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Nasdaq, Inc. (NDAQ)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 27, 2016

$91.31

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Nasdaq Second Quarter 2016 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Ed Ditmire, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Edward P. Ditmire - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Nasdaq's second quarter 2016 earnings results. On the line are Bob Greifeld, our CEO; Ron Hassen, who was our Interim CFO and is acting as our Principal Financial Officer until compiling of our second quarter 2016 Form 10-Q; Michael Ptasznik, our new CFO; our Chief Operating Officer and President, Adena Friedman; President, Hans-Ole Jochumsen; Ed Knight, our General Counsel; and other members of the management team. After prepared remarks, we'll open up to Q&A. The press release and presentation are on our website. We intend to use the website as a means of disclosing material, non-public information and complying with disclosure obligations under SEC Regulation FD. I'd like to remind you that certain statements in this presentation and during Q&A may relate to future events and expectations and, as such, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from these projections. Information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements is contained in our press release and periodic reports filed with the SEC. I now will turn the call over to Bob. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Thank you, Ed. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to review Nasdaq's second quarter 2016 results. Certainly, when you look at our performance this quarter and during the first half of the year, the balance of our business model continues to demonstrate its resiliency. As I have pointed out to you before, while we are not immune to market forces and significant global events, we are, however, intensely focused on serving our clients and supporting them throughout pivotal moments in their evolution. As a fintech company, technology…

Edward P. Ditmire - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Operator, should we open up the queue for Q&A?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question today comes from the line of Rich Repetto with Sandler O'Neill. Your line is open. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: How are you doing, Rich? Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Yeah. Good morning, Bob. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: How are you doing? Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Pretty good, Bob. How are you? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: I cannot complain. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Congrats on the record quarter. And first question is you beat, on the revenue side at least versus us, on Technology Solutions with a good portion driven by the Market Technology. And I know you've given three reasons why it did so well. I guess the question is, how much is one-time, how much can be – in that will improve the run rate going forward, whether it's the licensing fees, the change requests or – like, surveillance seems like it's an ongoing thing. So, I guess, to give us an outlook on Market Technology going forward because that was a clear feed. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'll turn it over to Adena. But I do want to make it very clear, this business is really doing incredibly well across a number of different areas. So we highlighted a couple. But our competitive position as a result of our technology initiatives, our technology investments are focused on the customers, certainly starting to pay off in a major way. Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Great. Hi, Rich. How are you? Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Hi, Adena. Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer:…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ashley Serrao with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Marcus Carney - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Yes. Hello. This is Marcus Carney standing in for Ashley Serrao. Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: Okay. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: How are you doing, Marcus? Marcus Carney - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Not bad. How are you, Bob? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: I can't complain. Marcus Carney - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Excellent. Just two quick questions. One, I was wondering if we could have an update on the IR solutions client conversions, kind of where we are in the process and how retention has fared? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Go ahead, Adena? Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Sure. So we continue to be on track with the IR conversions. And in fact, I think that we've been accelerating that as we've been going through the quarter. It's been – people are receiving the product extremely well. We've built in an automated migration tool that's really helped and clients are very excited about being able to get access to the new product. So far, just want to make sure that I get the right numbers here, we've upgraded 1,600 clients to the IR Insight platform and 2800 users. So we continue to be on track to complete that through this year. And generally, in terms of the client retention, it is a very competitive market out there, but we are seeing very good improvement both in terms of how our clients are taking the product and retaining our users, in…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Harris with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Chris M. Harris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Thanks, guys. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: How are you doing, Chris?

Chris M. Harris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Hey. Pretty good, Bob. Real quick question on the acquisitions you guys have done. I believe your guidance is excluding potential upside from any revenue synergies that might occur. So, as you guys are integrating these transactions, any thoughts on how material those could be and how quickly you might be able to achieve those? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I would say this, we're very comfortable increasing the number to $0.40. We believe there's an upside bias to that number for both expense and revenue, but we're not in a position to commit to that now. It's early days with all of them. But we feel optimistically inclined.

Chris M. Harris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

All right. Just a quick question then unrelated to the quarter. Bob, I would really like to get your thoughts on blockchain technology in general and how big of an impact do you think this might have on the industry, and perhaps a little bit about how Nasdaq plans to capitalize on that? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: And so I'll give you two views. One, on the optimistic side is, the blockchain will change everything with respect to post-trade across a wide variety of asset classes across the globe in time. That will happen. On the other side, you have to recognize that blockchain by itself, and I tie back to what Larry Ellison said back in the dot-com days is that's a feature, it's not a company. So blockchain is another method of storing data and it needs to be integrated into solutions that fit within the construct of the ecosystem we live in. And what we announced at the Technology of the Future Conference, which I referenced in my prepared remarks, is a pure recognition of that. So we're putting the blockchain as a key part, a central part of the Nasdaq Financial Framework. But, by itself, it doesn't do anything. So I think the deep integration of blockchain into core technologies is fundamental and we're on that mission. So we see this as a major opportunity, but we think just somebody out there trying to sell blockchain technology is not going to get that far. It has to get integrated into what happens today.

Chris M. Harris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Kramm with UBS. Your line is open.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Yeah. Hey. Good morning, everyone. Just maybe more broadly speaking on the non-transaction side, wondering if you could give us an update around the selling environment and how that's changed so far this year, given all the challenges on the financial services industry. And in particular, as you look forward, how Brexit in your opinion could change that in some of your businesses? Thanks. Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Sure. Hey, Alex. So, if we start with the Market Tech business, I think that we continue to find a very receptive audience among our clients as well as new potential clients. We did sign on a new client in the first quarter. We've renewed several contracts. We've upgraded several of our contracts. That's why we had such good order intake in the second quarter. And we continue to see very good opportunity in our core Market Tech business in addition to the SMARTS trade system, which frankly has tremendous traction, is an award-winning solution, and we continue to see a very, very robust pipeline of sales opportunities there. So I don't think Brexit is going to have an impact on either of those businesses in any meaningful way. And then, if we turn over to Corporate Solutions, Corporate Solutions continues to have a variety, frankly, of sales environments in it because it's a wide range of products. But in terms of the need for, for instance, board portal technology and more intelligent PR distribution and intelligent solutions, that continues to be an area of very good growth for us. In terms of the investor relations products, I would say it depends on the sector. So we continue to see weakness in the energy sector, but strength in some of the biotech and the technology sectors. And again, Brexit doesn't really have any impact on that business either. So I hope that answers your question.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Got it. Sure. Thank you. And then I guess, secondly, I think this is for Bob. I know Cash Equities isn't really that important of a business for you anymore in terms of revenue contribution. But it seems like there is some growing support within the SECs for some Access fee pilots. So, just wondering what you think about that kind of initiative. It seems like it would actually impact a lot of the market if they really include all of the different symbols and some of the folks we've talked to think this could actually be a pretty big negative for volumes down the line. So, any thoughts, any discussions you've had from your end would be helpful. Thanks. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Well, the first thing I want to say is we are in love with the Cash Equities business. It's the core of what we do and we pay a lot of attention to it. So, as we get larger and do different things, it's important to recognize we will not do that unless we execute quite successfully in all our chosen businesses, and Cash Equities is really first among equals. So, with respect to what's happening, as you recollect, we attempted of our own accord to do a basic Access fee pilot. And we picked certain stocks and we thought this was a good thing to do. Because when you think about the passage of Reg NMS and the $0.30 was picked as the limit for Access fee, that may or may not had been the right number at that point in time, but it cannot be the right number a decade later. And we have a belief that that number is too high. So we're in full support of the commission moving forward with that. On the other side of the equation, we believe in rebates. We believe in the maker-taker model. But we also do not believe that the maker fee should be so high that it creates activity in and of itself. It should be there to provide incentive for somebody to reveal their hand first. So, to the extent we shrink the Access fee and the maker rebate declines, I think that could be a good thing for the market. So, first and foremost, we believe that high-quality markets are good for Nasdaq and good for us, and we fully support what hopefully will happen in a faster pace with the commission. And we certainly think that, as I said before, if the market quality is better, then an organization like Nasdaq is better served.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Carrier with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Thanks, guys. I guess, first question, just when we look at the updated expense guidance, just wanted to maybe get a comparable update in terms of the acquisitions that closed and some of them that closed during 2Q? Maybe like what the full run rate can be on the revenue side? And then I guess just looking out, I know you guys aren't providing like 2017 expense guidance, but when I think about that, I think there's about $50 million of synergies that remain, I think you said over the next 18 months. And when we look at that midpoint of the expense range for this year, if we kept expenses flat going into next year, that would be like a 4% growth rate if you realize those synergies. So, just wanted to get some guidance what the core maybe expense run rate should be going forward maybe pre those synergies? Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: It's just a little too early to go. We want to see exactly what the synergies are going to look like going into 2017. But I think it's much too early to try to look out into 2017 at this point in time and to give any formal guidance. We gave a fairly good guidance at this point, taking into consideration the synergies that we know to-date, which is roughly $10 million on an annualized basis, and gave a midpoint of roughly 12.40%. But to go beyond that would be quite difficult to go that way. And we'll give 2017 guidance, as we always have, in the fourth quarter.

Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Got it. And then just anything on the revenue side, meaning any of the deals that closed like intra-quarter... Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: Yeah.

Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

...just like a full run rate or an update there? Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: So, as you saw at Investor Day, I gave guidance on these deals as how they performed in 2015. And it's too early to talk about ISE at this point. But in terms of the other three deals, they're operating on the same pace as their 2015 revenue guidance that I gave earlier. So, not too much difference than what you saw there.

Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Okay. Got it. Thanks a lot. Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: All right.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Allen with Buckingham Research. Your line is open.

Chris Allen - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Buckingham Research. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Just want to shift back a little bit to Corporate Solutions. I think, Bob, you said in your remarks that the stage is set for better organic growth in the back half of this year. I'm just wondering what are kind of the catalysts for that. Adena talked about some of the tailwinds, headwinds that are in the business. And maybe any color on subscription sales that you guys have seen so far this year and what kind of the outlook is moving forward? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I would say this that the second quarter was very strong and that we're serving two masters in that there was a massive ramp-up in the transition to the new platform and, as Adena references, we're on schedule and I think soon will be ahead of schedule with that. And that's obviously a consumer resource and will cost money. But at the same time, we saw a noticeable increase in our win rate versus the competitors, and that will obviously translate down the line to the growth. So the core drivers of the business look strong. And as we convert folks to the new platform, we're certainly in an ideal position to start cross-selling. Adena, do you want to add to that? Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yeah. I mean I think more broadly, Chris, we've been talking about the different dynamics within Corporate Solutions all year, and I think one of the areas that we have had some headwinds is in the MMS sales, but that's been I think offset by continued growth in the board portal platform. Definitely, very strong revenues coming in on Marketwired as well as continued rollout, and definitely a pickup in sales within the IR Insight platform. So there are lots of different dynamics there, but I think that as Bob said, we are moving towards a situation where we feel that we can hit revenue growth and we will continue to track that very carefully.

Chris Allen - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Buckingham Research. Your line is open.

Okay. Thanks. And then just one quick question on market data. In the press release, you called out year-over-year growth benefited from audit collections. I know last year was a low quarter for audit collections to audit (47:45). I'm just wondering if any color in terms of magnitude this quarter, maybe how it compared sequentially with the first quarter? Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: Yeah. So this quarter we had $5 million in audit revenues. Last quarter, the first-quarter, there was $4 million and the second quarter of last year was $2 million.

Chris Allen - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Buckingham Research. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks a lot. Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Fannon with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks. Within the Tech Solutions, with the margin improvement quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year as well I guess, can you talk about the contribution from Marketwired and Boardvantage to that versus kind of the core trend potentially improving longer term? Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yeah. I think that the improvement in the margin was driven by the core business and primarily in Market Technology, not by Marketwired or Boardvantage. Right now is that we're having to absorb them. There are some one-time costs associated with bringing them in. And so they're not – as we achieve synergies, they will become a significant contributor and they should help us accelerate some of the path to that 20%. But, right now, they're not contributing to an increase in the margin right now.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Great. And then just a follow-up on the synergies. The outlook, I guess, the pace of synergy realization over the next 18 months. Do we think that's more of a 2017 event or we should see that kind of progress through this year? Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Well, within Corporate Solutions, I would say that it's more of a 2017 event because we'll be consolidating platforms and providing our clients new benefits, and we'll be managing that through 2017.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

And then, also on the Market Services side, just with the synergies, the $40 million that's been targeted? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. There's one bump and that's when you actually move away from the platform. So we haven't locked-in on that date yet. So you'll see a decline – increase in the synergies and then an acceleration as the platform is migrated.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is going to come from the line of Patrick O'Shaughnessy with Raymond James. Your line is open. Patrick J. O'Shaughnessy - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey. Good morning. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: How are you doing? Patrick J. O'Shaughnessy - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Curious if you have any updated thoughts on what you might do with those U.S. stock exchange medallions you're getting from ISE? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, what I would say for today's call is the intention on the options side is to keep all the medallions active. So we'll be managing the six medallions. And it's important, and almost I expected the question, but I'll handle it here. With our options, we're definitely managing this as a portfolio. Tom will answer to Hans-Ole, Adena and myself with respect to the overall market share and we expect to pull different levers at different times between the different exchanges with the different market share results. So we're happy with the fact that we're 40% market share this week and been in and around 40% certainly since the acquisition. I think the customer uptake has been very strong. To get to your question with respect to equities and the licenses we have there, we certainly have more than enough. We do not have an answer at this point. But we know they're assets and we want to come up with, what I would say, imaginative plans on how to monetize those assets over time. Patrick J. O'Shaughnessy - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kyle Voigt with KBW. Your line is open. Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Hi. Good morning. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: How are you doing? Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks for taking my question. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Go. Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: So I just want to touch on the ISE deal again. So, when you announced the deal, you said there would be some sharing of synergies with clients. And I just want to revisit this. Could you provide some more clarity around your plans here, and when or if we should expect to see some impact on average capture rates in the options businesses as you realize your cost synergies? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: So I would say that, under Tom's leadership, we've already done some clever things with respect to pricing. It's not that noticeable on the outside but certainly appreciated by the customers. So, without those moves, I don't think we would have maintained the share we have. And as I said before, we can be quite clever about where we allocate our pricing power. So we have the six licenses. And so we go into this recognizing we can and we have some big data analysis behind this to help us serve two masters, where we can more competitively price where it matters to our customers and probably gain some extra capture where the customers are relatively pricing sensitive. So we feel comfortable that we are able to keep share and maintain capture. But, as I said before, if we need to, in order to make customers happy, we will sacrifice capture that has not been necessary as at this point in time. Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Bond with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Andrew Bond - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hey. Thanks. Good morning. More a question on ISE, MIAX and Bats both plan to enter the complex segment and they've both been disruptors, won market share in their respective options segments in which they currently operate. So do you guys believe there's going to be an additional pricing pressure or it'll just be a more difficult market for these exchanges to disrupt? And additionally, one of the competitive advantage of your complex book platform that will be more key at maintaining market share versus MIAX and Bats? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: All right. So the first thing I want to do is put this in context. So we identify ourselves as a financial technology company and, as such, we recognize that whatever advantage you have today will disappear if you do not continue to innovate and move the product forward. We have a massive lead right now in complex order flow. As we gained an appreciation of the ISE technology as the owner, we see that they are doing things that others are not right now with complex orders. But if that's all we do then we will lose share. So, certainly, we have no intentions of staying where we are. We intend to continue to innovate within the complex order flow. I'm happy to report, under Tom's leadership, we're engaged with the customers and there's a path we can take in complex order flow that a lot of our competitors are not in a position to think about or leverage based upon the fact they don't have the presence we have in that area. So we will continue to innovate in that space and, I think, do incredibly well.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Hi. Great. Thanks very much. Maybe, Bob, if you could circle back on NFX, you mentioned earlier in the presentation, if you could talk a little bit about the pricing that you've been increasing on which contracts and what the EPS drag from NFX is now and where you expect that to go in 2017? Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. All right. So I would say this, in terms of the way to think about our pricing philosophy, if you see us have double-digit market share for a reasonable period of time, then we'll look to take a pricing move. So the two contracts we have had double-digit market share. And it's important to note that we took a pricing move, and as I said, it was meaningful in that in May and June, from that pricing move we received $500,000 in gross revenue and our market share continued to increase. We're still a fraction of what the competitors charge. So there's room to grow there. And as our share continues to grow and we deliver more value to our customers, we're going to see that. So, as different assets get to that double-digit threshold, then we will think about that. It's also important to note that we're adding new instruments to the platform and I think we're very excited about that. There was a bit of publicity on that just the other day. So, that's going to continue to go forward. With respect to the drag on the second quarter, Ron, that was $0.02? Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: That was $0.02. Yep. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: $0.02 for the quarter. And so, one of the best investments we could make. So, clearly, as we have more instruments at double-digit market share and we're charging, then that burn rate will decline.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Warren Gardiner with Evercore. Your line is open.

Warren Gardiner - Evercore Group LLC

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks, guys. So, with the new IR Insight rollout kind of moving along and the addition of Marketwired and Boardvantage, I was just wondering if you guys can give us some thoughts on how to think about price compare in that business going forward. And then also kind of the same questions for Market Tech as well. Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Sure. Well, Corporate Solutions operates within a very competitive landscape. So we are very, very mindful of our clients and what they expect in terms of the service versus the price and the value that we provide to them. We did make some small pricing changes at the beginning of the year, as we have the right to do under our contracts. But it's not something where we could make wholesale pricing moves and not expect client reactions. So we manage that very, very carefully. And again, it is a highly competitive space. Within Market Tech, we have longstanding relationships with our clients and long-dated contracts with our clients. And so, again, it's not something where we can make kind of changes in pricing year-over-year or anything like that, because it's just a very different kind of business. Most contracts are five years in length and some of them are three years, some are seven years, some are longer. But it's definitely – those things are all negotiated upfront and so it's not really a situation where we can make pricing moves like we can in other subscription products. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: And I would add then with the new products we are coming out with, we're re-imagining the support requirements in using technology to deliver a better customer experience with less manual support from Nasdaq. And that represents a good lever for us with respect to margin improvement.

Warren Gardiner - Evercore Group LLC

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Rutschow with CLSA. Your line is open.

Rob Rutschow - CLSA Americas LLC

Analyst · CLSA. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: How are you doing, Rob?

Rob Rutschow - CLSA Americas LLC

Analyst · CLSA. Your line is open.

Good. Thanks. I think most of my questions have been asked. Just one quick one. On Boardvantage, I think that had a high growth rate, maybe double-digits. Are you continuing to see that sort of growth rate in that segment and was that the main driver of the increase in Corporate Solutions revenue in the quarter? Thanks. Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Well, I think that the full-quarter impact of Marketwired plus the closing of the Boardvantage deal during the quarter were the two drivers of the increase in revenue for Corporate Solutions. But, yes, the board portal space and just the collaboration space in general tends to be a hybrid area for us. I would say that it's probably high-single digits, low-double digits is kind of the type of growth rate we've seen in those products and what Boardvantage and Directors Desk have been experiencing. So we definitely continue to see companies moving away from paper towards electronic solutions and realizing how critical it is to have a very, very highly secured solution because of the sensitivity of the information that they're sharing either across the management team or with the board, and that is continuing to drive great demand both in private companies and public companies for these types of services.

Rob Rutschow - CLSA Americas LLC

Analyst · CLSA. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our final question for today is a follow-up from the line of Michael Carrier with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Sameer Murukutla - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Hey. Good morning, guys. This is actually Sameer. Mike had to jump off. Just a quick follow-up on the Index business. What drove the licensees lower given that the markets and the average markets are at highs? Adena T. Friedman - President & Chief Operating Officer: Well, actually so it depends on the index value. So, primarily, the index values did have a decline in the quarter, and based on things like Brexit and other thing that drove different indexes down. And so, yeah, it's an average across a lot of different index products, a lot of different ETFs. So I think that it's definitely a beta much more and there really wasn't a lot of alpha headwinds. It's really just a beta headwind with large market valuations. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's right.

Sameer Murukutla - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And that does conclude today's Q&A portion of the call. I'd like to turn it back over to Bob Greifeld for any closing remarks. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you. Well, I want to appreciate everybody joining us with this call today. An outstanding quarter for Nasdaq, and as I referenced in my prepared remarks, most importantly, on a forward-looking basis we're doing the right things to continue this progress. As a final note, Ron, again, you've been with me every day since I got here. It's been much appreciated... Ronald Hassen - Finance Controller & Senior Vice President, Principal Accounting Officer, NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.: Thank you. Robert Greifeld - Chief Executive Officer & Director: ...and you'll be much missed. So, thank you. Let's give him a round of applause.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program. You may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.