artificial intelligence may not be successful, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) is an emerging technology that is expected to fundamentally change the way data is gathered, protected, licensed, processed, and consumed. Given the importance of data to our products and services, AI is expected to become an increasingly important part of our business and industry. We have established a Company-wide AI strategy to drive our approach to data protection, licensing and AI integration in our processes, products and services. We have made significant investments in various AI initiatives. However, the AI landscape is complex and rapidly evolving, and new and enhanced laws and regulations, governmental or regulatory scrutiny, competition from established or emerging companies, litigation, ethical concerns, cybersecurity concerns, intellectual property concerns, or other complications could adversely impact our ability to protect our data and intellectual property, to develop and offer products and services that effectively use AI, to compete with other AI products or services, or to improve efficiency of producing existing products or services through the effective use of AI to remain competitive. For instance, competitors may deploy AI in ways that make processing of information relatively inexpensive or free, which could significantly reduce demand for our data. Additionally, we may be unable to effectively license or otherwise protect our data from unintended use by AI. For additional risks related to intellectual property rights, see the risk factor entitled “Our ability to protect our intellectual property rights could impact our competitive position.” In addition, the number of approaches to integrating and commercializing AI is currently large, and many of those approaches may fail to gain market acceptance or become obsolete as AI continues to evolve. At this time, we are unable to predict which offerings will ultimately be successful. Notwithstanding our investments, our products and services may become less marketable or less competitive, or potentially obsolete if either our approach to integrating AI into our products and services fails to gain market acceptance or our approach to protecting our data and intellectual property is ultimately inadequate. Any of these factors could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities, Use of Proceeds, and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

On June 22, 2022, the Board of Directors approved a share repurchase program authorizing the purchase of 30 million shares (the “2022 Repurchase Program”), which was approximately 9% of the total shares of our outstanding common stock at that time. During the third quarter of 2023, we received 1.4 million shares, which included 0.1 million shares received from our accelerated share repurchase (“ASR”) agreement that we entered into on May 8, 2023 and 1.3 million shares received from our ASR agreement that we entered into on August 7, 2023. Further discussion relating to our ASR agreements can be found in Note 8 - Equity. As of September 30, 2023, 21.5 million shares remained under the 2022 Repurchase Program.

Repurchased shares may be used for general corporate purposes, including the issuance of shares for stock compensation plans and to offset the dilutive effect of the exercise of employee stock options. Our 2022 Repurchase Program has no expiration date and purchases under this program may be made from time to time on the open market and in private transactions, depending on market conditions.

The following table provides information on our purchases of our outstanding common stock during the third quarter of 2023 pursuant to the 2022 Repurchase Program (column c). In addition to these purchases, the number of shares in column (a) include shares of common stock that are tendered to us to satisfy our employees’ tax withholding obligations in connection with the vesting of awards of restricted shares (we repurchase such shares based on their fair market value on the vesting date).

There were no other share repurchases during the quarter outside the repurchases noted below.

1 Includes 0.1 million shares received from the conclusion of our ASR agreement that we entered into on May 8, 2023.

2 Includes 1.1 million shares received from the initiation of our ASR agreement that we entered into on August 7, 2023.

3 Includes 0.2 million shares received from the conclusion of our ASR agreement that we entered into on August 7, 2023.

IRAN THREAT REDUCTION AND SYRIA HUMAN RIGHTS ACT DISCLOSURE

Pursuant to Section 219 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, which amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, an issuer is required to disclose in its annual or quarterly reports, as applicable, whether, during the reporting period, it or any of its affiliates knowingly engaged in certain activities, transactions or dealings relating to Iran or with individuals or entities designated pursuant to certain Executive Orders. Disclosure is generally required even where the activities, transactions or dealings were conducted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

During the third quarter of 2023, the Company engaged in limited transactions or dealings related to the purchase or sale of information and informational materials, which are generally exempt from U.S. economic sanctions, with persons that are owned or controlled, or appear to be owned or controlled, by the Government of Iran or are otherwise subject to disclosure pursuant to Section 219 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012. Commodities Insights provided subscribers access to proprietary data, analytics, and industry information that enable commodities markets to perform with greater transparency and efficiency. Market Intelligence sourced certain trade data from Iran. The Company will continue to monitor such activities closely. During the third quarter of 2023, the Company recorded no revenue or net profit attributable to the Commodities Insights transactions or dealings described above, which reflects the uncertainty of collection. The Company attributes a de minimis amount of gross revenues and net profits to the data sourced from Iran by Market Intelligence.

RULE 10b5-1 PLAN ELECTIONS

On August 2, 2023, Douglas Peterson, President and Chief Executive Officer, adopted a pre-arranged stock trading plan for the sale of up to 18,000 shares of the Company’s common stock. Mr. Peterson’s plan will terminate on the earlier of (i) May 24, 2024 and (ii) the date on which all sales contemplated under the plan have been executed. Mr. Peterson’s plan is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense of Rule 10b5-1(c) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (“Exchange Act”). No other Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangements or “non-Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangements” (as defined by S-K Item 408(c)) were entered into or terminated by our directors or officers (as defined in Rule 16a-1(f) under the Exchange Act) during the third quarter of 2023.

• These exhibits relate to management contracts or compensatory plan arrangements.

Signatures

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this quarterly report on Form 10-Q to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.