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Nasdaq, Inc. (NDAQ)

Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 25, 2018

$91.31

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Nasdaq's Second Quarter 2018 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ed Ditmire, Vice President, Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Edward P. Ditmire - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Nasdaq's second quarter 2018 financial results. On the line are Adena Friedman, our CEO; Michael Ptasznik, our CFO; Ed Knight, our Global Chief Legal and Policy Officer; 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. And now, I will turn the call over to Adena.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Ed. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I will focus my remarks today on three important areas; our current business performance, our progress on the strategic transformation of our business, and the latest regulatory developments in the capital markets. I'm very pleased to report Nasdaq's solid financial performance for the second quarter of 2018. We delivered strong organic revenue growth of 7% during the quarter with 8% across Market Technology, Information Services, and Corporate Services segment that make up the bulk of our recurring revenues and 6% in Market Services segment where the majority of the revenue is transactional. Undoubtedly, this organic growth reflects in part positive beta from healthy market and activity levels and the scale inherent in our business model. However, importantly, that our growth this quarter also reflects our clients' view of the Nasdaq value proposition and its ability to serve their evolving needs. We put ourselves in a position to deliver most effectively for our shareholders, when we help our clients succeed in new ways by solving new kinds of challenges they are facing. This includes our advancements and adaptations of our Market Technology offerings and our high-quality data index and analytics products. Equally important to our success this past quarter is that our core trading and Corporate Services businesses are operating with the resiliency, efficiency and profitability we need to support our strategic direction and are maximizing the opportunity presented by the favorable trading and new listing backdrop, with a 74% U.S. IPO win rate and our improving U.S. and Nordic equity trading market share as compared to the second quarter of 2017. Taking a step away from the second quarter result and the various factors that contributed, I would like to talk a bit about our efforts to improve…

Operator

Operator

You may resume your conference.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Well, sorry about that. So I'm going to continue. I believe that I was talking about our Technology of the Future Conference in Stockholm, so I'm going to continue our remarks from there. So in terms of the conference, the feedback from our clients and prospects coupled with our success in attracting new clients confirms our conviction that we're executing against sizable opportunities with a thoughtful and strategic approach. From our legacy clients looking to upgrade and expand their technology, to new clients from within and outside of the traditional capital markets industry, our story, strategy, technology roadmap, and products are resonating. Second quarter new order intake was strong, contributing to a first half 2018 total of $109 million, up 18% year-over-year. 2Q wins in the second quarter were especially encouraging, one from the National Stock Exchange of India, or NSE, and the second with the Swiss Exchange. The agreement with NSE, by far, the largest exchange in India, is one of the largest exchanges in the world by volume, is to replace its clearing and settlement solutions with architecture using the Nasdaq Financial Framework to allow clearing and settlement of all asset classes in one system, as well as a partnership to explore opportunities across several business areas between both companies. This agreement marks the first time that NSE has relied upon any technology providers outside of India to support their key business operations. The Swiss Exchange, a long-term trading platform client and a major international market operator, has expanded their relationship with us into their post-trade business. They will leverage Nasdaq's clearing and risk management technology via the Nasdaq Financial Framework to clear pan-European equities and Nordic derivatives. I've also talked about our efforts to bring our expertise in Market Technology to benefit enterprises outside of traditional financial…

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Adena and good morning everyone. My commentary will primarily focus on our non-GAAP results and all comparisons will be to the prior year period unless otherwise noted. Reconciliations of U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP results can be found in attachments to our press release and in the presentation that's available on our website at ir.nasdaq.com. I'll start by reviewing second quarter revenue performance as shown on page 3 of the presentation and organic growth on pages 4 and 14. The 3% or $19 million increase in reported net revenue of $650 million consisted of organic growth of $40 million including 8% organic growth in the non-trading segments and 6% organic growth in Market Services. A $6 million favorable impact from changes in foreign exchange rates and a net $27 million negative impact from the combination of the divestiture of the Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses, which had a negative $44 million impact on the GAAP revenue comparison and the inclusion of $17 million of revenues from the acquisition of eVestment. I'd note here that the eVestment revenue recognized in the quarter of $24 million was reduced by 7% million related to the purchase price adjustment on deferred revenue associated with the closing of the transaction. I will now review quarterly highlights within each of our reporting segments. I will start with Information Services which is reflected on pages 5 and 14 saw a $31 million or a 22% increase in revenue, consisting of $12 million or 8% organic growth. The growth was primarily the result of index revenues which were up 16% in the second quarter of 2013, Market Data revenues which increased 9%, and the aforementioned $17 million net revenues from the acquisition of eVestment. Regarding the remaining deferred revenue adjustment, the impact should reduce…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Rich Repetto with Sandler O'Neill. Your line is open. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Yeah. Good morning, Adena. Good morning, Michael.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Rich, how are you? Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: I'm doing fine. So, the first question I hate to use a question on this, but it is this $8 million of investment income that you'd talked about briefly, Michael, that did have an impact on EPS this quarter. I'm just trying to understand what was it from an equity – I didn't quite catch what it came from and I guess it's a one-time thing I assume?

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Well, it wasn't necessarily a one-time thing but we do typically get some dividends from our equity-based investments. This was an outsized one. So, normally we get a couple of million dollars or so on an annual or a quarterly basis. But there's about $7 million I would say that was unusual for this period that was a special dividend that we received in the quarter. So, that was what that difference was. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Got it. Okay. Thank you. And then, I guess I'll take a step back and ask a broader question, Adena. It seems like the strategic pivot in the strategy has been well accepted by the investment community and it seems like you're certainly executing as you divest the PR and the DMS business. So, I guess the question is are there any updates on it now? Are there audibles, is it pure just executing on that plan now or after seeing what the business looks like and how it's performing and you're growing in all categories here, but are there any audibles, any updates compared to the initial plan that you announced almost a year ago?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. So it's great question. So we are definitely in execution mode right now against the strategy that we communicated back in the fall, and we kind of highlighted at Investor Day. However, we are always looking at assessing all of our businesses, making sure they're performing to the level that we would expect them to perform at, making sure that we're looking at our investments and our new initiatives, and making sure that they're also driving to the results that we ultimately expect from them. And we will continue to reassess that on a regular basis. Now, every year we do have a strategy session with our board and we have a strategy session with management, and those are good opportunities for us to continue to refine our execution plan and continue to define our strategy. So that's a regular part of our playbook at this point, Rich. But right now, we're really focused on execution against what we communicated over the last nine months. Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Got it. Thank you for the updates.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

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

Michael Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

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

All right. Thanks a lot. Adena, maybe one for you, just again on the organic growth. Things are kind of coming in much better than maybe expected than the historical rates and you mentioned some of that, you get the market backdrop maybe on the transaction side. But on the non-transaction side, like where are the areas that maybe are maybe surpassing your expectations? Are you seeing better interest from the client base in terms of acceptance of some of the changes that you're putting in place?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. I think that it's really been – well, I could say there are kind of two areas where I would point to the market backdrop being a helpful tailwind in the non-transaction businesses. One is certainly in our AUM growth, although frankly a lot of our AUM growth is coming from TSO, meaning people are actually putting in flows into ETPs derived from our indexes. So it's not just market value improvement but it really is interest in investing in those strategies. But that is helpful – helped by a healthy market environment. I think the other thing is just the IPO environment is very healthy. And obviously, our win rate is our effort. The fact that we have had more IPOs this year than we've had in prior years is a testament to also the market backdrop. So I would say both of those things have been really positive for us and it's really a combination of our efforts and the positive environment and taking advantage of that positive environment. I think in the Market Technology business, to be honest with you, I have to be very blunt, I'm not surprised by our success, but I'm extremely pleased with our success. I think that we work incredibly hard for our customers. These two deals that we announced this quarter, in particular, were years in the making, right? So they're based on the back of longstanding relationships, based on the back of a lot of work that our team has done to prove ourselves as the right partner, and really based on the past that we have a technology today that will carry our clients into the future. So I'm not surprised by it, but I'm extremely pleased to see how many of our clients and new clients coming on to the platform as we continue to build out the Nasdaq Financial Framework.

Michael Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

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

Okay, thanks. And, Michael, just real quick on the margin. So I know you're in this transition phase and you pointed out some of the items that I think you said weighed on the margin by 2%. So as we get into 2019, should we see like all else equal that lift or are there kind of the investments in the technology business that will continue to maybe mute that? I'm just trying to understand sort of that transition versus the investments when you're talking about mid-term margins versus short term.

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. So, the two key things that are weighing in the margin that reflects that 2% is the eVestment deferred revenue write down and the second piece is the overhead costs related to the sale of the business. And so, that's really where that's driving that 2%. We will continue to invest in the business and we did talk about that with respect to the Market Tech business. That is a multi-year program that we are investing in in the Nasdaq Financial Framework and some of the other areas that we're looking to build that out. But that the 2% was really related to those specific items. Obviously, the intention is that as we look to continue to grow the revenue towards the medium term targets that we've identified and if we continue to see good volume in the transactional side of the business, then we should see that revenue growth exceed the expense growth and we talked about that during Investor Day. So, that would generate additional margin. And again, there's maybe certain segments where the margin is more muted as we did in some of that investment period. But over the medium term, we do look to continue to grow the margin of the business depending on the mix of business.

Michael Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

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

All right. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ben Herbert with Citi. Your line is open.

Ben Herbert - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. Just wanted to follow up on the Market Tech side and the investment cycle. I guess looking into 2019 we kind of expect a low to mid 20s margin as the ceiling there. But as you look beyond that into 2020, can we expect to see the bulk of that investment phase behind us and margin uptake there?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. So, we've said in the past we did try to communicate this at Investor Day too that we do have this year – a couple of years of significant investment in the business. And we do expect that. On the back of that, we will – and based on the growth rate in that business that we hope to sustain over the long-term that we should start to show the ability for that business to scale over time. Now, we're not giving guidance or outlook related to specific segment margins because we are one business and we want to make sure we're investing appropriately across the business. But we do anticipate and we did communicate at Investor Day that the scalability of that business should improve as we get through an investment phase that's relatively significant. At the same time, we'll always be looking to make sure we're making enhancements and we're serving our customers. And we have deliveries and other things that have some temporary impacts on margins. But we definitely think that the scalability should improve as we get past this particular investment period.

Ben Herbert - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Thanks. And then maybe just a quick follow-up would be on eVestment and could you talk about some of the cross-sell and is that driving a lot of the success there either, and then also cross-sell into the prior existing eVestment customer base?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. Well, I think that we're very early days on the cross-selling. So the main impact of the business so far has really just been the growth and expansion of the business as we bought it. So it's been – it's a great company. The products that they offer their clients are very high value. The clients are continuing to buy more from the company. They're expanding into Europe and Asia and that's having success as well. And so really just the business itself is a high growth business, which is of course why it was very attractive to us to begin with. The cross-selling though is starting to happen but its early days, where the sales teams have gotten together, they've been looking at their joint pipeline. We've been looking at and we've had some very specific wins there but it's not a huge contributor to the revenue growth at this stage. That's definitely longer and coming.

Ben Herbert - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Kramm with UBS. Your line is open.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Hey. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to start on the index business. Adena, you highlighted the strong growth and big portion of smart beta here a couple of times I think in your prepared remarks. Just wondering on that business, in particular, I think that's a premium business for you in terms of pricing but there seems to be increased debate about smart beta pricing, in general, as that gets more, I guess, commoditized, if that's the right word to use. So maybe just a little bit of a highlight what you're seeing out there, if there's pricing pressure potentially coming or why that business differentiates itself to other smart beta offerings.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. Well, the first thing I would say is, as you know, the way that the contract work is you enter into an agreement with an ETP provider and you establish what the share of the revenue is going to be based on a certain fee per basis point, and that then sustains itself through the life of that partnership and the life of the product. But as we look at launching new product and we've gone out and worked with our clients to make sure that we're finding things that are interesting and unique in the marketplace, we continue to find our ability to charge appropriate rates. I wouldn't say that I don't consider them premium rates, but appropriate rates for the products that we're launching. And we're mindful of making sure that we are coming up with strategies that are different and differentiated so that we can get an appropriate benefit from that. So, we have not seen very significant compression. But it doesn't mean that we're also getting the rates that we got 10 years ago. I think that it's an evolving industry and we are very mindful and thoughtful on how we partner with our clients.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you. Helpful. And then just secondly real quick, with the CME NEX acquisition now a few months – well, still pending, but the announcement a few months behind us now. Just curious if on your Fixed Income business, you've had increased discussions with clients that you could share anything about. I think they are a little bit muted on their end because of takeover laws. But just wondering if you're having increased discussions with your clients of how this could benefit or work against you and how this is really being received.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. Well, the majority of the conversations we've been having with our clients in the Treasury business so far has really been about our re-platforming and the work we're doing to get them ready for the new platform, which obviously we believe will accrue to their benefit and ours because of the performance of the platform. So really we've been focused on that. But to the extent that the conversations turned to the overall landscape, I would say that they see that there's a lot of dynamic – there are dynamic moves going on. I think that they don't really have a lot of clarity as to what it's going to mean for them in terms of that particular merger. And our job is really to make sure that we make the most of the transition and the potential disruption to make it, so that we have – we put ourselves in the best competitive position possible. So that tends to be what we focus on. Part of that strategy is the announcements that we're launching the Treasury Futures later in the quarter because of the fact that we think that we have great pricing coming off of our Fixed Income platform that we can use as a benchmark. And we have real interest coming from the clients in a futures instrument and they really are excited about having that through an alternative. So we are looking forward to having that as part of what we offer in the Fixed Income space going forward.

Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

All right. Very good. Thank you.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks very much. Adena, maybe just to focus back on some of your comments earlier on the progress in the Market Technology wins in the nonfinancial client areas. So, maybe just to go a little bit deeper in that, you gave us an example of the crypto clients I think that's relatively new since Investor Day. And then, also you mentioned the two agreements with India and the Swiss Exchange, maybe if you can talk about. I know those are futuristic, but if they're sizeable enough to create a material uplift in revenue versus sort of what we all have in our models?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Well, I would say that they support the growth rate that we anticipated and we provided to you at Investor Day. So, that's kind of part of an example of why this is a higher growth part of our business is because we do see these types of opportunities clear and present and before us over the next several years as well. And I think – so you've kind of cut across three different things. One is having the National Stock Exchange of India, which I know all of you know is the largest exchange in India, they've never worked with a provider outside of India before. And so, that is a brand new client for us and I would say that's a good example where even in our core business we still have an opportunity to grow and expand our client base. The second one with the Swiss Exchange is kind of a good example of what I call the land and expand strategy where we develop a great partnership in one area and we're able to expand it to others. And those are – both of them are sizeable agreements. They'll take some time to implement but we now get to capture some of the revenue associated with that implementation as opposed to waiting until it's fully implemented. And we are excited about the fact that they support our growth. When you look into the non-financial markets or the non-traditional markets, the cryptocurrency space those are smaller opportunities because that space is still nascent and that exchanges aren't nearly as large as the ones I just mentioned but there are more of them, and there's more opportunity for us to demonstrate our capabilities across a broader range of exchanges there. And then, as we are just starting down the journey of saying, well, how is our technology relevant outside of the traditional markets. We are gaining a lot more intelligence on that as we've been engaging with in a lot of different industries. But there, I would say, it's still too early to be able to demonstrate or talk about a TAM or anything like that.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Okay. Yeah. Sounds consistent with the organic growth that you've telegraphed and then, if we just look at the near term, it sounds like the Swiss Exchange has a more near-term revenue benefit in maybe 2018, but India is more like a 2019.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Well, they all will – both of the projects will kick off in 2018, but they'll take a little time for the revenue to start to demonstrate itself, and then recognize that during the delivery period the margins are lower because we've got the cost of delivery associated with the revenue, whereas once its live then you'll have basically – you don't have as much cost associated with that revenue. So that's kind of how the – so the profit off those deals will be more backdated.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Okay. Great. And then just going back the access fee pilot with the debate, just maybe your view of the timing of that as the SEC gathers all of the industry comments. If you have a view sort of when they may still kick this off or what do you think the odds if they still do it as initially proposed?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

So, we don't have any insight into either one of those questions. I think that they are – the comment period is kind of coming to a close and here is the initial comment period. They may choose to – they'll have to respond to the comments and understand how the access fee pilot operates within the construct of the comments. They may choose to amend it. They may choose to defer it. We don't really have any special insight into that right now. Obviously, we think that they – well, we obviously don't support the pilot in general. But were they to choose to address the comments into the construct of the pilot, we would say that it requires very material changes for it to be something that we believe is in the good, the best interest of issuers and investors. So we'll have to see. But we don't have any special insights into how they're going about their process there.

Brian Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Yeah. No. Fair enough. Thank you.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Kyle Voigt with KBW. Your line is open. Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Hi. Good morning. Maybe I'll just try one more on that transaction fee pilot and then move to something else. But just in terms of just the potential impact to your business if it does goes through as currently proposed, I know you've argued and others in the industry have argued for many changes to that, so we'll see what happens. But if it does go through as proposed, I guess are you focusing on the potential for more volume shifting towards off-exchange trading as a potential risk, or is there something else that you're focused on as a business impact from the implementation of the pilot?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. Yeah. I would say that the first thing to mention just in general is if the rebate shifts down and the fee shifts down, then it usually goes in unison, so our net capture is likely not to be materially changed. But it does then have an impact of general liquidity in the markets across all venues, and the motivation that market makers have to commit their capital into the market. But then, also, the fact that the pilot as currently constructed only affects exchanges and doesn't affect ATS', which kind of creates this strange two-tiered system that would then have the potential to drive some of the flow off exchange. And so, I think that is probably the more material concern. But it is not something that we look at as being an overall material change to our revenue base. It's just that's the one area that we would say could have an impact and we've seen some of that in that Tick Pilot. So, you can see the Tick Pilot has had some impact in one of the tiers of moving some of the volume off exchange and again, it has not had a material impact on our financials. But it does impact price discovery and price formation and the things that we think are really important for the health of the markets and the ability for particularly small companies. And that's where we do think that the most impact will occur is in the small companies, not so much in the larger ones. Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. That's really helpful, thank you. And then just a follow-up I guess for Michael on the CapEx. Looks like you've been running the past few years I think in the $130 million to $145 million range and you did $45 million in the first half. And I know that ramped a bit from 1Q to 2Q, but just wondering if you expect some elevated spend in the back half of the year just to get closer to that historical range? Thanks.

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. That's correct, Kyle. We will be having increased spending in the back half of the year. Part of it on some of our real estate moves that we announced a while ago where we're moving to Times Square so there'll be some of that expense and some of the other capital investment behind our initiatives will also be occurring in the back half of the year. So, we expect to be closer to the range where we've historically been in that $130 million, $145 million range that you talked about. Kyle Voigt - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Hi. Good morning, everybody.

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Good morning.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Hey, Alex. Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Hey. A question for you guys. Just wondered if you could give an update on what's going on in the Corporate Solutions business. Revenues have been a little soft in the last couple of quarters after seeing I guess a little bit of recovery last year. So maybe just an update of kind of what's been driving the near-term decline over the last two quarters and what sort of the drivers you expect to see in this business from here?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Sure. Well, the businesses that we've retained are growing, but it's a relatively low growth rate. I think that what we had told the investors at Investor Day is we would expect kind of a mid-single digits growth rate across our Corporate Solutions business. And I think that we're kind of at the lower end of that mid-single digit, so it's definitely showing some level of growth, but we definitely want to see it grow faster. So what are we doing to make sure that we are tuning our products and tuning our client relationships towards growth are a couple of things. One is concentrating the team, right? So having our ability to concentrate on those strategic products that we really believe are fundamental to the ability for companies to navigate the capital markets successfully has been the big focus and that has to do with the divestiture of the two businesses that went to West. And that allows the senior team as well as the sales team and everyone else to really just focus on what we're really good at. So that's going to take a little time to show through in terms of ability for us to ramp the growth. The second thing is making sure that our products are really addressing the clients' needs and that's why we've been launching new products into the IR Insight suite. So we have the passiveIQ which really helps companies understand and navigate their passive investors. We have something related to ESG investments. We have something related to activist investors, et cetera. So we're kind of growing the cadre of what we can offer to catalyze growth within IR. And then in the board and leadership tools, there we've been doing more work to segment our clients and make sure that we're starting to add content into those products in addition to workflows, so that it could become more relevant for specific client segments. And that's a little bit of product work that we need to do. But we believe that that will continue to catalyze growth. And that has been a grower for us all along. But we definitely want to see more growth in that business. We think there's a lot of greenfield opportunity there. So those are the things that we're focused on to catalyze more growth in the Corporate Solutions business. Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. And then, Michael just a clean-up question for you. I think I heard you talk about overhead expenses still kind of running through the P&L and I think you mentioned they're going to phase out in Q1 of 2019. I'm just wondering how much of a drag has it sort of created on a quarterly run rate basis today, and when do you guys expect for that to phase out, sort of what would be the benefit?

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. So we had talked about there being about $40 million on an annual basis, $10 million a quarter roughly that's attributed to the Corporate Solutions business that will need to be eliminated over that period of time. And so, we talked this quarter there because it was a partial quarter, there was about $8 million or so. And so that's the amount that we'll need to continue to eliminate through next year.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

And we're seeing most of that show up in the Corporate Services P&L. Not all of it most of it though shows up in the Corporate Services P&L.

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. And that's why you can see there was growth overall in the Corporate Services earnings. There was about $9 million of growth but the bottom line didn't grow as much and that's because of that. Most of that is due to that overhead allocation now going back to the remaining businesses. Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Got you. Yeah. And that's fully out by the end of 2019, right?

Michael Ptasznik - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Should be out by the end of Q1 of 2019. Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Q1. Got it. Great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Vincent Hung with Autonomous. Your line is open.

Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open.

Hi. Just on index revenues, it looks like it was flat on last quarter and yet I think AUM increased 8%, is that because derivatives revenues were lower?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

That's a great point. Yes, the derivatives revenue was lower in the second quarter than it was in the first quarter because derivatives revenue was significantly – as we mentioned, was elevated in the first quarter. And generally, I think that – but generally speaking, I think that's also the average AUM versus quarter-end AUM is also a little bit different. So the average came up year-over-year. It was a little bit better quarter-over-quarter but the quarter-end AUM was quite elevated, and I think we mentioned it on in the prepared remarks. But I also think that it's – but I do think that the volume-driven revenue in the index business is probably the primary cause of it, not quarter – like Q1 to Q2 not having as much of an impact.

Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open.

Got it. And on Market Data and Trade Management Services there's like a small $2 million sequential decline in both. Is that just driven by small lumpy items like lower audit collections?

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Yeah. On Market Data that that is definitely the impact actually, in particular. And then on the TMS business it has to do with the fact that in the first quarter you also had elevated volumes in the Trade Reporting Facility, but more volumes there than in the Q2. And then there also was some work that we did with MiFID. So a lot of clients were using our testing facility in the Nordics to support their MiFID testing and so that also is not recurring. So that they pay for that time but they don't – that wasn't recurring. So those two things have the exact impact that you just mentioned on the Trade Management solutions quarter-over-quarter change.

Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I'm currently showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Adena Friedman for closing remarks.

Adena T. Friedman - Nasdaq, Inc.

Management

Thank you very much. Thanks very much for your time today. We're pleased to see all of our businesses delivering strong top-line growth in the quarter and we intend to continue to be disciplined in how we manage our expenses while also capturing opportunity to drive, to sustain the long-term growth across our strategic areas. We are very pleased to see that our clients are reacting well to our value proposition as a premier U.S. Listings market, our ongoing commitment to our U.S. and Nordic markets through functionality to bring benefits to institutional buyside customers, our investments in the Nasdaq Financial Framework and our SMARTS Surveillance platform, in our Index franchise, and in our acquisition of eVestment. So, our focus and dedication to our global client base is through our global client base and we will continue to deepen those relationships and innovate across our key offerings in order to enhance our value to them in the months and years to come. So, thank you very much for your time today and we appreciate the questions. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thanks for your participation and have a wonderful day.