Factset Research Systems Inc (FDS) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the FactSet Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kendra Brown, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

美好的一天，感謝您的支持。歡迎參加 FactSet 2023 財年第四季財報電話會議。 （操作員指示）請注意，今天的會議正在錄製中。現在我想將會議交給今天的發言人、投資者關係高級副總裁肯德拉布朗 (Kendra Brown)。請繼續。

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to FactSet's Fourth Fiscal Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. Before we begin, the slides we will reference during this presentation can be accessed via the webcast on the Investor Relations section of our website at factset.com and are currently available on our website. A replay of today's call will also be available on our website and via phone. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions from investors. This call is scheduled to last for 1 hour. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝大家，大家早安。歡迎參加 FactSet 2023 年第四財季財報電話會議。在開始之前，我們將在本次演示中引用的幻燈片可以透過我們網站factset.com 投資者關係部分的網路廣播進行訪問，並且目前可以在我們的網站上獲取。今天電話會議的重播也將在我們的網站上和透過電話提供。在我們準備好的發言之後，我們將開始接受投資人提問。此次通話預計為期 1 小時。 （操作員說明）

Before we discuss our results, I encourage all listeners to review the legal notice on Slide 2, which explains the risks of forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Additionally, please refer to our Forms 10-K and 10-Q for a discussion of risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Our slide presentation and discussions on this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. For such measures, reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are in the appendix of the presentation and in our earnings release issued earlier today.

在我們討論我們的結果之前，我鼓勵所有聽眾查看投影片 2 上的法律聲明，其中解釋了前瞻性陳述的風險以及非 GAAP 財務指標的使用。此外，請參閱我們的表格 10-K 和 10-Q，以了解可能導致實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述有重大差異的風險因素的討論。我們在本次電話會議上的投影片簡報和討論將包括某些非公認會計準則財務指標。對於此類衡量標準，與最直接可比較的公認會計準則衡量標準的對帳位於簡報的附錄和我們今天早些時候發布的收益報告中。

Joining me today are Phil Snow, Chief Executive Officer; and Linda Huber, Chief Financial Officer. We will also be joined by Helen Shan, Chief Revenue Officer, for the Q&A portion of today's call. I will now turn the discussion over to Phil Snow.

今天加入我的是執行長菲爾·斯諾 (Phil Snow)；和財務長 Linda Huber。首席營收長 Helen Shan 也將參加今天電話會議的問答部分。我現在將討論轉交給菲爾·斯諾。

Thank you, Kendra, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I'm pleased to share our fourth quarter and full year results. We ended fiscal 2023 with organic ASV plus professional services growth of 7%, and we delivered annual revenue of $2.1 billion and adjusted EPS of $14.55. In 2023, we grew our business on the strength of our enterprise offerings that drove large strategic wins across several workflows. We expanded our presence with existing clients while adding new logos and new users, both on and off platform.

謝謝你，肯德拉，大家早安。感謝您今天加入我們。我很高興分享我們第四季和全年的業績。截至 2023 財年，我們的有機 ASV 加上專業服務成長了 7%，年收入為 21 億美元，調整後每股收益為 14.55 美元。 2023 年，我們憑藉企業產品的優勢實現了業務的成長，這些產品在多個工作流程中取得了巨大的策略勝利。我們擴大了現有客戶的影響力，同時在平台內外增加了新徽標和新用戶。

On the buy side, our industry-leading analytics and middle office solutions drove a significant performance deal as asset managers and asset owners rely on FactSet to serve more of the portfolio life cycle. Additionally, a large real-time deployment at an institutional asset manager underscored growing demand for cloud-native market data services. On the sell side, deep sector drove a key banking deal in the fourth quarter and continue to be a deciding factor in renewals, situating us well to increase market share in banking.

在買方方面，我們領先業界的分析和中台解決方案推動了一項重大績效交易，因為資產管理者和資產所有者依靠 FactSet 為更多的投資組合生命週期提供服務。此外，機構資產管理公司的大規模即時部署凸顯了對雲端原生市場數據服務不斷增長的需求。在賣方方面，深層部門在第四季度推動了一項關鍵的銀行業務交易，並繼續成為續約的決定性因素，使我們能夠很好地增加銀行業務的市場份額。

Our strategy to deliver the leading open contents and analytics platform continues to resonate and drive growth. But the pace of change is accelerating. While we have been innovating with machine learning and AI for a long time, the recent advances in generative AI have made it possible for us to step up our development. In the second half of 2023, we began moving significant resources to gen AI, in anticipation of directing further investment to this area in fiscal 2024, putting it among our top initiatives.

我們提供領先的開放內容和分析平台的策略繼續引起共鳴並推動成長。但變革的步伐正在加快。雖然我們長期以來一直在機器學習和人工智慧方面進行創新，但生成式人工智慧的最新進展使我們能夠加快發展。 2023 年下半年，我們開始將大量資源轉移到 gen AI，預計在 2024 財年將進一步投資到該領域，將其列為我們的首要舉措。

FactSet's content refinery provides us with a real competitive advantage. We have one of the most extensive suites of proprietary and third-party data in the industry, and we continue to invest in new categories of data to further power the workflows of our clients. On top of our content refinery, we are reimagining the FactSet user experience and actively exploring innovative solutions, for example, a conversational user interface that allows bankers to ask questions, discover and source information and initiate tasks. Generative AI will also help us evolve our productivity suite, further deepening our competitive moat.

FactSet 的內容提煉為我們提供了真正的競爭優勢。我們擁有業內最廣泛的專有和第三方資料套件之一，並且我們繼續投資於新的數據類別，以進一步推動客戶的工作流程。除了內容提煉之外，我們正在重新構想 FactSet 使用者體驗並積極探索創新解決方案，例如，對話式使用者介面允許銀行家提出問題、發現和獲取資訊以及啟動任務。生成式人工智慧也將幫助我們發展我們的生產力套件，進一步深化我們的競爭護城河。

Second, on the buy side, we are enhancing our portfolio manager bot to answer questions in conversation with asset managers. Thirdly, in the front office, we are harnessing generative AI to create code in FactSet's programmatic environment, reducing the need to know Python. This will make the power of that programmatic environment available to more users. For wealth managers, we are developing solutions to drive the next best action and to create portfolio summaries for proposal generation and client engagement. And we are establishing gen AI-ready data bundles, allowing clients to augment their own large language models, or LLMs, with our connected auditable data.

其次，在買方方面，我們正在增強我們的投資組合經理機器人，以回答與資產經理對話中的問題。第三，在前台，我們利用生成式人工智慧在 FactSet 的程式設計環境中創建程式碼，從而減少對 Python 的了解。這將使更多用戶可以使用該程式設計環境的強大功能。對於財富管理機構，我們正在開發解決方案來推動下一步最佳行動，並為提案產生和客戶參與建立投資組合摘要。我們正在建立新一代人工智慧就緒資料包，允許客戶使用我們連接的可審計資料來增強他們自己的大型語言模型（LLM）。

We also see significant opportunity for cost savings as a result of gen AI projects targeting our efficiency. In fiscal 2023, we began to pilot AI coding initiatives to improve the productivity of our technologists. We also started using our agent assist bot to help with client queries, and we are accelerating the collection of unstructured data across our content refinery with our recent acquisition of idaciti, giving us industry-leading expertise. As we enter fiscal 2024, we will build on our strategic investments in content, generative AI and technology to drive growth and forge deeper client relationships.

我們也看到了以提高效率為目標的 gen AI 專案帶來的節省成本的巨大機會。 2023 財年，我們開始試行人工智慧編碼計劃，以提高技術人員的生產力。我們也開始使用我們的代理商協助機器人來幫助客戶查詢，並且透過最近收購 idaciti，我們正在加速整個內容精煉廠中非結構化資料的收集，為我們提供業界領先的專業知識。進入 2024 財年，我們將在內容、生成式​​人工智慧和技術方面進行策略性投資，以推動成長並建立更深層的客戶關係。

On the buy side, we intend to use our leading portfolio analytics and middle office solutions to grow our front office market share. We expect our new portfolio manager workstation and open programmatic environment to drive growth. We also see opportunities for FactSet to provide some targeted managed services based on our years of experience. On the sell side, we believe that deep sector and private markets offerings will drive workstation wins across banking, corporate and private equity and venture capital clients. We see an opportunity to capture additional seats in underpenetrated areas with solutions with senior bankers and investor relations professionals, and we expect increased adoption of Cobalt, an anchor product for private equity and venture capital funds.

在買方方面，我們打算利用我們領先的投資組合分析和中台解決方案來擴大我們的前台市場份額。我們期望新的投資組合經理工作站和開放的程式環境能夠推動成長。根據我們多年的經驗，我們也看到 FactSet 有機會提供一些有針對性的託管服務。在賣方方面，我們相信深入的產業和私募市場產品將推動銀行、企業、私募股權和創投客戶的工作站獲勝。我們看到了透過高級銀行家和投資者關係專業人士提供的解決方案在滲透不足的領域獲得更多席位的機會，並且我們預計私募股權和風險投資基金的主力產品鈷的採用率會增加。

In wealth, we anticipate capturing more market share as we focus on portfolio management, proposal generation and intelligent prospecting to expand our addressable market. Our open and flexible platform will power business development and reporting solutions to connect advisers with clients seeking new sources of insight. Finally, we expect the demand for our off-platform solutions to continue to drive growth across firm types.

在財富領域，我們預計將獲得更多市場份額，因為我們專注於投資組合管理、提案生成和智慧勘探，以擴大我們的目標市場。我們開放且靈活的平台將推動業務發展和報告解決方案，將顧問與尋求新洞察來源的客戶聯繫起來。最後，我們預期對平台外解決方案的需求將持續推動各類公司的成長。

Turning now to our fourth quarter results. Growth was driven by Analytics & Trading and CTS with improved expansion across most firm types. Asset owners continue to have momentum with new logos, transactional revenue from Portware and data feeds. While macro uncertainty continued to contribute to elongated sales cycles and slower decision-making across all firm types, our sales team successfully executed on several large wins and renewals as we ended the fiscal year.

現在轉向我們第四季的業績。成長是由分析與交易和 CTS 推動的，大多數公司類型的擴張都得到了改善。資產所有者繼續因新標誌、來自 Portware 的交易收入和資料來源而保持動力。儘管宏觀不確定性繼續導致所有類型公司的銷售週期延長和決策速度放緩，但我們的銷售團隊在本財年結束時成功地完成了幾項重大勝利和續約。

And looking across our regions. Organic ASV growth in the Americas was 7%. Performance was driven by asset owners and CTS wins among partners and hedge funds. This was offset by weakness among asset and wealth management clients where retention remained under pressure and expansion was lower. As expected, we also saw lower seasonal banking hiring, which was a common theme across all regions. In EMEA, our organic ASV growth was close to 8%. We saw growth in asset owners, driven by analytics middle office solutions. Wealth growth was also driven by wealth workstation and adviser dashboard wins.

並縱觀我們的地區。美洲的有機 ASV 成長率為 7%。績效由資產所有者以及 CTS 在合作夥伴和對沖基金中的勝利推動。這被資產和財富管理客戶的疲軟所抵消，這些客戶的保留率仍面臨壓力，且擴張速度較低。正如預期的那樣，我們也看到季節性銀行招聘減少，這是所有地區的共同主題。在 EMEA，我們的有機 ASV 成長率接近 8%。在分析中台解決方案的推動下，我們看到資產所有者的成長。財富成長也受到財富工作站和顧問儀表板勝利的推動。

Gains were partially offset by software expansion in banking and asset management. Finally, Asia Pacific delivered organic ASV growth of 8%, driven by strong growth in Japan, where we saw an increase in large deals, analytic wins and strength in channel partners. However, muted expansion in Australia and India from fewer asset management wins and lower seasonal hiring in banking were headwinds to growth.

銀行和資產管理領域的軟體擴張部分抵銷了收益。最後，在日本強勁成長的推動下，亞太地區的 ASV 有機成長了 8%，日本的大型交易、分析勝利和通路合作夥伴實力均有所增加。然而，由於資產管理業務較少以及銀行業季節性招聘減少，澳洲和印度的擴張放緩，對成長構成了阻力。

Turning now to our workflow solutions. Analytics & Trading organic ASV grew by 9%. Growth among asset owners accelerated the most, driven by middle office solutions, workstations and feeds. CTS, which is now part of Data Solutions, grew fastest with organic ASV growth slightly over 9%. Performance was driven by channel partners and asset management clients although partially offset by lower professional services and decreased retention in banking. Our data management solutions, company data and real-time offering were the major contributors to growth. CTS also contributed to performance with healthy expansion and new business.

現在轉向我們的工作流程解決方案。分析與交易有機 ASV 成長了 9%。在中台解決方案、工作站和資訊流的推動下，資產所有者的成長速度最快。 CTS 現已成為 Data Solutions 的一部分，成長最快，有機 ASV 成長率略高於 9%。業績由通路合作夥伴和資產管理客戶推動，但部分被專業服務下降和銀行保留率下降所抵銷。我們的資料管理解決方案、公司資料和即時產品是成長的主要貢獻者。 CTS也透過健康擴張和新業務為業績做出了貢獻。

Among asset managers, workstation erosion was offset by Analytics and CTS wins, coupled with a higher price increase. Research & Advisory grew organic ASV by 5%. In banking, workstation and deep sector wins were offset by increased erosion. Private equity and venture capital clients continued their track record of double-digit growth despite market headwinds that offset improved pricing realization. For corporates, reduced client budgets were an obstacle.

在資產管理公司中，工作站的侵蝕被 Analytics 和 CTS 的勝利以及價格上漲所抵消。研究與諮詢部門的有機 ASV 成長了 5%。在銀行業，工作站和深度部門的勝利被侵蝕的加劇所抵消。儘管市場逆風抵消了定價實現的改善，但私募股權和創投客戶仍保持兩位數成長的記錄。對企業來說，客戶預算的減少是一個障礙。

Looking ahead, we are focused on diversifying our solutions for our corporate clients. And finally, in wealth, we saw a strong execution on several renewals in the face of clients' cost-cutting exercises.

展望未來，我們致力於為企業客戶提供多樣化的解決方案。最後，在財富方面，面對客戶的成​​本削減活動，我們看到了幾次續約的強勁執行力。

As discussed last quarter, we have reorganized our business by firm type to better align our operations with those of our clients. As of September 1, Analytics & Trading has become our institutional buy-side organization, focusing on asset managers, asset owners and hedge fund workflows. Also as of September 1, Research & Advisory has become our dealmakers in wealth organization, focusing on banking and sell-side research, wealth management, corporate and private equity and venture capital workflows. And we've combined our Content and Content & Technology Solutions groups to create one Data Solutions organization.

正如上季所討論的，我們已按公司類型重組了我們的業務，以更好地使我們的營運與客戶的營運保持一致。截至 9 月 1 日，Analytics & Trading 已成為我們的機構買方組織，專注於資產管理者、資產所有者和對沖基金工作流程。同樣截至 9 月 1 日，研究與顧問部門已成為我們財富組織中的交易撮合者，專注於銀行和賣方研究、財富管理、企業和私募股權以及創投工作流程。我們將內容組和內容與技術解決方案組合併起來，創建一個資料解決方案組織。

Going forward, we will also be aligning our partnerships and CUSIP Global services organizations for the purposes of discussing ASV as they are both key parts of our growth strategy. You can find ASV and ASV growth rates from the perspective of our realignments in the appendix of today's presentation.

展望未來，我們也將調整我們的合作夥伴關係和 CUSIP 全球服務組織，以討論 ASV，因為它們都是我們成長策略的關鍵部分。您可以在今天演示的附錄中從我們調整的角度找到 ASV 和 ASV 增長率。

As we look ahead to fiscal 2024, we expect the year will be a tale of 2 halves. Unlike previous years, where clients had higher budgets to spend before the calendar year-end, we expect continued caution for the rest of 2023. Starting in the new calendar year. We expect an improved operating environment to drive a strong second half. As such, we are guiding to organic ASV growth of 7% for fiscal 2024. Linda will provide more detail on guidance shortly.

展望 2024 財年，我們預期這一年將分為兩半。與往年不同的是，客戶在年底前有更高的預算支出，我們預計 2023 年剩餘時間將繼續保持謹慎態度。從新的日曆年開始。我們預計經營環境的改善將推動下半年的強勁成長。因此，我們指導 2024 財年 ASV 有機成長 7%。Linda 將很快提供有關指導的更多詳細資訊。

Looking forward, we have started seeing green shoots of market recovery, particularly in new business. New logos in the fourth quarter showed an improvement over the reduced deal volumes seen earlier in the fiscal year. We expect this trend to continue as the new business pipeline and potential ASV for wealth management, private equity and venture capital clients and partners are all outpacing the pipeline at the same time last year. As client sentiment improves and markets stabilize, we believe we are in a great position. Our new structure, best-in-class solutions and content sets us apart as the partner of choice for our clients.

展望未來，我們已經開始看到市場復甦的萌芽，特別是在新業務方面。第四季的新標誌顯示，與本財年早些時候減少的交易量相比，情況有所改善。我們預計這一趨勢將持續下去，因為財富管理、私募股權和創投客戶及合作夥伴的新業務管道和潛在ASV都超過了去年同期的管道。隨著客戶情緒的改善和市場的穩定，我們相信我們處於有利地位。我們的新結構、一流的解決方案和內容使我們成為客戶首選的合作夥伴。

I'll now turn it over to Linda to take you through the specifics of our fourth quarter and full year performance.

現在我將把它交給琳達，讓您了解我們第四季度和全年業績的具體情況。

Thanks, Phil, and hello to everyone. As you've seen from our press release this morning, we delivered Q4 organic ASV plus professional services growth of $145 million. With 43 consecutive years of top line growth, FactSet has a proven history of stability during market volatility, which is clearly demonstrated in our performance. I'll now share additional details on our fourth quarter and full year performance. As Kendra noted, a reconciliation of our adjusted metrics to comparable GAAP figures is included at the end of our press release.

謝謝菲爾，大家好。正如您從今天早上的新聞稿中看到的，我們第四季度的有機 ASV 加上專業服務增長了 1.45 億美元。 FactSet 連續 43 年實現營收成長，在市場波動期間擁有穩定的歷史，這一點在我們的業績中得到了清晰的體現。我現在將分享有關我們第四季度和全年業績的更多詳細資訊。正如肯德拉所指出的那樣，我們的調整後指標與可比較的公認會計準則數據的調節包含在我們新聞稿的末尾。

The 7% growth rate for organic ASV plus professional services was in line with our most recent guidance for the year. Our sales team executed well, building on a strong first half and a higher price increase across a larger client base. However, during the second half of the fiscal year, the team had to deal with increased erosion, softer expansion and a slight decrease in new business.

有機 ASV 加上專業服務的 7% 成長率符合我們今年的最新指導。我們的銷售團隊表現良好，得益於上半年的強勁表現以及更大客戶群的更高價格上漲。然而，在本財年下半年，該團隊不得不應對侵蝕加劇、擴張放緩以及新業務略有下降的情況。

Turning to revenue. Our full year revenue of $2.1 billion was also within our guidance range of $2.08 billion to $2.1 billion. To help offset the weaker top line, we carefully and thoughtfully trimmed our headcount, which helped to expand our adjusted operating margin by 230 basis points to 36.2%. This increase exceeded the top end of our guidance range of 36% and our previous medium-term outlook goal of 36% by the end of FY '25. Finally, both GAAP and adjusted EPS were impacted by a onetime charge of $6.8 million and an approximately $20 million provision for confirmed and expected unrealizable tax assets.

轉向收入。我們的全年收入為 21 億美元，也在 20.8 億美元至 21 億美元的指導範圍內。為了幫助抵消收入下降的影響，我們謹慎而深思熟慮地削減了員工人數，這有助於將調整後的營業利潤率擴大 230 個基點，達到 36.2%。這項增幅超出了我們 36% 指導範圍的上限，也超過了我們先前 25 財年末 36% 的中期展望目標。最後，GAAP 和調整後每股盈餘均受到 680 萬美元的一次性費用和約 2,000 萬美元的已確認和預期不可變現稅務資產撥備的影響。

This higher tax rate provision had a $0.68 negative impact on fiscal '23 adjusted EPS, resulting in adjusted EPS growth of 8.3% to $14.55. Without this onetime adjustment, adjusted EPS would have been approximately $15.25 or 13.6% growth. I'll provide more detail during the tax discussion later in the call.

這項較高的稅率規定對 23 財年調整後每股收益產生了 0.68 美元的負面影響，導致調整後每股收益成長 8.3% 至 14.55 美元。如果沒有這次一次性調整，調整後每股收益將約為 15.25 美元，即成長 13.6%。我將在稍後的電話討論中提供更多細節。

Turning now to our fourth quarter results. As Phil noted, we grew organic ASV plus professional services by 7% year-over-year as higher price increases offset erosion and new business began to pick up. We also continue to improve pricing discipline, which is driving stronger price realization. For the quarter, GAAP revenue increased 7% to $536 million. Organic revenue, which excludes any impact from acquisitions and dispositions over the last 12 months and foreign exchange movements, increased 7% to $535 million, driven primarily by Analytics & Trading. For our geographic segments, organic revenue grew by 6% in the Americas, 9% in EMEA and 10% in Asia Pacific. Growth was primarily driven by Analytics & Trading and Research & Advisory in the Americas and Asia Pacific, and by Content & Technology Solutions and Analytics & Trading in EMEA.

現在轉向我們第四季的業績。正如 Phil 指出的那樣，隨著價格上漲抵消了侵蝕以及新業務開始回升，我們的有機 ASV 加上專業服務同比增長了 7%。我們也持續改善定價紀律，這正在推動更強勁的價格實現。本季 GAAP 營收成長 7%，達到 5.36 億美元。有機收入（不包括過去 12 個月收購和處置以及外匯波動的影響）增長了 7%，達到 5.35 億美元，這主要是由分析和交易推動的。對於我們的地理細分市場，美洲的有機收入成長了 6%，歐洲、中東和非洲地區成長了 9%，亞太地區成長了 10%。成長主要由美洲和亞太地區的分析與交易以及研究與諮詢以及歐洲、中東和非洲地區的內容與技術解決方案以及分析與交易推動。

GAAP operating expenses increased 14% year-over-year to $419 million, driven by higher facilities impairment expense and restructuring costs. Compared to the previous year, GAAP operating margin decreased by 460 basis points to 22%, primarily due to those nonrecurring charges and higher technology costs, partially offset by lower third-party content costs and lower FX impact. Excluding both nonrecurring costs, GAAP operating margin was about 800 basis points higher than the prior year. On an adjusted basis, operating expenses grew 4%, driven primarily by technology expense, which increased 26% year-over-year.

由於設施減損費用和重組成本增加，GAAP 營運費用年增 14% 至 4.19 億美元。與前一年相比，GAAP 營業利潤率下降 460 個基點至 22%，主要是由於這些非經常性費用和更高的技術成本，但部分被第三方內容成本降低和匯率影響降低所抵銷。不包括這兩項非經常性成本，公認會計準則營業利潤率比上年高出約 800 個基點。經調整後，營運費用成長 4%，主要由技術費用推動，技術費用較去年同期成長 26%。

This was mainly due to higher amortization of internal use software, increased third-party software costs and accelerated cloud spend as part of our hybrid cloud strategy. We also invested in our content refinery expansion and other strategic areas such as generative AI. We have continued to invest in technology to drive growth with technology costs now representing 9% of revenue, consistent with our medium-term outlook of these costs being 8.5% to 9.5% of revenue.

這主要是由於內部使用軟體的攤銷增加、第三方軟體成本增加以及作為我們混合雲策略一部分的雲端支出加速。我們也投資於內容精煉擴張和生成人工智慧等其他策略領域。我們繼續投資技術以推動成長，技術成本目前佔收入的 9%，這與我們對這些成本佔收入的 8.5% 至 9.5% 的中期前景一致。

People expense grew 3% year-over-year, primarily due to increased salaries for existing employees. As a percentage of revenue, our people expense was 168 basis points lower than the prior year, driven by a lower bonus accrual, partially offset by higher salary expenses. We ended fiscal 2023 with a bonus pool of $105 million and with 67% of our employees operating in our centers of excellence. Adjusted operating expense growth was partially offset by a reduction in our third-party content costs, which decreased 4%. Our team continues to do a stellar job proactively managing and negotiating contracts. As a percentage of revenue, growth in third-party content costs was 57 basis points lower year-over-year.

人員費用年增 3%，主要是由於現有員工薪資上漲。從佔收入的百分比來看，我們的員工費用比上年下降了 168 個基點，這是由於應計獎金較低，但部分被較高的工資費用所抵消。截至 2023 財年，我們的獎金池為 1.05 億美元，67% 的員工在我們的卓越中心工作。調整後的營運費用成長被第三方內容成本的下降（下降了 4%）所部分抵銷。我們的團隊繼續在主動管理和談判合約方面表現出色。第三方內容成本佔收入的比例較去年同期下降 57 個基點。

Finally, our efforts to rightsize our real estate footprint resulted in a 7% decrease in facility expense year-over-year. As a percentage of revenue, this was 50 basis points lower than the previous year. Overall, adjusted operating margin improved by 210 basis points to 33.6%. You'll find an expense walk from revenue to adjusted operating income in the appendix of today's earnings presentation.

最後，我們努力調整房地產規模，使設施費用年減了 7%。佔收入的百分比比前一年下降了 50 個基點。總體而言，調整後營業利潤率提高了 210 個基點，達到 33.6%。在今天收益報告的附錄中，您會發現從收入到調整後營業收入的費用變化。

As a percentage of revenue, our cost of services was about 75 basis points lower than last year on a GAAP basis and 85 basis points lower on an adjusted basis, largely due to personnel costs, expenses related to CGS and technology costs. And SG&A, as a percentage of revenue, was 385 basis points lower year-over-year on a GAAP basis and about 125 basis points lower on an adjusted basis, primarily due to decreases in professional services, partially offset by increased personnel costs. Facilities impairments as a percentage of revenue were around 440 basis points higher year-over-year on a GAAP basis.

以 GAAP 計算，我們的服務成本佔收入的百分比比去年下降了約 75 個基點，調整後的水平比去年下降了 85 個基點，這主要是由於人員成本、與 CGS 相關的費用和技術成本。 SG&A 佔收入的百分比按 GAAP 計算同比下降 385 個基點，按調整後的基礎上下降約 125 個基點，這主要是由於專業服務的減少，部分被人員成本的增加所抵消。以 GAAP 計算，設施減損佔收入的百分比年比高出約 440 個基點。

Turning now to tax. Our tax rate for the quarter was 39.9% compared to last year's rate of 10.3%. This increase was due to several factors. First, we had higher pretax income, which increases the overall tax rate as credits related to R&D and foreign earned income are less impactful. We also saw a diminishing benefit from tax incentives in our centers of excellence. Finally, the finalization of prior year returns came into play. Our fourth quarter results include an out-of-period adjustment related to an ongoing review and analysis of certain tax positions, resulting in a onetime charge of $6.8 million and $20 million provision.

現在轉向稅收。我們本季的稅率為 39.9%，而去年的稅率為 10.3%。這一增長是由於幾個因素造成的。首先，我們的稅前收入較高，這提高了整體稅率，因為與研發和外國收入相關的抵免影響較小。我們也發現，我們的卓越中心的稅收優惠政策帶來的好處正在逐漸減少。最後，上一年回報的最終確定開始發揮作用。我們第四季的業績包括與某些稅務狀況的持續審查和分析相關的期外調整，導致一次性費用 680 萬美元和 2000 萬美元撥備。

We believe this $20 million provision represents the maximum remaining amount of net unrealizable tax assets. Upon completion of our review and prior to filing our annual report on Form 10-K, we plan to take a onetime charge with respect to this provision to reflect the confirmed actual amount of net unrealizable tax assets. The final amount of this charge is not expected to differ significantly from the current $20 million provision.

我們認為這 2000 萬美元的撥備代表了不可變現淨稅收資產的最大剩餘金額。完成審核後，在提交 10-K 表格年度報告之前，我們計劃就此準備金收取一次性費用，以反映已確認的不可變現淨稅收資產的實際金額。預計這筆費用的最終金額與目前的 2000 萬美元撥款不會有太大差異。

At this time, we've concluded that this adjustment is not material to the current period financial statements. The adjustment relates to the accounting of tax balance sheet accounts, including deferred tax assets and liabilities. All local, federal and foreign taxes payable have been paid in a timely manner, subject to normal audits of open years. The increase in tax provision was partially offset by higher benefits from stock option exercises and refunds from amended returns.

目前，我們得出的結論是，本次調整對本期財務報表影響不重大。此次調整涉及稅務資產負債表科目的會計處理，包括遞延所得稅資產和負債。所有地方、聯邦和外國應付稅款均已及時繳納，並接受開放年度的正常審計。稅務撥備的增加被股票選擇權行使帶來的更高收益和修正申報表退款所部分抵銷。

Looking ahead, we expect that higher pretax income will increase our overall tax rate. In addition, our foreign tax rate is expected to be higher due to the increase in the U.K. statutory rate. We've taken strategic measures intended to offset our overall rate and are guiding to a 17% to 18% effective tax rate for fiscal '24.

展望未來，我們預計較高的稅前收入將提高我們的整體稅率。此外，由於英國法定稅率的提高，我們的外國稅率預計也會更高。我們已採取旨在抵銷整體稅率的策略措施，並指導 24 財年的有效稅率為 17% 至 18%。

GAAP EPS decreased 37.5% to $1.68 this quarter versus $2.69 in the prior year, driven by nonrecurring charges and the higher tax provision which had a $0.68 impact. On an adjusted basis, EPS decreased 6.4% to $2.93. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $172 million, up 8.6% year-over-year due to higher income tax add-backs and impairment charges, partially offset by lower net income. And finally, free cash flow, which we define as cash generated from operations less capital spending, was $156 million for the quarter, an increase of 15% over the same period last year. This was primarily driven by the timing of income tax payments, partially offset by higher capital expenditures.

本季 GAAP 每股盈餘下降 37.5%，至 1.68 美元，而去年同期為 2.69 美元，原因是非經常性費用和較高的稅收撥備（產生了 0.68 美元的影響）。調整後每股收益下降 6.4% 至 2.93 美元。由於所得稅返還和減損費用增加，調整後 EBITDA 增至 1.72 億美元，年增 8.6%，但部分被淨利下降所抵銷。最後，本季自由現金流（我們將其定義為營運產生的現金減去資本支出）為 1.56 億美元，比去年同期成長 15%。這主要是由所得稅繳納時間所推動的，但部分被較高的資本支出所抵消。

For the fourth quarter, ASV retention remained greater than 95% and client retention was 91%, which speaks to the stickiness of our solutions. We ended the quarter with almost 8,000 clients with 383 new logos added year-over-year, and user count increased by about 10,000 primarily within banking, corporate and private equity and venture capital firms. For the quarter, we've repurchased 264,400 shares for $109.6 million at an average price of $414.63.

第四季度，ASV 保留率保持在 95% 以上，客戶保留率為 91%，這說明了我們解決方案的黏性。截至本季末，我們擁有近 8,000 個客戶，年比增加了 383 個新徽標，用戶數量增加了約 10,000 名，主要來自銀行、企業、私募股權和創投公司。本季度，我們以 1.096 億美元的價格回購了 264,400 股股票，平均價格為 414.63 美元。

At the end of fiscal '23, we had $4.5 million available for share repurchase. As a result, our Board authorized a new share repurchase program of up to $300 million, which became effective on September 1. We intend to continue our share repurchases in FY '24, with a target to repurchase $250 million spread ratably throughout the year. We remain disciplined in our buyback program and committed to returning long-term value to our shareholders. Combining our dividends and share repurchases, we've returned $315.3 million to our shareholders over the last 12 months. As a reminder, we also increased our dividend by 10% in the third quarter, marking the 24th consecutive year of dividend increases.

截至 23 財年末，我們有 450 萬美元可用於股票回購。因此，我們的董事會批准了一項高達3 億美元的新股票回購計劃，該計劃於9 月1 日生效。我們打算在24 財年繼續進行股票回購，目標是全年按比例回購2.5億美元。我們在回購計畫中保持紀律，並致力於為股東回報長期價值。結合我們的股利和股票回購，我們在過去 12 個月內向股東返還了 3.153 億美元。提醒一下，我們也在第三季將股利增加了 10%，這是連續 24 年增加股利。

And finally, turning to our guidance for fiscal 2024. As Phil discussed earlier, we expect a weaker first half of fiscal '24 and a stronger second half, driven by improved client sentiment. As client budgets reset at the turn of the calendar year, we expect to execute on our existing pipeline. Given these expectations, we are guiding to incremental organic ASV plus professional services of $130 million to $175 million, reflecting 7% growth at the midpoint. And with respect to modeling income and expenses for the year, please note that for the full year, we expect interest expense to be $60 million to $65 million, and capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $90 million to $95 million.

最後，轉向我們對 2024 財年的指導。正如 Phil 之前討論的那樣，我們預計 24 財年上半年將較弱，下半年將因客戶情緒改善而強勁。隨著客戶預算在年初重置，我們希望在現有管道上執行。考慮到這些預期，我們引導增量有機 ASV 加上專業服務達到 1.3 億至 1.75 億美元，中間值成長 7%。關於全年收入和支出的建模，請注意，我們預計全年利息支出為 6,000 萬至 6,500 萬美元，資本支出預計為 9,000 萬至 9,500 萬美元。

We expect adjusted operating margin of 36.3% to 36.7%. At the midpoint, this provides 30 basis points of continued margin expansion. While we have already met our adjusted operating margin medium-term outlook of 36%, we are committed to balancing continued sustainable margin expansion with investments to drive top line growth. Finally, adjusted EPS is expected to range from $15.65 to $16.15, which represents 9% growth at the midpoint.

我們預計調整後營業利益率為 36.3% 至 36.7%。在中點，這提供了 30 個基點的持續利潤擴張。雖然我們已經實現了 36% 的調整後營業利潤率中期前景，但我們致力於在持續可持續的利潤率擴張與投資推動收入成長之間取得平衡。最後，調整後每股收益預計為 15.65 美元至 16.15 美元，中間值成長 9%。

In closing, we are encouraged by the opportunities before us. In 2024, we anticipate that our investments in generative AI, connected refined content and digital solutions will drive expanded market share and increase retention. We are equipping our teams to harness the rapid pace of innovation to remain the partner of choice for our clients.

最後，我們對眼前的機會感到鼓舞。到 2024 年，我們預計對生成式人工智慧、互聯精緻內容和數位解決方案的投資將推動擴大市場份額並提高保留率。我們正在幫助我們的團隊利用快速的創新步伐，以繼續成為客戶的首選合作夥伴。

We're now ready for your questions. Operator?

我們現在已準備好回答您的問題。操作員？

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Our first question comes from the line of Seth Weber with Wells Fargo.

我們的第一個問題來自賽斯韋伯與富國銀行的對話。

I wanted to ask for a little bit more color on the wealth business, if you could. I saw the ASV was really strong, up 9%. But then I thought I heard in your comments, some comments about some client cost cutting. So I'm just trying to understand really what the message is there. And if you could just give any more detail on larger accounts versus smaller and the broader competitive environment.

如果可以的話，我想請您對財富產業提供更多的了解。我看到ASV真的很強勁，上漲了9%。但後來我想我在您的評論中聽到了一些關於削減客戶成本的評論。所以我只是想真正理解其中的訊息。如果您能提供更多有關大型客戶與小型客戶和更廣泛的競爭環境的詳細資訊。

Sure. Seth, it's Phil. I'll start, and I'm sure Helen has some additional comments. So we're very bullish on the wealth space. As we've talked about before, we think there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of addressable market for us. We've been very successful with our core FactSet offering for advisers. We've [layered] on adviser dashboard. And we believe the bigger opportunity moving forward is to get into some adjacent workflows in the wealth space that traditionally we haven't served. So we view it as a good opportunity. I'll start with that.

當然。賽斯，我是菲爾。我先開始了，我相信海倫還有一些補充意見。所以我們非常看好財富空間。正如我們之前談到的，我們認為我們有很多機會和很多潛在市場。我們為顧問提供的核心 FactSet 產品非常成功。我們在顧問儀表板上[分層]。我們相信，未來更大的機會是進入我們傳統上沒有服務過的財富領域的一些相鄰工作流程。所以我們認為這是一個很好的機會。我將從那開始。

I would say across most firm types this year, we did see more pressure. Wealth was not excluded from that. So I think we grew wealth probably close to 13% last year and maybe 9% this year. So it still grew well. We didn't get as many new logos as we had. I don't think there was as new -- as much new firm creation in this environment. And we may not have had one of those mega-deals that we might have had in previous years. But overall, we feel good about the space. And Helen, do you want to add on to that?

我想說，今年對於大多數類型的公司來說，我們確實看到了更大的壓力。財富也不排除在外。所以我認為去年我們的財富成長可能接近 13%，今年可能成長 9%。所以還是長得很好。我們沒有得到盡可能多的新標誌。我認為在這種環境下並沒有那麼多新的公司誕生。我們可能沒有像前幾年那樣達成過一項大型交易。但總的來說，我們對這個空間感覺很好。海倫，你想補充一下嗎？

Yes. No, thank you for that. Phil is exactly right. I mean, we do have a pretty healthy pipeline and it is a mix. We have some very large opportunities with full deployments and then we've got smaller ones, which may be more seat-driven. If you compare it to 2022 where there was a lot more hiring going on, that's a bit of the difference. And as noted, we didn't have a mega-deal this year per se, but there's a lot of opportunity in the pipeline that supports that. So we feel very strongly about wealth. And quite frankly, if you look at where a lot of the clients are focused on, they're all focused on their wealth businesses also.

是的。不，謝謝你。菲爾是完全正確的。我的意思是，我們確實有一個非常健康的管道，而且是一個混合體。我們有一些全面部署的非常大的機會，然後我們有較小的機會，這可能更多是由席位驅動的。如果你將其與 2022 年進行比較，當時的招募量有所增加，那就有點不同了。如前所述，我們今年本身並沒有達成大型交易，但有很多機會支持這一點。所以我們對財富的感覺非常強烈。坦白說，如果你看看很多客戶關注的焦點，他們也都關注他們的財富業務。

Okay. And do you feel like you're gaining share there? Is that still the opportunity as well?

好的。你覺得你在那裡獲得了份額嗎？這還有機會嗎？

Yes, absolutely. We feel like we're gaining market share, yes. Most of the wins are displacements of other competitors, yes.

是的，一點沒錯。是的，我們感覺我們正在獲得市場份額。是的，大多數勝利都是取代其他競爭對手的。

Our next question comes from the line of Manav Patnaik with Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的馬納夫·帕特奈克 (Manav Patnaik)。

Linda and Phil, I was hoping you can just help with the '24 guidance a bit, particularly your comment as you assume that budgets improve in the second half. Let's just say they don't improve. I guess how much of the impact is that, that you've assumed in guidance? And if you could just clarify within the [$6 to $8] the confidence level and what the pricing assumption is?

Linda 和 Phil，我希望你們能對 24 年指導方針有所幫助，特別是你們的評論，因為你們認為下半年預算會有所改善。我們只能說他們沒有進步。我想您在指導中假設的影響有多大？如果您能在 [6 美元到 8 美元] 範圍內澄清置信水準以及定價假設是什麼？

Yes. We feel good about the $6 to $8, Manav. That's why we put it out there. I think if we break it down by firm type, we anticipate doing about the same level of growth on the buy side as we did this year. And as you know, we've been evolving into more of a solutions provider for our clients. So despite headcount pressure, which we certainly did see on the buy side, we still think there's a great opportunity to take market share. We are anticipating slower growth within banking. There are some things in the pipeline that I think Helen might be able to speak to. But we're not anticipating a blockbuster hiring year in banking as part of our algorithm.

是的。 Manav，我們對 6 至 8 美元感覺很好。這就是我們把它放在那裡的原因。我認為，如果我們按公司類型進行細分，我們預計買方的成長水準與今年相同。如您所知，我們一直在不斷發展成為客戶的解決方案提供者。因此，儘管我們確實在買方方面看到了員工人數壓力，但我們仍然認為這是一個奪取市場份額的絕佳機會。我們預計銀行業的成長將放緩。我認為海倫可能會談論一些正在醞釀中的事情。但作為我們演算法的一部分，我們預計銀行業今年不會出現大額招聘。

We just spoke about wealth, so we're definitely anticipating some acceleration on the wealth side. And then in the partners part of our business, which we're now separating out a bit, we're expecting a more constructive environment there. We actually had -- it wasn't a great year for us in that part of the business. I'm not talking about CGS, CUSIP. I'm talking about the rest of the partners business. So Helen, do you want to give some more commentary on the pipeline?

我們剛剛談到了財富，所以我們肯定預計財富方面會出現一些加速。然後，在我們業務的合作夥伴部分，我們現在將其稍微分開，我們期望那裡有一個更具建設性的環境。事實上，對於我們這方面的業務來說，今年並不是一個偉大的一年。我說的不是CGS、CUSIP。我說的是合作夥伴的其餘業務。海倫，您想對管道進行更多評論嗎？

Yes. You made -- Manav, you had a question around pricing. I mean we continue to have been making good progress on capturing the value that our clients are receiving for our solutions. In '23, we actually improved our price realization across our workstation packages by over 100 basis points through the renewals in our new sales. So we're continuing to resonate well there. And as you know, our annual price increase takes place in January for Americas and April for outside of the Americas, with contractual base of higher of CPI or 3%. So with inflation moderating in a larger book, we would expect some impact from price increases to be less than '23 but still a healthy contributor. So we'll report more out on that when we get to Q2 and Q3 as we've done in the past.

是的。你提出了——Manav，你有一個關於定價的問題。我的意思是，我們在獲取客戶從我們的解決方案中獲得的價值方面繼續取得了良好的進展。 23 年，透過新銷售的更新，我們實際上將工作站包的價格實現提高了 100 多個基點。所以我們繼續在那裡產生良好的共鳴。如您所知，美洲地區的年度價格上漲為 1 月，美洲以外地區的價格上漲為 4 月，合約基數為 CPI 的較高值或 3%。因此，隨著通貨膨脹在更大的範圍內放緩，我們預計價格上漲的一些影響將小於 23 年，但仍然是健康的貢獻者。因此，當我們進入第二季和第三季時，我們將像過去一樣報告更多相關內容。

Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自蒙特利爾銀行資本市場部的 Jeff Silber。

In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that the adjusted operating margin guidance for '24 is already ahead of where you thought you'd be in 2025. I'm not going to ask you about your 2025 numbers. But maybe just longer term, how do you get that margin expansion going forward? What kind of levers can you pull?

在您準備好的發言中，您提到 24 年調整後的營業利潤率指導已經超出了您對 2025 年的預期。我不會問您 2025 年的數字。但也許從長遠來看，你如何繼續擴大利潤率？你可以拉動什麼樣的槓桿？

Yes. Jeff, it's Linda. We have made very good progress and we're quite proud of that. As we move forward, we feel that our workforce, our people is a big potential contributor to this. So as we said for FY '24, we think the growth in that bucket will be about 3% to 4%. Real estate, probably 3% and third-party growth -- data growth of about 3% to 4%. So all of those are pretty modest numbers, and we feel like we've made really good progress.

是的。傑夫，這是琳達。我們已經取得了很好的進展，我們對此感到非常自豪。隨著我們的前進，我們認為我們的員工、我們的員工是這方面的巨大潛在貢獻者。因此，正如我們對於 24 財年所說，我們認為該領域的成長將約為 3% 至 4%。房地產可能成長 3%，第三方成長——數據成長約為 3% 到 4%。因此，所有這些數字都相當適中，但我們覺得我們已經取得了非常好的進展。

On technology, it's a different story. We are a technology company. We're driving harder for AI. And so we had talked about a 24% increase in the technology budget for FY '24. A lot of that is the increase in amortization for third party -- for our own software, increased third-party data purchases and most importantly, increases in cloud expense as we have some facilities now on-prem and we're getting ready for increased usage for gen AI. So what I think will happen in the future is we'll see the technology line start to flatten out as we get to peak amortization and then things start to move down in that regard. But again, really, really great control over 3 of the cost items. And then in technology, we just have to continue to invest. So I hope that helps you out.

在技​​術方面，情況則不同。我們是一家科技公司。我們正在更加努力地推動人工智慧的發展。因此，我們討論了 24 財年的技術預算增加 24%。其中很大一部分是第三方攤銷的增加——我們自己的軟體、第三方數據購買的增加，最重要的是，雲端費用的增加，因為我們現在有一些本地設施，並且我們正在為增加的費用做好準備。用於Gen AI。所以我認為未來會發生的是，當我們達到攤銷高峰時，我們將看到技術線開始趨於平坦，然後在這方面事情開始下降。但同樣，對其中 3 個成本項目的控制真的非常好。然後在技術方面，我們只需要繼續投資。所以我希望這對你有幫助。

Our next question comes from the line of Kelsey Zhu with Autonomous.

我們的下一個問題來自 Kelsey Zhu 與 Autonomous 的對話。

So CTS, including CUSIP, grew by 9%. I was wondering what the growth rate would look like for the original CTS business and CGS. And then I think when you acquired the asset, you were guiding for a mid- to high single-digit growth for CUSIP. Is that pretty much still the goal going forward?

因此，包括 CUSIP 在內的 CTS 成長了 9%。我想知道原來的 CTS 業務和 CGS 的成長率會是什麼樣子。然後我認為，當您收購該資產時，您正在指導 CUSIP 實現中高個位數成長。這仍然是未來的目標嗎？

Yes. Kelsey, it's Phil Snow. Yes, I'm happy to provide those numbers. So the CTS, the Content and Technology Solutions business, which is now part of Data Solutions, that grew at close to 11% on a year-over-year basis, which actually if you compare it to last year, it was a little bit lower but almost the same. So I would characterize this year as being a very good year for CTS and really speaks to the value of our data and the myriad of ways in which we deliver it to the market.

是的。凱爾西，我是菲爾·斯諾。是的，我很高興提供這些數字。因此，CTS（內容和技術解決方案業務，現在是數據解決方案的一部分）同比增長接近 11%，實際上，如果與去年相比，會發現增長了一點較低但幾乎相同。因此，我認為今年對 CTS 來說是非常好的一年，這真正體現了我們數據的價值以及我們向市場提供數據的多種方式。

The CUSIP Global Services business or CGS grew a little -- from an ASV standpoint, grew slightly under the growth rate of the firm. So I think you'd probably have a pretty good idea of the size of that business based on data we've given in the past. So I think you should be able to triangulate everything that you just asked me pretty well.

CUSIP 全球服務業務或 CGS 略有成長－從 ASV 的角度來看，成長速度略低於公司的成長率。因此，我認為根據我們過去提供的數據，您可能對該業務的規模有一個很好的了解。所以我認為你應該能夠很好地對你剛才問我的所有事情進行三角測量。

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Kramm with UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Alex Kramm。

Just coming back to the guidance for a second. You talked about these like 2 halves. So maybe you can be a little bit more specific around maybe like the near-term trajectory here. I know it's early in this current quarter, but maybe what are you seeing? How are the pipelines shaping up? And then maybe more specifically, clearly, some of these banks have delayed hiring. So I'm just wondering if we assume that some of these hires that didn't come in the 4Q maybe now come in the second quarter, is there a dollar amount that you feel like slipped in the fourth quarter that could come? So just trying to figure out some of the swing factors maybe in the near term here.

暫時回到指導。你把這些都說了兩半。所以也許你可以更具體一點，例如這裡的近期軌跡。我知道現在還為時過早，但也許您看到了什麼？管道建​​設情況如何？然後也許更具體地說，顯然，其中一些銀行推遲了招聘。所以我想知道我們是否假設第四季度沒有出現的一些員工現在可能會在第二季度出現，您認為第四季度可能出現的金額是否會減少？因此，我們只是想找出一些短期內可能會出現的波動因素。

Alex, it's Helen. Yes, I'm happy to try to answer that question, so thank you. You're right, we're early in the year and -- but we have greater visibility, of course, in our first half so I'll talk to that specifically. We are expecting current market conditions in the first half, but I'm going to go by firm type here. So when you talk about buy side, we actually finished the year quite strong with both asset owners and hedge funds.

亞歷克斯，這是海倫。是的，我很高興嘗試回答這個問題，所以謝謝。你是對的，我們正處於今年年初，而且——當然，我們在上半年的知名度更高，所以我將具體討論這一點。我們預計上半年的市場狀況，但我將在這裡討論公司類型。因此，當你談論買方時，我們實際上在資產所有者和對沖基金方面都表現強勁。

So the 3 things that we see right now in the pipeline is, one, we're continuing to gain traction in the middle office. So building off of some of the great wins we had in the asset servicing space, we would expect that to continue. Second, we're seeing strong demand in the data feeds business. So both for company data as well as our data management solutions, where we're really leveraging the strength of our concordance for content for clients. We had 2 significant wins, 1 in real time, 1 in tech data, both displacing competitors.

因此，我們現在看到的三件事是，第一，我們繼續在中台獲得吸引力。因此，在我們在資產服務領域中取得的一些偉大勝利的基礎上，我們預計這種情況將繼續下去。其次，我們看到資料來源業務的強勁需求。因此，無論是對於公司資料還是我們的資料管理解決方案，我們都在真正利用我們為客戶提供的內容一致性的優勢。我們取得了 2 場重大勝利，1 場是即時勝利，1 場是技術數據勝利，兩者都取代了競爭對手。

And as a result, we're getting inbound discussions around that. So that's also filling up our pipeline. And then third, as Phil mentioned earlier, the strength in offerings we have in the front office are also gaining traction, part of our gen AI enhancements. We'll be supporting that, and so we expect to be able to get greater market share in that space. And we actually think that will help on the retention front as well.

因此，我們正在圍繞這個問題進行入站討論。所以這也填補了我們的管道。第三，正如 Phil 先前提到的，我們前台的產品實力也正在獲得關注，這是我們一代人工智慧增強功能的一部分。我們將支持這一點，因此我們希望能夠在該領域獲得更大的市場份額。事實上，我們認為這也有助於留住人才。

On the banking, you're absolutely right. We are seeing -- we're going to have a challenging H1 comparison, Alex, because the banking workforce reductions really didn't impact us until our second half because they came through more in the early spring time frame. And we also expect most of the impact potentially from any reductions from Credit Suisse to happen more in the early calendar year as well. So that's going to impact our H1 results.

關於銀行業，你是完全正確的。我們看到，亞歷克斯，我們將進行一個具有挑戰性的上半年比較，因為銀行業勞動力的減少直到下半年才真正影響我們，因為他們在早春時期經歷了更多的事情。我們也預計瑞士信貸的任何削減可能產生的大部分影響也將在年初發生更多。所以這將影響我們上半年的業績。

There have been some positives in the capital markets activity but we're not building a recovery in the first half. So to your point, we do think that there will be a potential uplift in the second half but not in the first half. We actually did fine in banking overall because we had 2 huge wins, 1 in equity research, in bulge bracket and the other in a large investment bank. And then wealth, I already spoke to. We have more activity. Our land and expand strategy is working pretty well. We're finding when we're there, we're building on both feed and our CRM solution. So we expect to see continued cost rationalization, but the pipeline looks decent as we are starting our new year.

資本市場活動出現了一些正面因素，但上半年我們並未實現復甦。因此，就您的觀點而言，我們確實認為下半年會有潛在的提升，但上半年不會。事實上，我們在銀行業整體上做得很好，因為我們取得了兩次巨大的勝利，一次是在股票研究領域，一次是在大額投資銀行，另一次是在一家大型投資銀行。然後是財富，我已經談過。我們有更多的活動。我們的土地和擴張策略運作良好。我們發現，當我們在那裡時，我們正在建立資訊流和 CRM 解決方案。因此，我們預計成本將持續合理化，但隨著新的一年的開始，管道看起來還不錯。

Our next question comes from the line of Faiza Alwy with Deutsche Bank.

我們的下一個問題來自 Faiza Alwy 與德意志銀行的聯繫。

Wanted to ask about the gen AI. Phil, you mentioned a number of new products that you're working on. And so I'm wondering how you're thinking about the timing of commercialization of these products. And do you view this as a new product revenue opportunity? Or should we think about it more as something that's going to help improve retention? And relatedly, it seems like there's a number of smaller new companies that are out there that are introducing gen AI products that folks seem to be willing to pay for. How should we think about your approach to M&A to enhance your position within gen AI products?

想問一下關於gen AI的問題。菲爾，你提到了你正在開發的一些新產品。所以我想知道您如何考慮這些產品的商業化時機。您認為這是一個新產品收入機會嗎？或者我們應該更多地將其視為有助於提高保留率的事情？與此相關的是，似乎有許多規模較小的新公司正在推出人們似乎願意付費的新一代人工智慧產品。我們該如何看待你們的併購方式，以增強你們在新一代人工智慧產品中的地位？

Yes. Thanks, Faiza. I was hoping someone would ask about this. So I have a lot to say here. We're all in on gen AI and AI. The thing that I'll probably stress first for everyone is the value of data. And we believe strongly that the winners in this environment are going to be the ones that have the broadest suite of data and the most well-connected data, the most trusted data and the data that can be source-linked back to where the answers came from. And that's what FactSet has always been about and really at the foundation of what we're building here.

是的。謝謝，法伊札。我希望有人會問這個問題。所以我在這裡有很多話要說。我們都在關注新一代人工智慧和人工智慧。我可能首先要向大家強調的是數據的價值。我們堅信，在這種環境下的贏家將是那些擁有最廣泛的數據、連接最緊密的數據、最值得信賴的數據以及可以通過源頭鏈接回答案的數據。從。這就是 FactSet 一直以來的宗旨，也是我們在這裡建構的真正基礎。

So to answer your question a little bit more, we believe it's going to be a combination of things. So we are working on a lot of pilots, and I would anticipate that some of those will be coming to market this year. I do believe that it's going to radically improve the experience of most FactSet users that are using the workstation. And as you pointed out, really help increase retention and maybe drive new desktops, right, at the clients we serve. But we also think there's going to be an opportunity for new products. One of those really is just off-platform essentially. So we're thinking carefully about this, but there are lots of ways for us to take all of the valuable data we have, bundle it up with some gen AI capabilities and deliver it to clients.

因此，為了更多地回答你的問題，我們相信這將是多種因素的結合。因此，我們正在進行大量試點工作，我預計其中一些將在今年上市。我確實相信，它將從根本上改善大多數使用工作站的 FactSet 使用者的體驗。正如您所指出的，這確實有助於提高我們服務的客戶的保留率，並可能推動新的桌面。但我們也認為新產品將有機會。其中之一實際上本質上只是平台外的。因此，我們正在仔細考慮這一點，但我們有很多方法可以獲取我們擁有的所有有價值的數據，將其與一些新一代人工智慧功能捆綁在一起，然後將其交付給客戶。

So we're going to create a great experience for clients on our platform, whether we're able to search, converse with FactSet, go mild deep for their particular workflow. But we also recognize that some of the larger firms out there are going to want to build some of their own environment. So as we've always been, we plan to be pretty neutral here in the ecosystem and provide the best of both worlds. But it's still early days. We're still thinking about this very carefully, but we're very excited about the potential opportunity for us.

因此，我們將在我們的平台上為客戶創造良好的體驗，無論我們是否能夠搜尋、與 FactSet 交談、深入了解他們的特定工作流程。但我們也意​​識到，一些較大的公司希望建立一些自己的環境。因此，一如既往，我們計劃在生態系統中保持中立，並提供兩全其美的服務。但現在還為時過早。我們仍在非常仔細地考慮這個問題，但我們對我們的潛在機會感到非常興奮。

It's Linda. We've had an effort to go out to talk to many clients early on in this process, about 25 of them. So maybe Phil and Helen, you might want to speak a little bit more about the clients?

是琳達。在這個過程的早期，我們努力與許多客戶進行交談，其中大約有 25 個。那麼，也許菲爾和海倫，你們可能想多談談有關客戶的事情？

Let me do that. Thanks for prompt. Yes. So in using gen AI, yes, so we've had 25 to 30 knees-under-tables meetings with our clients. We've seen a lot of enthusiasm from all firm types. And a lot of that has to do with our capabilities, the data, the technology and our relationships with clients. But there's a desire out there to codevelop some things. So we're working very closely with some large banks. There's opportunities there for banker automation. I think everyone's always felt that, although the processes that are out there haven't evolved much over the years, but I think this is the time they will.

讓我這樣做。感謝您的提示。是的。因此，在使用 gen AI 時，是的，我們與客戶進行了 25 到 30 次私下會議。我們看到各種類型的公司都表現出了極大的熱情。這在很大程度上與我們的能力、數據、技術以及我們與客戶的關係有關。但人們希望共同開發一些東西。因此，我們正在與一些大型銀行密切合作。銀行家自動化存在機會。我想每個人都一直覺得，雖然多年來現有的流程沒有太大發展，但我認為現在是他們會發展的時候了。

On the buy side, I mentioned in my earlier comments, there's an opportunity to radically improve the life of a portfolio manager or research analyst that's having to sift through so much information. And on the wealth management side, we talked earlier about other workflows, right? So can we get into proposal generation? Can we get into augmented prospecting for our clients? These are all great opportunities. So we're very encouraged and we're moving very quickly.

在買方方面，我在先前的評論中提到，有機會從根本上改善必須篩選大量資訊的投資組合經理或研究分析師的生活。在財富管理方面，我們之前討論過其他工作流程，對吧？那我們可以進入提案生成階段嗎？我們可以為客戶進行增強勘探嗎？這些都是很好的機會。因此，我們深受鼓舞，而且行動非常迅速。

Our next question comes from the line of George Tong with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的喬治唐（George Tong）。

At the midpoint of your guidance for ASV plus professional services organic growth of 7% for next year, that guide is essentially unchanged from growth that you saw this year for fiscal '23. And you mentioned that the first half of the fiscal year, we'll see some pressure followed by improvement in the second half of the year. Does that suggest that you expect trends to get worse compared to this quarter before they get better, such that you land at that 7% growth at the midpoint next year? And can you talk about which areas of the business you're assuming undergoes the most inflection over the course of next year?

在你們對明年 ASV 加專業服務有機增長 7% 的指導中值，該指導與你們今年 23 財年看到的增長基本沒有變化。您提到，本財年上半年，我們會看到一些壓力，下半年會有所改善。這是否表明您預計趨勢在好轉之前會比本季變得更糟，以便明年中點實現 7% 的成長率？您能否談談您認為明年哪些業務領域將經歷最大的變化？

George, it's Helen. I'll take that. So I would not necessarily say it gets worse. I think what I mentioned in particular on banking is the comparison H1 over H1. So last year, a lot of the hiring that was very, very strong, continued on. And so if you probably recall how strong we were in our first half of last year. So in comparison, the impact from the changes in workforce reduction will impact this current fiscal '24 H1.

喬治，是海倫。我會接受的。所以我不一定會說情況會變得更糟。我認為我在銀行業方面特別提到的是 H1 與 H1 的比較。所以去年，很多非常非常強勁的招募工作仍在持續。如果您可能還記得我們去年上半年的表現有多強。因此，相較之下，勞動力減少變化的影響將影響本財年的「24 上半年」。

So when we talk about a stronger H2, we are assuming that there is not an inflection, I will say, necessarily of a pickup in banking back to '22 levels, but overall hiring and budgets being more open. And that's why we're talking about the fact that we had this fiscal year end of August. Their calendar year clients are generally starting to then make open up decisions in what will be our H2, and that's what we're referring to.

因此，當我們談論更強勁的下半年時，我會說，我們假設銀行業不一定會回升到 22 年的水平，但整體招聘和預算會更加開放。這就是為什麼我們談論這個財政年度是八月底這一事實。他們的日曆年客戶通常開始對我們的 H2 做出開放的決定，這就是我們所指的。

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Nicholas with William Blair.

我們的下一個問題來自安德魯·尼古拉斯和威廉·布萊爾的對話。

I wanted to circle back to the gen AI topic but focus maybe more on the cost side. It does sound like, Linda, that there is an increase in the technology budget to account for some of these investments. Are there any cost savings coming from gen AI maybe operationally within the SG&A line or just some of the organizational infrastructure you have that you expect to come from these investments? And is that something that would be embedded in '24 or is that a '25, '26 type benefit if it's there?

我想回到人工智慧的主題，但可能更專注於成本方面。琳達，聽起來確實增加了技術預算來應對其中一些投資。 gen AI 是否可以在 SG&A 線內運作或只是您希望從這些投資中獲得的一些組織基礎設施中節省成本？這是會嵌入 '24 的東西，還是 '25、'26 類型的好處（如果存在的話）？

Maybe I'll start and then I'm sure Linda will add some additional comments. So we've been looking at how we work ourselves and thinking about how can we be more efficient ourselves internally. We have a lot of engineers at FactSet, a lot of people that code that are even client-facing, so I think it's pretty common knowledge that there should be some efficiency here, right? So we're piloting a lot of copilot solutions with our technologies to kind of understand what that means at different levels of the organization.

也許我會開始，然後我確信琳達會添加一些額外的評論。因此，我們一直在研究我們自己的工作方式，並思考如何在內部提高效率。我們在 FactSet 有很多工程師，很多人甚至會針對客戶編寫程式碼，所以我認為這裡應該有一定的效率，這是很常見的知識，對嗎？因此，我們正在利用我們的技術試驗許多副駕駛解決方案，以了解這對組織的不同程度意味著什麼。

We have a large client service and support group here at FactSet. We've released a tool to about 400 people that are the front-line support for our clients that assist them in generating answers for clients, so that's in the beginning stages there. And then, of course, we collect tons of data. So about half of FactSet's employees are in the content or data solutions part of our business, so we see a lot of opportunities there. So we do see significant opportunity. The question is the timing and how much of that we'd like to reinvest, right, in terms of some of the new products that we're thinking about to drive growth.

FactSet 擁有龐大的客戶服務和支援團隊。我們已經向大約 400 名客戶發布了一個工具，他們是客戶的第一線支援人員，幫助他們為客戶產生答案，所以這還處於開始階段。然後，當然，我們會收集大量數據。因此，FactSet 大約一半的員工從事我們業務的內容或資料解決方案部分，因此我們在那裡看到了許多機會。所以我們確實看到了巨大的機會。問題是我們想對我們正在考慮推動成長的一些新產品進行再投資的時機和多少。

Yes. Andrew, it's Linda. It's a great point and a great question. I think your view on timing is largely correct. So we're looking for internal efficiencies maybe to start showing up more in FY '25. Our initial focus will be client-facing in keeping with the way we think about everything here at FactSet. So what we'll do is look to move some of those tools we're building for our clients and look to apply those to ourselves. But we do think that's probably going to show up in a bigger way in FY '25. You've heard the guidance for FY '24, so hope that helps.

是的。安德魯，這是琳達。這是一個很好的觀點，也是一個很好的問題。我認為你對時機的看法基本上是正確的。因此，我們正在尋找內部效率，也許在 25 財年開始更多地體現出來。我們最初的重點將是面向客戶，這與我們在 FactSet 思考一切的方式保持一致。因此，我們要做的就是轉移我們為客戶建立的一些工具，並將其應用到我們自己身上。但我們確實認為這可能會在 25 財年以更大的方式體現出來。您已經聽過 24 財年的指導，希望這對您有幫助。

Our next question comes from the line of Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Ashish Sabadra。

Just wanted to go back to the ASV guidance and just better understand the headwinds and tailwinds. As I understand when we think about some of the headwinds from like the investment banking and CES as well as increased erosion and pricing normalization, we were thinking that could be in the range of like 2 to 3 points of headwind. And obviously, you've talked a lot about the new win momentum, the shared gains. Just wondering, is that enough to offset the headwinds as we get into fiscal year '24?

只是想回到 ASV 指南並更好地了解逆風和順風。據我了解，當我們考慮投資銀行和 CES 等不利因素以及侵蝕加劇和定價正常化時，我們認為可能會出現 2 到 3 個百分點的不利因素。顯然，您已經談論了很多關於新的勝利動力和共享收益的問題。只是想知道，這足以抵消我們進入 24 財年時的不利因素嗎？

Ashish, it's Helen. Thank you for that question. I think from our perspective, I don't want to say we've hit a bottom. That's too strong of a word. But when I think about this year and last year, I would expect that 2 things to happen. One is that the erosion reduction will actually be more leveled off, and I think that's an important thing to sort of keep in mind. Banking is key but we actually grew the number of seats in banking overall. Please keep in mind that part of that isn't just around the clients that we have but the new clients that we win, and we have a couple of very good opportunities. So we look at that as part of our -- when we talk to firm type.

阿希什，是海倫。謝謝你提出這個問題。我認為從我們的角度來看，我不想說我們已經觸底。這個詞太重了但當我想到今年和去年時，我預計會發生兩件事。一是侵蝕減少實際上會更加平穩，我認為這是需要牢記的重要事情。銀行業是關鍵，但我們實際上增加了銀行業的整體席位數。請記住，其中一部分不僅涉及我們現有的客戶，還涉及我們贏得的新客戶，而且我們有一些非常好的機會。因此，當我們與公司類型交談時，我們將其視為我們的一部分。

The second is pricing, which in the past, I think we've talked about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. I think from a pricing perspective, it actually added more this year from a percent basis than in the past. We see it continuing to add in 2024 although closer back down to maybe 1/4 or less than 1/3. And I think that's probably more of a bit of a headwind that I would look to than necessarily just thinking about seats. So that's how I would take a look at some of what's built into our guidance. We have some large deals in there. We'll see if those come through. They got pushed from '23 to '24. And then there will be, I'm sure, continued focus on costs by our clients.

第二個是定價，過去我想我們講過1/3、1/3、1/3。我認為從定價的角度來看，今年實際上比過去增加了更多的百分比。我們預計到 2024 年，這一數字將繼續增加，儘管可能會回落到 1/4 或不到 1/3。我認為這可能更多是我所關注的逆風，而不僅僅是考慮座位。這就是我將如何看待我們指南中的一些內容。我們那裡有一些大額交易。我們將看看這些是否能夠實現。他們從 23 年被推到了 24 年。然後，我確信，我們的客戶將繼續專注於成本。

Our next question comes from the line of Heather Balsky with Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自希瑟·巴爾斯基 (Heather Balsky) 與美國銀行的電話。

Just another question on the first half versus second half revenue outlook. You talked about the hiring assumptions. When you think about the back half versus the first half on the wealth and buy side, I'm curious what's kind of baked in your outlook and in terms of customer sentiment. And you talked earlier about formation of -- on the wealth side, whether or not that potentially picks up. Just what should we take into account?

這是關於上半年與下半年收入前景的另一個問題。您談到了招募假設。當您在財富和購買方面考慮下半年與上半年時，我很好奇您的前景和客戶情緒方面有何影響。您之前談到了財富方面的形成，無論這種情況是否可能回升。我們該考慮什麼？

Sure, I'll take that. Thank you for your question. So as it relates to the buy side, I think it's a similar piece. Our more complex deals take longer. And right now, with the offerings that we have, they are more complex. So when I talk about delayed decisions, that's where you're seeing a fair number of them as it relates to the analytics business for the buy side. I would see, again, more of the pickup on hiring will help us. We had erosion in both asset management and wealth. So if we see increased hiring, which we would expect in the second half of the year, that's where -- that's the driver on that front.

當然，我會接受的。謝謝你的問題。因此，就買方而言，我認為這是一個類似的部分。我們更複雜的交易需要更長的時間。現在，我們提供的產品變得更加複雜。因此，當我談到延遲決策時，您會看到相當多的決策，因為它與買方的分析業務相關。我再次看到，招募方面的更多成長將對我們有所幫助。我們的資產管理和財富都受到了侵蝕。因此，如果我們看到招募增加（我們預計在今年下半年），那麼這就是這方面的驅動因素。

On wealth, wealth is an interesting one. Wealth, we have, as I mentioned, some large deals are in the pipe. So we could see that come through. But a similar situation. As the markets recover, we would expect to see the hiring to pick up again in the second half of the year.

論財富，財富是一件有趣的事。財富方面，正如我所提到的，一些大型交易正在進行中。所以我們可以看到它的實現。但類似的情況。隨著市場復甦，我們預計下半年招聘會再次回升。

Our next question comes from the line of Shlomo Rosenbaum with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自什洛莫·羅森鮑姆 (Shlomo Rosenbaum) 和施蒂費爾 (Stifel) 的路線。

Main question is I wanted to ask a little bit if you can go back to the comment about some green shoots that you're seeing. And if you can give us a little more specificity. Are those green shoots that you're seeing kind of macro-wise, specifically within the clients that you have specifically in your pipeline? Can you just give us a little bit more color on that? And then maybe just a housekeeping thing. Is there additional interest expense from the idaciti acquisition? Is that the way we should think about that?

主要問題是我想問您是否可以回到關於您所看到的一些萌芽的評論。如果您能給我們更具體一點的話。您所看到的那些萌芽是否屬於宏觀方面，特別是在您的管道中特定的客戶中？您能為我們提供更多的資訊嗎？然後也許只是一個家務事。收購 idaciti 是否會產生額外的利息費用？我們該這樣思考嗎？

Yes. I'll talk a bit about the green shoots. The areas that we are seeing some pickup a little bit, which is always a bit of a harbinger for us, is on the new business. So in Q4, new business started to make a bit of a recovery in terms of number of transactions. So we see that as a positive. The one positive also, I would say overall, even for the new business, is that if I look at the average size of the transaction throughout the year, the volume was lower but the average was pretty much the same. And that, I think, is a testament to the value that clients are seeing. So we take that as a positive.

是的。我會談綠芽。我們看到一些回升的領域是新業務，這對我們來說總是一個先兆。因此，在第四季度，新業務的交易數量開始回升。所以我們認為這是積極的。總體而言，即使對於新業務，我想說的一個積極因素是，如果我看看全年交易的平均規模，我會發現交易量較低，但平均值幾乎相同。我認為，這證明了客戶所看到的價值。所以我們認為這是積極的。

The other area is around managed services, which we have seen an uptick there. I've been mentioning asset servicers as something that's a positive but we will continue to see that as one. And then also, as I can see in the pipeline, what we call data management solutions, has also been a driver. We expect to be a driver for us and that's been picking up as well. So when you look at all those pieces, I think that, that's really where the benefits come in. And of course, your second question, it's probably best to have that with Ali and Kendra afterwards.

另一個領域是託管服務，我們已經看到該領域的成長。我一直提到資產服務商是一件積極的事情，但我們將繼續將其視為一個積極的事情。然後，正如我在管道中看到的那樣，我們所說的數據管理解決方案也是一個驅動因素。我們希望成為我們的司機，這一點也一直在增加。所以當你看到所有這些部分時，我認為這才是真正的好處。當然，你的第二個問題，最好是事後與阿里和肯德拉討論。

Our next question comes from the line of Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自托尼卡普蘭 (Toni Kaplan) 與摩根士丹利 (Morgan Stanley) 的對話。

I was hoping you could talk about your increase in employee count was about 5% this quarter year-over-year. Is that sort of a normal increase for you now organically or is it maybe a little bit light? And should we expect sort of around that level for '24? And maybe you could go into, are you hiring sort of more salespeople or technology or product development? Just trying to understand where the growth areas within the employee base are.

我希望您能談談本季員工人數年增約 5%。現在對你來說，這種成長是正常的有機成長還是可能有點輕微？我們是否應該期待 24 年的水準會達到這個水準？也許你可以問一下，你是否正在招募更多的銷售人員、技術或產品開發人員？只是想了解員工基礎中的成長領域在哪裡。

Toni, it's Linda. You're right. Headcount growth was actually around 5% for the quarter, you're correct. For the whole year, FY '23, it was 9.2%. For FY '24, we're expecting that we're going to continue to add heads at about that 5% rate. But the mix is very, very heavily leaning toward our centers of excellence, maybe up to even 80% of those additional folks in our centers of excellence.

東尼，這是琳達。你說得對。該季度的員工人數增長實際上約為 5%，您是對的。 23 財年全年的成長率為 9.2%。對於 24 財年，我們預計將繼續以 5% 左右的速度增加人員數量。但這種組合非常非常傾向於我們的卓越中心，甚至可能高達我們卓越中心額外人員的 80%。

So in terms of the people costs, we actually took them down by 3% through what we call our Project Blue. We talked about thoughtfully and carefully trimming a bit on the employee base. And we will be looking to do about 5% in terms of hiring for FY '24. But again, very, very heavily leaning toward the centers of excellence. I'll ask Helen to talk about any potential hiring for the sales organization. So Helen?

因此，就人員成本而言，我們實際上透過我們所謂的「藍色計劃」將其降低了 3%。我們深思熟慮地討論了對員工人數進行一些削減的問題。我們預計 24 財年的招募量將減少 5% 左右。但同樣，非常非常嚴重地傾向於卓越中心。我將請海倫談談銷售組織的任何潛在招聘事宜。那麼海倫？

Thank you. I'm going to ask our CFO if I can do more hiring. No, I think one of the benefits of what we've done this year, which is really to become closer to the client, is to have ourselves go to market by firm type and also by workflow solutions. And what that gives us is the ability to actually become more productive. So our ability now is not covering different types of firm types and talking about things from a product perspective but rather knowing the workflow, and being able to leverage that across clients. And we've actually gotten some very good feedback from clients on that piece.

謝謝。我將詢問我們的財務長是否可以進行更多招募。不，我認為我們今年所做的事情的好處之一，實際上是為了更接近客戶，是讓我們透過公司類型和工作流程解決方案進入市場。這給了我們真正提高生產力的能力。因此，我們現在的能力不是涵蓋不同類型的公司類型並從產品角度談論事物，而是了解工作流程，並能夠在客戶之間利用它。事實上，我們已經從客戶那裡得到了一些關於該作品的非常好的回饋。

And maybe I'll just add back to a point that Phil and Linda made around gen AI and our client discussions with a larger -- the top 25. What comments we got back, which I thought was very encouraging is one, which differentiates us from some of our competitors and some of these smaller upstarts, that the way we talk to them about how gen AI can help them was about their workflow. Not about a product, not about something that they are yet to build. And then we were able to show them how we're already incorporating it into the products we have today. So I think both of those resonate well, and that's going to help as we go to market with the current sales force that we have.

也許我會補充一下 Phil 和 Linda 圍繞 gen AI 以及我們的客戶與更大範圍（前 25 名）進行的討論所提出的一點。我們得到的評論是非常令人鼓舞的，這使我們與眾不同來自我們的一些競爭對手和一些較小的新貴，我們與他們談論人工智慧如何幫助他們的方式是關於他們的工作流程。不是關於產品，不是關於他們尚未建造的東西。然後我們能夠向他們展示我們如何將其整合到我們今天擁有的產品中。因此，我認為這兩點都能產生很好的共鳴，當我們利用現有的銷售團隊進入市場時，這將會有所幫助。

I'm going to pile on just for a second here on the talent front. So we're finding this a great environment for talent. So our retention has improved significantly. Our realignment has allowed a lot of FactSetters to take on new additional responsibilities. But we've also found this a great environment to find some exceptional technology and product management talent from the industry, which is going to be accretive, we think, moving forward.

我將在這裡多花一點時間談談人才方面的問題。因此，我們發現這裡是人才的絕佳環境。所以我們的保留率顯著提高。我們的重組使許多事實制定者能夠承擔新的額外職責。但我們也發現，這是一個從業界尋找一些傑出技術和產品管理人才的絕佳環境，我們認為，這將有助於不斷向前發展。

Our last question comes from the line of Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners.

我們的最後一個問題來自克雷格·胡貝爾 (Craig Huber) 和胡貝爾研究合作夥伴 (Huber Research Partners)。

Linda, question for you. I'm giving you guys outlook for revenue second half of the year being better than the first half on a year-over-year basis. I'm curious on the cost side of things. How are you thinking about cost growth on a year-over-year basis? Is it pretty even you're thinking over the course of fiscal '24 or more back half weighted?

琳達，問你一個問題。我向大家預測下半年的收入年比將好於上半年。我對事情的成本方面很好奇。您如何看待成本年增？即使您正在考慮 24 財年或更多後半加權的過程，這是否很漂亮？

Craig, I think we'll look to our usual pattern of seasonality. Generally, the spend builds throughout the year. And as Helen said, we're looking for the back half to be stronger than the first half, so we'd like to sort of match that with our expense growth. So I think what we want to do is be very careful on expense growth in the first half of the year. I think that's really important that we try to match up revenue growth with our expense growth.

克雷格，我想我們會關注我們通常的季節性模式。一般來說，支出全年都會增加。正如海倫所說，我們希望下半年比上半年更強，因此我們希望將其與我們的支出成長相匹配。所以我認為我們要做的是對上半年的費用成長非常謹慎。我認為我們努力將收入成長與支出成長相匹配非常重要。

So we're going to be very thoughtful in the first half of the year, the second half of the year. I think as we build into our technology budget and some things with gen AI start to catch, I think you should look for our normal trend that expense growth would be heavier toward the back half of the year and particularly in Q4. So I hope that is helpful in terms of your phasing.

所以我們在上半年、下半年都會非常深思。我認為，隨著我們建立技術預算，而人工智慧的一些事情開始流行，我認為你應該尋找我們的正常趨勢，即今年下半年，尤其是第四季度，費用成長將更加強勁。所以我希望這對您的分階段有所幫助。

I would now like to turn the conference back over to Phil Snow for closing remarks.

現在我想將會議轉回菲爾·斯諾致閉幕詞。

Thank you. Before we wrap up, I want to announce the return of our flagship user conference, FOCUS '24 in Miami next April. We're looking forward to bringing key clients and stakeholders together to network and share ideas on the theme of innovation. Innovation is our focus for the coming year, and I'm very optimistic about our opportunity. And in closing, I really want to thank all FactSetters and our teams for a job well done in fiscal '23.

謝謝。在結束之前，我想宣布我們的旗艦用戶大會 FOCUS '24 將於明年 4 月在邁阿密舉行。我們期待將主要客戶和利害關係人聚集在一起，就創新主題建立聯繫並分享想法。創新是我們來年的重點，我對我們的機會非常樂觀。最後，我衷心感謝所有事實制定者和我們的團隊在 23 財年所做的出色工作。

I'd also like to thank Kendra Brown for her excellent work leading Investor Relations over the past 2 years. And going forward, she will be heading our banking and sell-side research business. And as previously announced, Ali van Nes will take over the Investor Relations role. You can contact Ali with any follow-up questions after today's call.

我還要感謝肯德拉布朗 (Kendra Brown) 在過去兩年中領導投資者關係所做的出色工作。展望未來，她將領導我們的銀行和賣方研究業務。正如之前宣布的那樣，阿里·範·內斯 (Ali van Nes) 將接任投資者關係職位。今天通話後如有任何後續問題，您可以聯絡阿里。

Thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Operator, that ends today's call.

感謝大家今天加入我們。我們期待下個季度再次與您交談。接線員，今天的通話到此結束。

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。