What?!
Leave our Detlef alone!
'Are they picking on our Detlef, boss?'
I don't know, Voice. Probably not. I just read the headline, like.
'Without reading the rest of the email.'
Yeah.
Never mind.
Let's find out what this is all really about, you dig?
For immediate release, 5th August 2022.
Ha!
Never mind.
London Stock Exchange Group - Too early to declare victory with Refinitiv merger.
Oh.
The London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) has announced half-year results for the six months ended 30 June 2022:
Total Income grew 6.2%, excluding currency moves, with growth across all three divisions.
Adjusted operating profit grew 4.3%, excluding currency moves, to £1,408 million. Inflationary pressures being well managed with "robust levers in place to manage cost pressure going forward".
Launching £750 million share buy-back over next 12 months.
And what did the group comment???
The group commented: "We are successfully executing on our strategy, have good momentum going into the second half and our targets remain unchanged."
And what does Charlie say? 'Charlie who?!' Charlie Huggins. 'Oh. Him.'
Charlie Huggins, Head of Equities at Wealth Club, says:
"Around three quarters of LSE’s revenue is recurring, and the products and services it provides tend to be mission-critical to customers. This makes it a pretty resilient business, as these results highlight.
"High inflation is less of a problem for LSE than for most businesses, thanks to good pricing power which results in consistently solid margins. The business model is also highly scalable and capital light. This limits the need to take on more staff in order to grow, while on-going cost savings from the Refinitiv merger provide an additional efficiency lever to pull.
"The Refinitiv deal transformed LSE's data capabilities, creating a financial powerhouse to rival Bloomberg. So far, the integration seems to be progressing broadly to plan. However, it's too early for LSE to declare victory. Transformational acquisitions like this are always easier to plot on PowerPoint than they are to pull off in practice.
"Refinitiv's IT infrastructure is frankly a mess, resembling a plate of tangled spaghetti. Modernizing this legacy tech estate will be a multi-year process and is far from straightforward. The acquisition also makes LSE a significantly larger, more complex business with two distinct cultures that now need to be meshed. The spate of divisional leadership changes since the deal completed speak to some of these challenges.
"These risks certainly shouldn't be overlooked. However, If LSE can pull off the integration, investors could be richly rewarded."
Tangled spaghetti?! Christ! I tell you, if I were working in Refinitiv's IT department I would be really upset and angry about that remark. 'Yeah, you might get a crew of guys together and go looking for Charlie.' Ha! Well, I don't know about that, Voice. I mean, you can take things too far.
It's only IT at the end of the day.
Let's all calm down, yeah?
ENDS
...
Anything else? Music?
I finished And Rain Came Down on Friday. And a bit on Saturday. And a bit on Sunday. Yeah, it caused me trouble. The suffering I go through for art is something else.
Anyway ...
The lyric is very good.
The song is supposed to be about the mystery of inspiration, BUT(!) ... I think I've added to the mystery rather than cleared anything up.
Never mind.
I need to finish Life and Death now.* Then all the pressure will be off me??? ... because I'll have my BIG TEN to match the Beatles BIG TEN.
So I reckon ...
I mean ...
It means!!! - if I want - I'll be able to do gigs twenty years from now WITHOUT any new "great" songs and people won't be too upset about it.
I'll be upset about it, obviously.
It's a sort of freedom, really.
Yeah, yeah. Maybe.
Laters.
*Oh! I might have a go at the little one first. The lyric. 'What little one, Mikey?' The 2.20 one, Voice. 'Oh, okay. What's it called?' I don't know. I haven't got a title. 'What's it about?' I don't know! I ain't got a clue.
Laters, kooks!
