穆迪 (MCO) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Moody's Corporation First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

大家好，歡迎參加穆迪公司 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。現在我想通知大家，本次會議正在錄製中。 （操作員說明）

I will now turn the call over to Shivani Kak, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

我現在將把電話轉給投資者關係主管 Shivani Kak。請繼續。

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Shivani Kak, Head of Investor Relations. This morning, Moody's released its results for the first quarter 2024 as well as our revised outlook for select metrics for full year 2024. The earnings press release and the presentation to accompany this teleconference are both available on our website at ir.moodys.com.

謝謝。早安，感謝您今天加入我們。我是 Shivani Kak，投資者關係主管。今天上午，穆迪發布了2024 年第一季度的業績以及我們對2024 年全年選定指標的修訂後展望。 com 上取得。

During this call, we will also be presenting non-GAAP or adjusted figures. Please refer to the tables at the end of our earnings press release filed this morning for a reconciliation between all adjusted measures referenced during this call in U.S. GAAP.

在本次電話會議中，我們也將提供非公認會計原則或調整後的數據。請參閱我們今天上午提交的收益新聞稿末尾的表格，以了解本次電話會議期間引用的所有美國公認會計準則調整後指標之間的對帳情況。

I call your attention to the safe harbor language, which can be found towards the end of our earnings release. Today's remarks may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In accordance with the act, I also direct your attention to the Management's Discussion & Analysis section and the risk factors discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, and in other SEC filings made by the company, which are available on our website and on the SEC's website.

我請您注意安全港語言，該語言可以在我們的收益發布結束時找到。今天的言論可能包含 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》含義內的前瞻性陳述。截至2023 年12 月31 日的年度10-K 以及該公司提交的其他SEC 文件，這些文件可在我們的網站和SEC 網站上找到。

These, together with the safe harbor statement, set forth important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any such forward-looking statements. I would also like to point out that members of the media may be on the call this morning in a listen-only mode.

這些與安全港聲明一起列出了可能導致實際結果與任何此類前瞻性聲明中包含的結果存在重大差異的重要因素。我還想指出，今天早上媒體成員可能會以只聽模式通話。

I'll now turn the call over to Rob.

我現在將把電話轉給羅布。

Thanks, Shivani. Good morning, and thanks, everybody, for joining today's call. Before I touch on a few key takeaways from our first quarter results, I'm going to start by saying how excited I am to be joined today by Noémie Heuland, who officially joined Moody's on April 1. And as I mentioned on our last earnings call, Noémie brings almost 25 years of global financial and accounting leadership experience at some very large public companies with a real depth of experience in technology and software as a service. And we're really fortunate to have her as our Chief Financial Officer, and I look forward to all of you getting to know her in the coming weeks and months.

謝謝，希瓦尼。早安，感謝大家參加今天的電話會議。在談論我們第一季度業績的一些關鍵要點之前，我首先要說的是，今天諾米·赫蘭 (Noémie Heuland) 的加入讓我感到非常興奮，她於 4 月 1 日正式加入穆迪。在上次財報電話會議上，Noémie 帶來了在一些大型上市公司擁有近25 年的全球財務和會計領導經驗，在技術和軟體即服務方面擁有真正豐富的經驗。我們真的很幸運有她擔任我們的財務官，我期待你們所有人在未來幾週和幾個月內認識她。

So with that, let me turn to our first quarter results. We delivered an impressive 21% revenue growth, capitalizing on a strong issuance environment and continued demand for our leading risk assessment solutions. We delivered strong top line performance and margin expansion in both businesses, and that translated to adjusted diluted EPS of $3.37 for the quarter.

那麼，讓我談談我們第一季的業績。由於強勁的發行環境以及對我們領先的風險評估解決方案的持續需求，我們的收入成長了 21%，令人印象深刻。我們在兩項業務中都實現了強勁的營收業績和利潤率擴張，這意味著本季調整後的攤薄每股收益為 3.37 美元。

Now starting with MIS. Obviously, a great quarter. And over the last several years, you all have heard me talk about the investments that we've been making in analytical talent and technology enablement to ensure that we are the agency of choice for inventors and issuers, and in turn, position us to capitalize on more robust issuance periods. And in the first quarter, we did exactly that, and we showed the tremendous operating leverage in our business with the second highest quarterly revenue on record, up 35% year-over-year and an adjusted operating margin of 64.6%.

現在從 MIS 開始。顯然，這是一個很棒的季度。在過去的幾年裡，你們都聽過我談論我們在分析人才和技術支援方面進行的投資，以確保我們成為發明人和發行人的首選機構，進而使我們能夠利用更穩健的發行期限。在第一季度，我們確實做到了這一點，並展示了我們業務中巨大的營運槓桿，季度收入創歷史第二高，同比增長 35%，調整後的營運利潤率為 64.6%。

Meanwhile, MA reported another quarter of 10% ARR growth, growing across all lines of business, including double-digit ARR growth in both Decision Solutions and Data & Information. And during the quarter, we executed on our strategic investment road map across platforming, product innovation and GenAI enablement. And this quarter highlights the unique strength of our business model. We're tracking to our medium-term EPS target of low double-digit growth while we are funding this investment program that will drive future growth, all while we expect to return over $1.6 billion to stockholders this year through share repurchases and dividends. That is the power of the Moody's compounding machine.

同時，MA 報告又一個季度實現 10% 的 ARR 成長，所有業務線均實現成長，其中決策解決方案和數據與資訊領域的 ARR 均實現兩位數成長。在本季度，我們執行了跨平台、產品創新和 GenAI 支援的策略投資路線圖。本季凸顯了我們商業模式的獨特優勢。我們正在努力實現中期每股收益低兩位數成長的目標，同時為這項將推動未來成長的投資計畫提供資金，同時我們預計今年將透過股票回購和股息向股東回報超過 16 億美元。這就是穆迪複利機的力量。

We're also updating a few of our guidance metrics, and Meanwhile, MA reported another quarter of 10% ARR growth, growing across all lines of business, including double-digit ARR growth in both Decision Solutions and Data & Information. And during the quarter, we executed on our strategic investment road map across platforming, product innovation and GenAI enablement. And this quarter highlights the unique strength of our business model. We're tracking to our medium-term EPS target of low double-digit growth while we are funding this investment program that will drive future growth, all while we expect to return over $1.6 billion to stockholders this year through share repurchases and dividends. That is the power of the Moody's compounding machine.

我們也正在更新一些指導指標，同時，MA 報告又一個季度實現了 10% 的 ARR 成長，所有業務線均實現成長，包括決策解決方案和資料與資訊領域的兩位數 ARR 成長。在本季度，我們執行了跨平台、產品創新和 GenAI 支援的策略投資路線圖。本季凸顯了我們商業模式的獨特優勢。我們正在努力實現中期每股收益低兩位數成長的目標，同時為這項將推動未來成長的投資計畫提供資金，同時我們預計今年將透過股票回購和股息向股東回報超過 16 億美元。這就是穆迪複利機的力量。

We're also updating a few of our guidance metrics, and Noémie will give some details on that a little bit later in the call. So we've got our eye on the ball, we're looking ahead, and we are focused on our mission to be the leading source of insights on exponential risk.

我們還將更新一些指導指標，Noémie 將在稍後的電話會議中提供一些詳細資訊。因此，我們關注全局，展望未來，專注於我們的使命，即成為指數風險洞察的主要來源。

So with that, let's dive in a little bit more on the financial performance of our businesses this quarter and our latest expectations for the full year. And as I've said before, MIS really is one of the world's great business franchises. It's widely recognized as best in the industry with strong global coverage in cross-border and domestic debt markets, and it has a growing range of offerings to support growth areas like private credit and transition finance.

因此，讓我們更深入地了解本季我們業務的財務表現以及我們對全年的最新預期。正如我之前所說，MIS 確實是世界上最偉大的商業特許經營商之一。它被廣泛認為是業內最好的公司，在跨境和國內債務市場上擁有強大的全球覆蓋範圍，並且提供越來越多的產品來支持私人信貸和轉型融資等成長領域。

And maintaining that leadership position really is critical in order to capitalize on the resurgence and opportunistic issuance that we experienced during the first quarter. And that's what played out during the quarter. MIS delivered, as I said, growth of 35% in the quarter, including 57% growth in transactional revenue. And a key driver of this growth in the quarter was the leveraged finance markets, a real strength for MIS, where revenue was up 144% versus the prior year quarter. That's quite a growth number.

為了利用我們在第一季經歷的復甦和機會主義發行，保持這一領先地位確實至關重要。這就是本季的情況。正如我所說，MIS 在本季度實現了 35% 的成長，其中交易收入成長了 57%。本季成長的一個關鍵驅動力是槓桿金融市場，這是 MIS 的真正優勢，其收入比去年同期成長了 144%。這是一個相當大的成長數字。

And as I explained a few quarters ago, we established a dedicated private credit team in MIS, and that's starting to pay dividends as we're better positioned to service the continued growth of the private credit markets as well as a wave of deals refinancing from the private credit markets into public markets. And while it's early, we're encouraged by interest in our transition finance offerings, and that includes our second-party opinions and our new net-zero assessment. And we already have several major issuers like Électricité de France that have published our net-zero assessment. And with discipline around expenses, MIS delivered an adjusted operating margin of almost 65%, again, demonstrating the tremendous operating leverage in this business.

正如我在幾個季度前所解釋的那樣，我們在管理資訊系統中建立了一個專門的私人信貸團隊，這開始帶來紅利，因為我們能夠更好地服務於私人信貸市場的持續增長以及一波來自MIS 的交易再融資浪潮。雖然現在還為時過早，但我們對我們的過渡融資產品的興趣感到鼓舞，其中包括我們的第二方意見和新的淨零評估。我們已經有幾個主要發行人（例如法國電力公司）發布了我們的淨零評估。透過嚴格控制開支，MIS 的調整後營業利潤率再次達到近 65%，這再次證明了該業務的巨大營業槓桿。

Now while the first quarter issuance was very robust, it is still early in the year and there are some uncertainties. So we're a bit cautious in regards to changes to our full year outlook at this point in the year. Issuance in the first quarter benefited from pull forward, given the favorable market environment and questions about the back end of the year in regards to upcoming U.S. elections, ongoing tensions in the Middle East and uncertainty around U.S. inflation and central bank rate cuts.

目前，雖然第一季的發行非常強勁，但仍處於年初，存在一些不確定性。因此，我們在今年這個時候對全年展望的變化持謹慎態度。鑑於有利的市場環境以及年底即將到來的美國大選、中東持續緊張局勢以及美國通膨和央行降息的不確定性，第一季的發行量受益於提前。

So consequently, we have not changed our full year issuance and revenue growth guidance targets. However, our updated outlook now centers on the upper end of both ranges. And there are some things that we're watching to determine if we've got some upside to our current outlook.

因此，我們沒有改變全年發行和收入成長指導目標。然而，我們更新的前景現在集中在兩個範圍的上限。我們正在觀察一些事情，以確定我們當前的前景是否有一些好處。

The global economy has certainly demonstrated resilience, and that's also going to be reflected in declining high-yield default rates, which are now projected to range between 3% to 3.5% by year-end. And we see some strong investor demand for riskier assets that's kept spreads tight. Notably, we're starting to see M&A activity pick up. Private equity funds are actively seeking exits and looking to deploy huge pools of capital. So again, there are some things that we're keeping a close eye on, and I'm sure we're going to discuss that a little bit further in the Q&A.

全球經濟無疑表現出了韌性，這也將反映在高收益違約率的下降上，目前預計到年底，違約率將在 3% 至 3.5% 之間。我們看到投資者對風險較高資產的強勁需求導致利差收窄。值得注意的是，我們開始看到併購活動回升。私募股權基金正在積極尋求退出並尋求部署大量資金。再說一次，我們正在密切關註一些事情，我相信我們將在問答中進一步討論這一點。

So now turning to Moody's Analytics. As we've seen over the years, MA continues to be a very consistent growth engine for us, achieving 65 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and now 6 consecutive quarters of double-digit ARR growth. Our retention rate has held steady at 94% for the last 2 years and yet again for the first quarter of 2024, and that's a real testament to the stickiness of our solutions.

現在轉向穆迪分析。正如我們多年來所看到的，MA 仍然是我們非常穩定的成長引擎，實現了連續 65 個季度的收入成長，現在連續 6 個季度實現兩位數的 ARR 成長。過去 2 年，我們的保留率一直穩定在 94%，2024 年第一季再次如此，這真正證明了我們解決方案的黏性。

As we look across our reported lines of business in MA, we can see our land-and-expand strategy in action. So starting with KYC, which I think you can see on the bottom far left of the webcast slide. About 1/4 of our 18% ARR growth in the first quarter is from new customer acquisitions. So a lot of new logos adopting our solutions in this space.

當我們瀏覽我們在馬薩諸塞州報告的業務線時，我們可以看到我們的土地擴張策略正在發揮作用。因此，從 KYC 開始，我想您可以在網路廣播幻燈片的最左下角看到這一點。第一季 18% 的 ARR 成長中約有 1/4 來自新客戶獲取。因此，許多新徽標在這個領域採用了我們的解決方案。

On the other end of the spectrum, about 90% of our insurance ARR growth of 10% is from really strong execution of our cross-sell strategy across our existing customer base. Clearly, RMS is an important contributor to that, and it continues to deliver against the targets that we set back in 2021. And I think a number of you will remember that at the time of the acquisition, RMS was growing at a low single-digit pace, and it's moved up very nicely as we've made progress on migrating customers to our SaaS platform and really activating our cross-selling strategies. And that includes things like climate models to banks and conversely, selling data and analytics and other Moody's solutions to the RMS customer base. So when we take all of this into account, in 2024, the ARR for RMS, including synergies, is expected to grow at a low double-digit pace.

另一方面，我們的保險 ARR 成長 10%，其中約 90% 歸功於我們在現有客戶群中真正強有力地執行交叉銷售策略。顯然，RMS 對此做出了重要貢獻，並且它繼續實現我們在 2021 年設定的目標。客戶遷移到我們的SaaS 平台並真正啟動我們的交叉銷售策略方面取得了進展，它的成長非常好。這包括向銀行提供氣候模型，以及向 RMS 客戶群銷售數據和分析以及其他穆迪解決方案。因此，當我們考慮到所有這些因素時，到 2024 年，包括協同效應在內的 RMS 的 ARR 預計將以較低的兩位數速度成長。

Now switching gears a little bit. Last year at this time, we were just starting to mobilize around GenAI. In fact, we hadn't even deployed our internal Copilot or announced our partnership with Microsoft at that point. And it is interesting to look back because what a difference a year makes. And we now have a framework for our suite of GenAI-enabled solutions that we're rolling out during 2024. It's no longer going to be just about Research Assistant. So we've categorized our capabilities into 3 primary buckets that we call navigators, skills and assistants. And really, each of these capabilities deliver increasing levels of value to our customers and are going to have some distinct economics.

現在稍微切換一下。去年的這個時候，我們剛開始圍繞 GenAI 進行動員。事實上，當時我們甚至還沒有部署內部 Copilot 或宣布與 Microsoft 的合作關係。回顧過去是很有趣的，因為一年的變化是多麼巨大。現在，我們為支援 GenAI 的解決方案套件提供了一個框架，並將在 2024 年推出。因此，我們將我們的能力分為 3 個主要類別，我們稱之為導航器、技能和助手。實際上，這些功能中的每一項都可以為我們的客戶帶來越來越高的價值，並且將具有一些獨特的經濟效益。

So navigators leverage an AI-powered natural language user interface to help our customers really get the most out of our products. And I would expect that almost all of our solutions will have some form of AI navigator or chat, what you might think of as a chatbot. And these will be table stakes, I think, for both our offerings as well as competitor offerings, I would assume in the relatively near future.

因此，導航器利用人工智慧驅動的自然語言使用者介面來幫助我們的客戶真正充分利用我們的產品。我預計我們幾乎所有的解決方案都將具有某種形式的人工智慧導航器或聊天功能，您可能會認為它是聊天機器人。我認為，我認為在不久的將來，這些將成為我們的產品以及競爭對手的產品的賭注。

Then we've got skills. Those are specialized GenAI capabilities that connect to Moody's data and content and analytics. And we're designing these skills to deliver automation and provide the tools to drive productivity and insight for our customers. And that includes things like the planned release of our, what we call our QUIQMemo, which is our automated credit memo; and our QUIQAlert, which is our surveillance and early warning system.

那我們就有了技能。這些是專門的 GenAI 功能，可連接到穆迪的數據、內容和分析。我們正在設計這些技能來實現自動化，並提供工具來提高客戶的生產力和洞察力。這包括計劃發布我們所謂的 QUIQMemo，這是我們的自動貸項憑證；以及我們的 QUIQAlert，這是我們的監視和預警系統。

And then we're going to have a set of assistance for a number of our major customer personas, which are going to be a combination of skills and prompt engineering that are most relevant to their jobs to be done. So this go-to-market framework, I think, is going to address the needs of our customers as they move up the spectrum of GenAI adoption in their daily work processes. And while it is still too early to quantify, we now have a pipeline that is coming to market in the coming weeks and months. And we expect that to help drive our value proposition and retention rates and open up opportunities to serve new users.

然後，我們將為一些主要客戶角色提供一系列幫助，這些幫助將是與他們要完成的工作最相關的技能和及時工程的結合。因此，我認為，這個進入市場的框架將滿足我們的客戶在日常工作流程中進一步採用 GenAI 的需求。雖然現在量化還為時過早，但我們現在有一條管道將在未來幾週和幾個月內推向市場。我們希望這有助於推動我們的價值主張和保留率，並開啟服務新用戶的機會。

So on that note, I am very happy to hand it over to Noémie to provide a little more color on our results.

因此，在這一點上，我很高興將其交給 Noémie，為我們的結果提供更多的色彩。

Thank you, Rob. Let me start by saying that in my previous role as a CFO of a public company, which was also an issuer, I've been in the building a few times over the years, but being here as Moody's CFO is both an honor and a thrill.

謝謝你，羅布。首先我要說的是，在我之前擔任一家上市公司（同時也是發行人）的首席財務官時，多年來我曾多次到過大樓，但作為穆迪首席財務官來到這裡既是一種榮幸，也是一種榮幸。

As we get to know each other, I thought I'd share -- take this opportunity to share with you my Moody's thesis that drove my decision to join. Throughout the process, everyone I met has consistently told me what an exciting time it is to join the firm. Moody's has been a trusted source of financial insights through various economic cycles, and every actor in the global capital markets benefits from the value of Moody's products and services.

當我們互相了解時，我想我應該分享一下——藉此機會與大家分享我的穆迪論文，正是它促使我決定加入。在整個過程中，我遇到的每個人都一直告訴我加入公司是多麼令人興奮的時刻。穆迪一直是各個經濟週期中值得信賴的金融見解來源，全球資本市場的每個參與者都受益於穆迪產品和服務的價值。

Coming from the enterprise software ecosystem, I can tell you that this network effect, if you will, is one of the hardest competitive advantages to disrupt. Also in my previous CFO role, I got the chance to interact with Moody's analysts and research teams frequently, and each time I left more impressed by the depth and rigor of their thinking. Moody's Ratings is a powerful franchise with sustainable growth prospects, unparalleled reputation and an impressive industry knowledge and expertise.

來自企業軟體生態系統的我可以告訴你，如果你願意的話，這種網路效應是最難破壞的競爭優勢之一。同樣在我之前擔任財務長的過程中，我有機會經常與穆迪的分析師和研究團隊互動，每次我都對他們思維的深度和嚴謹印象深刻。穆迪評級是一個強大的特許經營機構，具有可持續的成長前景、無與倫比的聲譽以及令人印象深刻的行業知識和專業知識。

Now in addition to that, Moody's built a great set of assets based on proprietary data that goes back over 100 years. The value of that historical data is unmatched. And it is my strong belief that Moody's is well positioned to leverage GenAI capabilities as a result, whether it's credit, KYC, climate or many other use cases, Moody's has integrated and innovated with our customers' needs at the core. In truth, I spent the last 15-plus years talking to my peers about having the right data and analytics tools to make smart decisions in support of the business. And so I can attest the many use cases for Moody's Analytics solution set. As you can tell, I'm really passionate about that.

除此之外，穆迪還根據 100 多年前的專有數據建立了一系列出色的資產。該歷史數據的價值是無與倫比的。我堅信，穆迪完全有能力利用 GenAI 的功能，因此，無論是信用、KYC、氣候或許多其他用例，穆迪都以客戶需求為核心進行整合和創新。事實上，在過去 15 年多的時間裡，我一直在與同行討論如何使用正確的數據和分析工具來做出明智的決策來支持業務。因此，我可以證明穆迪分析解決方案集的許多用例。正如你所知，我對此非常熱情。

Also, as you would expect as a CFO, I spent some time studying Moody's financial profile before joining. From obvious attributes, this is a very profitable business, which has delivered 13% of adjusted diluted EPS growth in Q1 with a high return on tangible assets and over 100% of free cash flow to net income conversion expected this year. This is an outstanding set of fundamentals, but they are also unique in that they provide flexibility for investing and innovating to fuel growth.

此外，正如您作為財務長所期望的那樣，在加入穆迪之前，我花了一些時間研究穆迪的財務狀況。從明顯的屬性來看，這是一項非常盈利的業務，第一季調整後攤薄每股收益增長了13%，有形資產回報率很高，今年預計自由現金流到淨利潤的轉換率超過100%。這是一套出色的基本面，但它們的獨特之處還在於它們為投資和創新提供了靈活性，以推動成長。

Another CFO priority is execution on a disciplined capital allocation plan. I am very impressed with our focus and results. You saw us generate savings from resource redeployment and automation and then redirect investment spending on areas that will enable us to deliver on our medium-term targets. And we are doing that while aiming to return about 80% of free cash flow to our shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks this fiscal year. In my experience, the operating leverage of this business and track record of long-term sustainable growth are simply remarkable.

財務長的另一個優先事項是執行嚴格的資本分配計劃。我們的專注和成果給我留下了深刻的印象。您看到我們透過資源重新部署和自動化節省了成本，然後將投資支出重新定向到使我們能夠實現中期目標的領域。我們正在這樣做，同時目標是在本財年以股息和回購的形式將約 80% 的自由現金流返還給股東。根據我的經驗，該業務的營運槓桿和長期可持續成長的記錄簡直令人驚嘆。

I conclude, before I get to the Q1 results and outlook, that as a CFO of a company that must abide by a large number of regulations and help its customers deal with an increased number of larger, more interconnected risks, I'm very proud to have joined a team that puts risk management at the center of what we do with resilient operations and a fantastic culture. I spent some time with Rob, his leadership team, the Board and many folks in finance and beyond. The culture, warmth and sharp intellect of the people at Moody's and the sense of belonging is very special. And for all these reasons, I could not think of a better place to be.

在公佈第一季業績和展望之前，我得出的結論是，作為一家公司的首席財務官，該公司必須遵守大量法規並幫助其客戶應對越來越多的更大、更相互關聯的風險，我感到非常自豪加入一個將風險管理置於我們工作核心、具有彈性運作和出色文化的團隊。我花了一些時間與 Rob、他的領導團隊、董事會以及許多財務及其他領域的人士相處。穆迪員工的文化、熱情和敏銳的智慧以及歸屬感非常特別。由於所有這些原因，我想不出更好的地方了。

Now turning to the first quarter results. As you heard from Rob, we started the year strong with reported revenue growth of 21% and adjusted EPS growth of 13% over the first quarter last year when, as you may recall, we saw a significant nonrecurring tax benefit. Strong growth and inherent operating leverage, while making selected investments in strategic areas, led to an adjusted operating margin expansion of 610 basis points at about 51%, which translated into a free cash flow conversion to GAAP net income of over 120%. Our quarterly free cash flows of close to $700 million was the highest on record.

現在轉向第一季業績。正如您從Rob 那裡聽到的，我們今年開局強勁，報告收入增長21%，調整後每股收益比去年第一季度增長13%，您可能還記得，當時我們看到了重大的非經常性稅收優惠。強勁的成長和固有的營運槓桿，同時在策略領域進行選擇性投資，導致調整後的營運利潤率擴大了610 個基點，達到約51%，這意味著自由現金流轉換為GAAP 淨利潤超過120% 。我們的季度自由現金流接近 7 億美元，創歷史最高紀錄。

Now let me touch on segment results. As Rob said, the issuance rebound led to MIS delivering its second highest quarter on record. We saw a strong start across all lines of business as tightening spreads and investor demand propelled opportunistic issuance. Corporate Finance grew 49%, predominantly from issuance by leveraged loan issuers and pull-forward activity. Financial Institutions issuance was the strongest since the financial crisis with an elevated level of infrequent issuer activity, which then led to revenue growth of 37%.

現在讓我談談分段結果。正如羅布所說，發行量的反彈導致 MIS 實現了有史以來第二高的季度業績。隨著利差收緊和投資者需求推動機會主義發行，我們看到所有業務都有強勁的開局。企業融資成長 49%，主要來自槓桿貸款發行機構的發行和拉動活動。金融機構發行量達到金融危機以來最強勁的水平，發行人活動不頻繁，導致營收成長 37%。

On the margin front, the operating leverage of our ratings business, coupled with our initiatives to drive operating efficiencies, has allowed us to capture the significant rebound in issuance and slow the upside through the bottom line with a 780 basis point expansion of adjusted operating margin year-on-year.

在利潤率方面，我們評級業務的營運槓桿，加上我們提高營運效率的舉措，使我們能夠抓住發行量的顯著反彈，並透過調整後的營運利潤率擴大 780 個基點來減緩利潤的上漲去年同期。

Turning to Moody's Analytics. First quarter revenue was up 8%. Growth was driven by strong demand in our Data & Information line of business with revenue growing 13% year-on-year and continued demand for our KYC and compliance solutions with revenue growing 24%. As for Research & Insights, where revenue grew 3%, timing of revenue recognition of our on-premise software subscription and transaction revenue, even though these are a small share of the business of this segment, affected the growth rate a bit this quarter as well as a modest but expected uptick in CreditView attrition from banks and asset managers.

轉向穆迪分析。第一季營收成長 8%。成長的推動因素是我們的數據和資訊業務線的強勁需求（營收年增 13%）以及對 KYC 和合規解決方案的持續需求（營收成長 24%）。至於研究與洞察，收入增長了 3%，我們的本地軟體訂閱和交易收入的收入確認時間雖然只佔該部門業務的一小部分，但對本季度的增長率略有影響，因為銀行和資產管理公司的CreditView 流失率雖小但符合預期。

If you look at the revenue from hosted software solutions, though, the growth is trending closer to ARR growth. And overall, we expect Research & Insights ARR growth to tick up to the high single-digit range by year-end, particularly with pipeline momentum picking around Research Assistant and unrated coverage expansion in recent months.

不過，如果您查看託管軟體解決方案的收入，您會發現成長趨勢更接近 ARR 成長。總體而言，我們預計研究與洞察 ARR 成長將在年底前升至高個位數範圍，特別是隨著近幾個月研究助理和未評級覆蓋範圍擴張的管道勢頭回升。

Speaking of ARR, MA ended the first quarter with annualized recurring revenue of $3.1 billion, up 10% from the prior year. Of note, we saw a sequential acceleration of growth within 2 of our 3 lines of businesses. Decision Solutions ARR grew 12%, up from 11% in Q4 '23; and Data & Information grew 11%, up from 10%, supported by higher retention amongst banks and public sector customers. These 2 lines of business represent about 71% of total ARR, so we're really pleased to see the growth there accelerating. You heard earlier that our retention rate remains best in class at 94%, demonstrating the stickiness of our solutions.

說到 ARR，MA 第一季末的年化經常性收入為 31 億美元，比上年增長 10%。值得注意的是，我們的 3 個業務線中有 2 個業務線連續加速成長。 Decision Solutions ARR 成長了 12%，高於 23 年第 4 季的 11%；由於銀行和公共部門客戶保留率的提高，數據和資訊業務成長了 11%，高於 10%。這兩個業務線約佔總 ARR 的 71%，因此我們非常高興看到它們的成長加速。您之前聽說我們的保留率仍然是同類產品中最高的，達到 94%，這證明了我們解決方案的黏性。

As communicated in February, we are actively balancing strategic investments that we believe will drive future growth, including in our cloud platform and product road map, with operating efficiency initiatives. That said, I'm pleased to report we delivered 29.7% adjusted operating margin in Moody's Analytics segment, an increase of 80 bps year-over-year.

正如二月所傳達的那樣，我們正在積極平衡策略性投資與營運效率計劃，我們相信這些投資將推動未來的成長，包括我們的雲端平台和產品路線圖。儘管如此，我很高興地報告說，穆迪分析部門的調整後營業利潤率為 29.7%，年增 80 個基點。

Let me now turn to our assumptions around issuance that underpin our fiscal year outlook. As we said in February, our full year issuance outlook of mid- to high single-digit growth accounted for a stronger first half of the year. Indeed, first quarter issuance was strong across all business lines, but mainly from Corporate Finance and Financial Institutions, driven by refinancing activities with a significant proportion of that activity being pull forward.

現在讓我談談我們對支撐我們財年前景的發行的假設。正如我們在 2 月所說，我們的全年發行前景為中高個位數成長，這使得上半年表現更為強勁。事實上，第一季所有業務線的發行量都表現強勁，但主要來自企業融資和金融機構，受到再融資活動的推動，其中很大一部分活動被提前推進。

That said, we are making modest revisions to select asset classes to account for what we saw in the first quarter. Specifically, we now expect big issuance to increase in the low single-digit percent range, up from approximately flat, driven by the elevated infrequent issuer activity in the first quarter that I mentioned earlier, and SFG to grow now in the high single-digit percent range as a combination of jumbo transactions and increased CLO refinancing activity fuel growth. Our guidance for first-time mandates in the range of 500 to 600 remains unchanged.

也就是說，我們正在對所選的資產類別進行適度的修改，以反映我們在第一季看到的情況。具體來說，我們現在預計，由於我之前提到的第一季發行人活動不頻繁的增加，大額發行將從大約持平的範圍內增加到低個位數百分比範圍內，而SFG 現在將在高個位數百分比範圍內成長巨額交易和 CLO 再融資活動增加共同推動了成長。我們對首次授權數量在 500 至 600 之間的指導保持不變。

I will conclude on issuance by saying it is early in the year. And although we like what we saw in the first quarter, our broader issuance outlook for full year '24 remains largely unchanged. As such, we're maintaining our MIS revenue guidance of high single digit to low double-digit growth for the full year. Our updated outlook incorporates various specific macroeconomic assumptions, which are detailed in our presentation.

我會在結束時說，這是在今年年初。儘管我們喜歡第一季的情況，但我們對 24 年全年更廣泛的發行前景基本上保持不變。因此，我們維持全年管理資訊系統收入成長的高個位數到低兩位數成長的指導。我們更新的展望包含了各種具體的宏觀經濟假設，這些假設在我們的演示中進行了詳細介紹。

We are also adjusting our FX assumptions to reflect the appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the euro and the British pound. We now expect the euro to U.S. dollar exchange rate and the euro to GBP exchange rate to be $1.08 and $1.26, respectively, for the remainder of the year.

我們也正在調整外匯假設，以反映美元兌歐元和英鎊的升值。我們現在預計今年剩餘時間內歐元兌美元匯率和歐元兌英鎊匯率分別為 1.08 美元和 1.26 美元。

With that background, we are making the following updates to our full year outlook. Moody's Analytics revenue is now expected to increase in the high single-digit percent range, primarily reflecting the strengthening of the U.S. dollar I just mentioned. That said, our ARR growth expectation in the low double-digit range for fiscal year '24 is unchanged from our prior guidance.

在此背景下，我們對全年展望進行以下更新。穆迪分析公司的收入目前預計將在高個位數百分比範圍內成長，這主要反映了我剛才提到的美元走強。也就是說，我們對 24 財年的 ARR 成長預期保持在較低的兩位數範圍內，與我們先前的指導一致。

Of note, we are maintaining our full year operating margin outlook for Moody's Analytics in the range of 30% to 31% as there is a partial FX natural hedge on our expense pool, coupled with ongoing disciplined expense management. For MIS, we just went through the issuance assumptions, and we're maintaining our full year revenue outlook of high single-digit to low double-digit percent range. And we demonstrated in Q1 that we can capture the increased volume of issuance in MIS and at the same time expand our margins, which gives us confidence to raise MIS adjusted operating margin to a range of 56% to 58%.

值得注意的是，我們將穆迪分析的全年營業利潤率前景維持在 30% 至 31% 的範圍內，因為我們的費用池有部分外匯自然對沖，加上持續嚴格的費用管理。對於 MIS，我們剛剛完成了發行假設，我們維持全年收入預期在高個位數百分比到低兩位數百分比範圍。我們在第一季證明，我們可以抓住 MIS 發行量的成長，同時擴大我們的利潤率，這讓我們有信心將 MIS 調整後的營業利潤率提高到 56% 至 58%。

Last, we told you in February that we would narrow the EPS guidance range with increased visibility, and that is precisely what we're doing. We are narrowing the adjusted diluted EPS range for the year to $10.40 to $11.

最後，我們在二月告訴您，我們將透過提高可見度來縮小每股盈餘指引範圍，而這正是我們正在做的事情。我們將今年調整後攤薄每股收益範圍縮小至 10.40 美元至 11 美元。

And that ends our prepared remarks. I'm happy to open the call to questions. Operator?

我們準備好的演講到此結束。我很高興開始提問。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) We'll take our first question from Heather Balsky at Bank of America.

（操作員說明）我們將回答美國銀行的 Heather Balsky 提出的第一個問題。

I was hoping you could dig in a little bit more on what you saw in MA during the quarter, particularly in terms of some of your customers where you said you saw pressure and how you're thinking about that and how you think that trends for the rest of the year. Is it 1Q specific? Is it assuming that a continued part of the reason you reduced the guide there?

我希望您能進一步深入了解本季度您在 MA 中看到的情況，特別是您所說的看到壓力的一些客戶以及您如何看待這一問題以及您如何看待這種趨勢今年剩下的時間。是1Q特有的嗎？是否假設這是您減少指南的持續部分原因？

Yes. Heather, maybe let me start with the Q1 revenue performance and what we're seeing for the rest of the year, and I'll pass it to Rob to provide some color on pipeline and sales. In the first quarter, we delivered revenue growth of 8% and ARR growth of 10%. We had strong demand for our data solutions and KYC. Those are the 2 that grew, respectively, 13% and 24%.

是的。希瑟，也許讓我從第一季的收入表現以及我們在今年剩餘時間裡看到的情況開始，我會將其傳遞給羅布，以提供一些有關管道和銷售的資訊。第一季度，我們的營收成長了 8%，ARR 成長了 10%。我們對數據解決方案和 KYC 有著強烈的需求。這兩個增長分別為 13% 和 24%。

As I said in my prepared remarks, Research & Insights was a little unusual this quarter. We had revenue growth of 3%. That was affected by some of the mix between a lower share of on-premise transaction and a shift into more SaaS subscription.

正如我在準備好的發言中所說，本季的研究與見解有點不尋常。我們的收入成長了 3%。這是受到本地交易份額下降和​​轉向更多 SaaS 訂閱之間的一些影響。

But if you look at the ARR growth, we haven't changed our outlook for the full year. We still expect ARR growth to be in the high single-digit growth and then -- low double-digit growth, sorry. And then we have just adjusted the revenue outlook to account for lower euro and GBP against the dollar. That's primarily what we're doing.

但如果你看看 ARR 的成長，我們並沒有改變全年的前景。我們仍然預計 ARR 成長將是高個位數成長，然後是低兩位數成長，抱歉。然後，我們剛剛調整了收入前景，以考慮歐元和英鎊兌美元匯率走低的情況。這主要就是我們正在做的事情。

There's a little bit of seasonality in sales as well, more towards the back half of the year, which drives a bit of the revenue upside -- updated outlook as well. But our retention rate remains very strong at 94%. And our ARR, again, which is an indicator of the strength of our underlying business, remains strong as well.

銷售也有一些季節性，尤其是在今年下半年，這推動了收入的一些成長——也更新了前景。但我們的保留率仍然很高，高達 94%。我們的 ARR 也依然強勁，它是我們基礎業務實力的指標。

Rob, anything you want to add?

羅布，你還有什麼要補充的嗎？

Yes. Heather, just to double-click a little bit, I mean you asked about retention. I'd say we're seeing, obviously, at the MA portfolio level, very strong overall retention. I'd say we do see a little bit of pressure from banks and asset managers. We saw a little bit of an uptick. Noémie just mentioned it in the research business, but some improved retention in other areas.

是的。希瑟，雙擊一下，我的意思是您詢問了保留率。我想說，顯然，在 MA 投資組合層面，我們看到了非常強勁的整體保留率。我想說，我們確實看到了銀行和資產管理公司的一些壓力。我們看到了一點點的上升。諾米剛剛在研究業務中提到過這一點，但有些人在其他領域提高了保留率。

I would say, kind of more broadly, you asked about the kind of sales pipeline. I'd say the sales pipeline is quite healthy at this point. We haven't seen any elongation of sales cycles. We continue to see some strong underlying drivers for our products around digitization and automation. And certainly, GenAI has opened a whole new front in that regulation, 360-degree view of risk. So the sales pipeline, again, healthy and supports our comfort with the overall ARR guide for the year.

我想說，更廣泛地說，您詢問了銷售管道的類型。我想說目前的銷售管道相當健康。我們沒有看到銷售週期有任何延長。我們繼續看到我們的產品在數位化和自動化方面存在一些強大的潛在驅動力。當然，GenAI 在監管、360 度風險視角方面開闢了一條全新的戰線。因此，銷售管道再次保持健康，並支持我們對今年整體 ARR 指南的信心。

We'll move next to Manav Patnaik at Barclays.

我們將搬到巴克萊銀行的馬納夫帕特奈克旁邊。

I just wanted to follow up a little bit on that in terms of if you could help us with some of your end market exposures maybe in MA in terms of the client pressures. We're seeing a lot of the other financial information services companies obviously call out pressure from both the buy-side and the sell-side. So just if you could help us out there going forward, if we should be keeping an eye out on anything.

我只是想跟進一下，您是否可以幫助我們處理一些終端市場風險，也許是在客戶壓力方面。我們看到許多其他金融資訊服務公司明顯呼籲來自買方和賣方的壓力。所以，如果你能幫助我們繼續前進，如果我們應該留意任何事情。

Yes. Manav, let me take that. I guess I would kind of come back and say, while certainly, there are cost pressures at financial institutions, corporates, like the one on the phone at the moment, everybody's focused on having discipline around expenses. I'm sure we can all understand that.

是的。馬納夫，讓我接受。我想我會回來說，雖然金融機構、企業確實有成本壓力，就像目前電話裡的人一樣，但每個人都專注於控制開支。我相信我們都能理解這一點。

There are also some really important drivers of demand. And I'm going to double-click on what I just talked about there. So you've got financial institutions, in particular, that are focused on these -- on the digitization and automation across the entire enterprise. And institutions have gone from these transformation programs over the last, call it, decade and now they're looking at GenAI as a way to really accelerate, and in some ways, derisk those transformation journeys. And so we're having some wonderful conversations around that.

還有一些非常重要的需求驅動因素。我將雙擊我剛才談到的內容。因此，金融機構特別關注這些——整個企業的數位化和自動化。過去十年，各機構已經放棄了這些轉型計劃，現在他們將 GenAI 視為真正加速轉型之旅的一種方式，並在某些方面消除轉型之旅的風險。所以我們圍繞著這個問題進行了一些精彩的對話。

And I think the opportunity -- look at the value proposition of some of the solutions that we provide, Manav. When you start to think about labor substitution and the time and efficiency that can be gained from our solutions, that is a very important tool for our financial institutions customers to really address those cost pressures. So I think while the adoption of GenAI technologies is going to take a little bit longer at regulated financial institutions, I think it's a very significant opportunity.

我認為機會 - 看看我們提供的一些解決方案的價值主張，Manav。當您開始考慮勞動力替代以及從我們的解決方案中獲得的時間和效率時，這對我們的金融機構客戶真正解決這些成本壓力是一個非常重要的工具。因此，我認為雖然受監管的金融機構採用 GenAI 技術需要更長的時間，但我認為這是一個非常重要的機會。

And then the other thing I would go to, Manav, is -- because this is a discussion I have with literally every single customer I talk to, which is this desire to have a 360-degree view of who they're doing business with. I mean this is everyone that we talk to. And you want to understand it, so to think about optimizing your sales and marketing efforts, you want to understand what customers you want to take on. You want to monitor those customers. You need to understand much more about your supplier network. So institutions are really investing in that. And there are some regulatory drivers that are forcing them to invest in that.

然後我要講的另一件事，Manav，是——因為這是我與幾乎每一位我交談過的客戶進行的討論，就是希望對他們與誰做生意有 360 度的了解。我的意思是這是我們交談過的每個人。您想了解這一點，因此在考慮優化您的銷售和行銷工作時，您需要了解您想要吸引哪些客戶。您想要監控這些客戶。您需要更多地了解您的供應商網路。所以機構確實在這方面進行了投資。有一些監管驅動因素迫使他們對此進行投資。

When I talk to the big banks, they all tell me that the regulators are very focused on the resilience of their suppliers. So again, that's a place that with our data and analytics, we can actually help them and help them in a very cost-effective way. So again, I feel quite comfortable, Manav. Despite the fact that we've got to face off with procurement departments from time to time, the value prop around our solutions, I think, is pretty compelling given what our customers are focused on.

當我與大銀行交談時，他們都告訴我監管機構非常關注供應商的彈性。再說一遍，透過我們的數據和分析，我們實際上可以幫助他們，並​​以非常具有成本效益的方式幫助他們。再說一次，我感覺很舒服，馬納夫。儘管我們時不時地要與採購部門對峙，但我認為，考慮到我們的客戶所關注的焦點，我們的解決方案的價值支撐是相當引人注目的。

We'll go next to Toni Kaplan at Morgan Stanley.

接下來我們將採訪摩根士丹利的東尼卡普蘭。

Very strong 1Q issuance quarter. Obviously, that was expected. And you raised FIG and structured marginally, but kept corporate sort of the same. And you're calling out sort of improved M&A activity and you're seeing the guide being towards the high end of the range. I guess what gives you sort of reservation not to fully raise the MIS guide? I know you talk about sort of election uncertainty and rate uncertainty later in the year and the comps get harder. But just talk through the factors because I feel like 1Q would have given a little bit of room for having cushion in doing that.

第一季發行季度非常強勁。顯然，這是預料之中的。你們籌集了FIG並進行了輕微的結構調整，但保持了公司的不變。您正在呼籲併購活動有所改善，並且您將看到指南正朝著範圍的高端方向發展。我想是什麼讓您對不完全提高 MIS 指南有所保留？我知道你談到了今年稍後的選舉不確定性和利率不確定性，比較變得更加困難。但只是談談這些因素，因為我覺得 1Q 會為這樣做提供一點緩衝空間。

Yes. Toni, thanks for the question. And I think part of this just comes back to it's 1Q. So let me talk to you maybe, Toni, about kind of what we see in the year in terms of both what I think could be tailwinds for issuance, so where there could be some upside as well as where we maybe have a little bit of uncertainty or caution.

是的。東尼，謝謝你的提問。我認為部分原因可以追溯到第一季。所以，托尼，讓我和你談談我們今年所看到的情況，我認為這可能是發行的順風車，所以哪裡可能有一些好處，以及我們可能有一點不確定性或謹慎。

And first of all, I would just say that there has been a significant amount of pull forward. And there's 2 kinds of pull forward, right? There's pull forward of the issuance that issuers were planning to do in a calendar year, and we are certainly seeing that. In fact, when we engage with the banks, the banks are telling their clients that they should bring forward the issuance that they were anticipating doing in the second half of the year, and they should bring that forward into the first half of the year while the market is open. Spreads are tight, so we're seeing that. The second kind of pull forward is really the pull forward of -- from maturity walls and refinancing. And we are seeing some of that as well.

首先，我只想說，已經取得了巨大的進步。有兩種向前拉力，對吧？發行人計劃在一個日曆年內進行的發行有所提前，我們當然看到了這一點。事實上，當我們與銀行接觸時，銀行告訴他們的客戶，他們應該將他們預計在下半年進行的發行提前到上半年，而他們應該將其推遲到上半年。利差很小，所以我們看到了這一點。第二種拉動其實是來自到期牆和再融資的拉力。我們也看到了其中的一些情況。

And in general, as we kind of step back, Toni, I guess, as I think about where could there be upside and you heard that we are kind of centering around the higher end of the guide at this point. So I think there is a bias to the upside. But stronger economic growth without inflation increasing, that's going to be very positive, in particular for the leveraged finance markets. They're the ones most exposed to fluctuations and changes in economic growth.

總的來說，當我們退後一步時，托尼，我想，當我思考哪裡可能有上行空間時，你聽說我們此時正以指南的高端為中心。所以我認為有上行傾向。但經濟成長強勁且通膨不上升，這將是非常積極的，特別是對於槓桿金融市場。他們是最容易受到經濟成長波動和變化影響的群體。

But a real place that I think we're looking at is around the M&A environment. And a lot of the financing that's been done in the first quarter was refinancing. And so if we see some, what I think of as new money transactions to support M&A, and in particular sponsor-backed M&A, I think that could be an upside for issuance for the year. And that would -- not only would we see that come into leveraged loans, but I think you will also see that in terms of new CLO formation. So the commercial benefit of that will be meaningful.

但我認為我們真正關注的地方是併購環境。第一季完成的大部分融資都是再融資。因此，如果我們看到一些我認為支持併購的新資金交易，特別是贊助商支持的併購，我認為這可能是今年發行的上行空間。這不僅是我們會看到槓桿貸款的情況，而且我認為您也會在新的 CLO 形成方面看到這一點。因此，它的商業利益將是有意義的。

I think just in terms of downside risks, obviously, there are more questions now about inflation prints and the timing and trajectory of Fed moves than there were at the beginning of the year. So I think people have started to kind of reset their expectations. And I think people are just looking at the -- not only the U.S. election, but they're -- we've talked about this before. Many countries are going to the polls and particularly in the back half of the year. So I think we're seeing issuers who say, "I want to be able to get ahead of that." And any furthering of geopolitical tensions, you can imagine a widening of a regional conflict in the Middle East, that kind of thing. And so we're hearing issuers get in front of that.

我認為，就下行風險而言，顯然，現在對通膨數據以及聯準會舉措的時機和軌蹟的疑問比年初更多。所以我認為人們已經開始重新調整他們的期望。我認為人們不僅關注美國大選，而且我們之前已經討論過這個問題。許多國家都將進行投票，特別是在今年下半年。因此，我認為我們看到發行人說：“我希望能夠領先。”如果地緣政治緊張局勢進一步加劇，你可以想像中東地區衝突的擴大，諸如此類的事情。因此，我們聽到發行人走在了前面。

So at this point, Toni, that has led us to, I'd say, probably be a little bit measured in terms of how we think about issuance. Still early but some things to watch and, in particular, would be the, I think, the M&A environment.

因此，托尼，在這一點上，我想說，這可能導致我們在如何看待發行方面進行了一些衡量。雖然還為時過早，但有些事情值得關注，我認為尤其是併購環境。

We'll go next to Ashish Sabadra at RBC Capital Markets.

接下來我們將採訪 RBC 資本市場的 Ashish Sabadra。

I just wanted to follow up on the pull forward comment. As we understand the second half pull forward in the first half, but I also wanted to better understand the pull forward from '25-'26. How does the refi wall look now for '25 and '26, even with the pull forward? Is there still a much bigger refi wall in '25-'26 compared to what we are seeing in '24? And then as we think about the M&A, where are we trending? Or what's the assumption for M&A as a percentage of overall issuance this year? And how does that compare to an average year?

我只是想跟進前拉評論。正如我們所理解的，下半場在上半場的前拉，但我也想更好地理解從 25 到 26 的前拉。即使向前拉動，25 年和 26 年的改裝牆現在看起來如何？與我們在 24 年看到的相比，25-26 年是否還有更大的再融資牆？然後，當我們思考併購時，我們的趨勢是什麼？還是今年併購佔總發行量的百分比假設是多少？與平均年份相比如何？

Yes. Ashish, we'll have a little bit better insight later in the year when we publish our updated maturity refinancing study, as we always do. But I would say that, certainly, you've seen issuers who are addressing upcoming maturities, particularly in loans. And there's still some maturities for 2024 that have got to get done, not a lot, as you'd expect. It's possible that we start to see some additional pull forward from 2025 perhaps and beyond in the second half of this year if markets remain supportive. So we're going to be looking after that.

是的。 Ashish，今年晚些時候，當我們像往常一樣發布更新的到期再融資研究時，我們將獲得更好的見解。但我想說，當然，您已經看到發行人正在解決即將到期的問題，特別是在貸款方面。到 2024 年，仍有一些到期任務需要完成，但不像您預期的那樣很多。如果市場保持支持的話，我們可能會在今年下半年開始看到從 2025 年甚至更遠的時間開始出現一些額外的拉動。所以我們會關注這一點。

But it's interesting. I think -- if you think about -- I mean take leverage loans for just a moment, maybe just zero in on that for a second. There was a massive amount of pandemic era issuance in leveraged loans, and that really does provide a very solid underpinning for future issuance. And when you kind of zero in on leveraged loans, there was something like $1.15 trillion of '20 and '21 maturities, and almost 70% of that matures in '27 and beyond.

但這很有趣。我認為——如果你想一想——我的意思是暫時接受槓桿貸款，也許暫時為零。疫情期間槓桿貸款的發行量很大，這確實為未來的發行提供了非常堅實的基礎。當你將槓桿貸款歸零時，20 年和 21 年到期的金額約為 1.15 兆美元，其中幾乎 70% 在 27 年及以後到期。

And what that's telling me is that, that money -- that financing was done at very tight spreads and low rates. So I think that those are not great candidates to be pulled forward, right? Where you may see the pull forward is there was something like $1 trillion that was issued in 2022 and 2023. So some of that may be candidates, depending on what happens again a little bit later in the year. So we're keeping an eye on that.

這告訴我的是，這筆錢——融資是在非常窄的利差和很低的利率下完成的。所以我認為這些都不是值得推動的優秀候選人，對吧？你可能會看到，2022 年和 2023 年發行了大約 1 兆美元的資金。所以我們正在密切關注這一點。

But in general, I would say that I see the -- just given the absolute amount of debt that's been issued over the last several years, as a net positive. So I'm not concerned that all of this -- all of future years are being pulled into this year because when we think about debt velocity, which is issuance and I'm looking at the corporate markets issuance over total debt outstanding, debt velocity as a percent versus kind of the 15-year average, quite -- is still well under that 15-year average. So I think there's still a good bit of issuance.

但總的來說，我想說的是，考慮到過去幾年發行的債務絕對數量，我認為這是一個淨積極的結果。因此，我並不擔心所有這一切- 未來的所有年份都將被拉到今年，因為當我們考慮債務速度時，即發行量，我正在考慮企業市場發行量與未償債務總額、債務速度的關係作為 15 年平均水平的百分比，仍然遠低於 15 年平均水平。所以我認為仍有大量發行。

On M&A, we have not changed our outlook. But as I said, there are some green shoots. We've seen some strategic deals. We've seen some sponsor-backed deals. So all that is encouraging. I talked about why sponsor-backed M&A is so important. So we're expecting, I would say, a modest recovery in 2024. That's what's built in. But this really is, I think, a wild card.

在併購方面，我們沒有改變我們的看法。但正如我所說，已經出現了一些萌芽。我們已經看到了一些戰略交易。我們已經看到了一些贊助商支持的交易。所以這一切都是令人鼓舞的。我談到了為什麼贊助商支持的併購如此重要。因此，我想說，我們預計 2024 年將出現溫和復甦。

The one other thing I would say is that our rating assessment service, which gives us some visibility into the M&A pipeline because that then comes into issuance, that we have seen a pickup -- a very nice pickup in our rating assessment service. So that does give us some confidence that the M&A market will continue to improve for the balance of the year.

我要說的另一件事是我們的評級評估服務，這讓我們對併購管道有一定的了解，因為隨後發行，我們看到了回升——我們的評級評估服務中的一個非常好的回升。因此，這確實讓我們相信併購市場將在今年餘下時間繼續改善。

We'll move next to Andrew Nicholas at William Blair.

我們將搬到威廉布萊爾的安德魯尼古拉斯旁邊。

I wanted to ask about the AI frameworks that you outlined in the presentation on the webcast deck. And I think, Rob, you made mention of there being kind of different monetization strategies across each one of those buckets. So I was hoping you could expand on that comment and maybe on progress in terms of monetization or even a better understanding of the type of impact that could have, whether it's in '24 or in the out-years.

我想詢問您在網路廣播演示中概述的人工智慧框架。我認為，羅布，您提到每個類別都有不同的獲利策略。因此，我希望您能詳細闡述這一評論，或許還可以闡述貨幣化方面的進展，甚至更好地理解可能產生的影響類型，無論是在 24 年還是未來幾年。

Yes. So the first thing we wanted to do is make sure we had a framework. We have a lot of innovation going on, and we wanted to make sure that we're able to be thoughtful about how we go to market with that innovation for our customers.

是的。所以我們要做的第一件事就是確保我們有一個框架。我們正在進行許多創新，我們希望確保我們能夠深思熟慮如何將這些創新推向市場，為客戶服務。

And I think you're going to see us deploy in a -- across a spectrum with our customers. Because our customers, we're either going to deliver GenAI-enabled workflow software, right? So those are our customers who are using our software, and that's where we'll have GenAI enablement and our skills and our assistants on that. We will have our navigators to help our customers get the most out of those offerings.

我認為您將看到我們與客戶進行跨領域的部署。因為我們的客戶，我們要么提供支援 GenAI 的工作流程軟體，對吧？這些是使用我們軟體的客戶，我們將在這些客戶中提供 GenAI 支援以及我們的技能和助理。我們將擁有導航員來幫助我們的客戶充分利用這些產品。

Some of our customers are going to want to integrate either our GenAI APIs or our RAG APIs into their own internal workflow or just raw data feeds and other content with additional rights to be able to use in their own AI platform. So there will be different ways that we are going to be delivering our AI-enabled solutions. And of course, there's also third-party platforms. We're working to build out an even larger ecosystem of partners so that our customers can also access our content in systems where they're making decisions.

我們的一些客戶希望將我們的 GenAI API 或 RAG API 整合到自己的內部工作流程中，或者只是將原始資料來源和其他具有附加權限的內容整合到自己的 AI 平台中。因此，我們將採用不同的方式來提供人工智慧解決方案。當然，還有第三方平台。我們正在努力建立一個更大的合作夥伴生態系統，以便我們的客戶也可以在他們做出決策的系統中存取我們的內容。

So I think as I talk about kind of navigators and skills and assistants, maybe one -- a high-level way to think about this: the navigators, again, I talked about that as probably being table stakes. This is making our solutions much easier to use. And I think that will be -- that will support the value proposition, and ultimately, the pricing...

因此，我認為，當我談論導航器、技能和助手時，也許是思考這個問題的高級方式：導航器，我再次談到這可能是賭注。這使得我們的解決方案更易於使用。我認為這將支持價值主張，並最終支持定價…

And retention.

和保留。

But also the retention, exactly. I think that's where that's going to -- and again, I think we're going to see that will be table stakes. Everybody is going to have -- use chatbots and other things to make their solutions easier to use. It's the skills where we're taking the proprietary Moody's content and then delivering that into the workflow for our customers and then aggregating those skills and prompt engineering into an assistant for people in banking, for people in insurance, for people in compliance.

確切地說，還有保留。我認為這就是未來的發展方向——而且我認為我們將看到這將成為賭注。每個人都會使用聊天機器人和其他東西來使他們的解決方案更易於使用。我們採用穆迪的專有內容，然後將其交付到客戶的工作流程中，然後將這些技能和即時工程匯總為銀行人員、保險人員和合規人員的助手。

And I think you'll see us -- we're thinking about how we're going to price for that, whether it's going to be -- I think we'll have different models. But you can imagine, in some cases, it will be an increase to the overall subscription. In some cases, you can imagine an element of a consumption model based on how much you are consuming across these skills and our various data and content sets. So it's still a little early. And I know everybody wants to get some visibility on that, but hopefully, that gives you a little insight.

我想你會看到我們——我們正在考慮如何定價，是否會——我認為我們會有不同的模型。但你可以想像，在某些情況下，這將是整體訂閱量的增加。在某些情況下，您可以根據您在這些技能以及我們的各種資料和內容集上的消耗量來想像消費模型的一個元素。所以現在還有點早。我知道每個人都想對此有所了解，但希望這能為您帶來一些見解。

Noémie, anything to add there?

諾米，有什麼要補充的嗎？

Yes. The other thing I would add, reflecting on the conversations we're having with customers, they want to partner with firms that can be trusted when it comes to data integrity that have a strong reputation for robust analytics and modeling skills. They're still assessing their own framework when it comes to dealing with vendors on GenAI-enabled solutions. And that's why I think we differentiate ourselves given our reputation, our history and all the work we've done to build that framework. So I just want to add that.

是的。我要補充的另一件事是，根據我們與客戶的對話，他們希望與在數據完整性方面值得信賴的公司合作，這些公司在強大的分析和建模技能方面享有盛譽。在與 GenAI 支援的解決方案供應商打交道時，他們仍在評估自己的框架。這就是為什麼我認為，考慮到我們的聲譽、我們的歷史以及我們為建立該框架所做的所有工作，我們能夠脫穎而出。所以我想補充一點。

That's helpful. And welcome, Noémie.

這很有幫助。歡迎，諾米。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Our next question comes from Scott Wurtzel at Wolfe Research.

我們的下一個問題來自沃爾夫研究中心的斯科特·沃澤爾。

I just wanted to go on to margins. And just given the outperformance in the first quarter and in the context of you sort of reiterating and holding the total company operating margins for the year, I was just wondering if there was any element of reinvestment plans from the upside that you saw in the first quarter that's sort of keeping that operating margin stable. Or is it really just more about kind of the implied deceleration in MIS revenue as we move throughout the year?

我只是想繼續保持邊緣狀態。考慮到第一季的優異表現，並且在您重申並保持公司今年總營業利潤率的背景下，我只是想知道您在第一季度看到的再投資計劃是否有任何上行元素這個季度的營業利潤率保持穩定。或者，這實際上更多的是隨著我們全年的變化，管理資訊系統收入的隱含減速？

Thanks. I can maybe take that. We've increased the MIS adjusted operating margin by 50 bps for the full year. We've maintained our MA adjusted operating margin unchanged despite a bit of revenue headwind. That's because we are very mindful in our spend. We're investing strategically, but we're also building efficiencies into the system.

謝謝。我也許可以接受。我們將全年經 MIS 調整後的營業利益率提高了 50 個基點。儘管有些收入逆風，我們仍維持 MA 調整後的營業利潤率不變。那是因為我們在支出上非常謹慎。我們正在進行戰略投資，但我們也在提高系統效率。

So all in all, the outlook in terms of the consolidated level hasn't really changed. We've moved a little bit up in our range, but we remain within the 44% to 46% range that we've communicated before.

總而言之，綜合水準的前景並沒有真正改變。我們在範圍上調了一點，但仍保持在先前溝通過的 44% 到 46% 範圍內。

Yes. And I guess the only -- the double-click on that is given what we've seen in the first quarter, we have not upsized our investment program.

是的。我想唯一的——雙擊它是考慮到我們在第一季看到的情況，我們沒有擴大我們的投資計劃。

We'll go next to Faiza Alwy at Deutsche Bank.

我們將前往德意志銀行的 Faiza Alwy 旁邊。

I wanted to go back to MA and the change in the revenue guide. Just want to clarify, like is the change entirely FX? Or is there something else to keep in mind as it relates to just to converting ARR to revenues? And I'm curious if you can talk about how much FX impacted MA this quarter.

我想回到 MA 和收入指南的變化。只是想澄清一下，這種改變完全是外匯嗎？或者在將 ARR 轉換為收入時還有其他需要記住的事情嗎？我很好奇您能否談談本季外匯對 MA 的影響有多大。

Yes. I'll take that. On the first quarter, we didn't see any material impact on FX. It's really for the remainder of the year as we saw some strengthening of the U.S. dollar. The update in the outlook for MA revenue, it's primarily FX driven. There's also a little bit of sales linearity that's more geared towards the back half of the year than what we initially thought in February. But what -- as Rob talked about, our pipeline is very strong. We have -- can you hear me? Yes. We have a strong pipeline. Our meetings -- sales meetings are very -- going very well. So it's primarily FX with a little bit of sales seasonality as well.

是的。我會接受的。第一季度，我們沒有看到對外匯的任何重大影響。這確實是今年剩餘時間的事，因為我們看到美元有所走強。 MA 收入前景的更新主要是由外匯驅動的。還有一點點銷售線性比我們最初在二月的想法更適合下半年。但正如 Rob 所說，我們的管道非常強大。我們有－你聽得到我說話嗎？是的。我們有強大的管道。我們的會議——銷售會議非常——進展順利。因此，主要是外匯，也有一些銷售季節性。

Okay. So just to be clear, sorry, just to -- there's no change. You're not sort of lowering the -- within the low double-digit range per ARR. ARR is still pretty much in line with how you...

好的。所以要澄清的是，抱歉，只是──沒有任何變化。您並沒有將每個 ARR 降低到兩位數的低範圍內。 ARR 仍然與您的方式非常一致...

Yes, that's correct. We -- the ARR is a forward-looking measure of the health of our recurring revenue business, and the underlying health of that business hasn't changed from what we said before.

對，那是正確的。我們—ARR 是衡量我們經常性收入業務健康狀況的前瞻性指標，該業務的基本健康狀況與我們之前所說的相比並沒有改變。

Our next question comes from Jeff Silber at BMO Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自 BMO 資本市場的 Jeff Silber。

Wanted to continue the discussion on MA, focus a little bit more on Research & Insights. You talked a little bit about the slowness in the quarter. I think you said there was some timing and there were some other things. But if I can just clarify that. And then also, why do you expect growth to accelerate specifically in Research & Insights in the back half of the year?

想要繼續關於 MA 的討論，更專注於研究和見解。您談到了本季的放緩。我想你說過有一些時間安排，還有其他一些事情。但如果我能澄清這一點的話。另外，您為什麼預計下半年研究與洞察領域的成長將加速？

Yes. So over the past year or so, we have seen a little bit of deceleration in ARR growth in Research & Insights. And obviously, fixed income research is a pretty mature market. And that's really one reason that we focused on these 2 new enhancements to CreditView that we have talked about over the last quarter or 2. That's the Research Assistant and the unrated coverage expansion. It is going to take a little time for us to see the benefits of that in ARR growth.

是的。因此，在過去一年左右的時間裡，我們發現研究與洞察領域的 ARR 成長略有放緩。顯然，固定收益研究是一個相當成熟的市場。這確實是我們在上一兩個季度討論過的 CreditView 兩項新增強功能的真正原因之一。我們需要一些時間才能看到這對 ARR 成長的好處。

We have seen some modest retention pressures with CreditView. Some of that has come from the recent banking consolidation. We had expected that, frankly. And we expect ARR to pick back up in the second half of the year and accelerate towards high single digits, again, for a couple of reasons. One, the CreditView coverage expansion. And we have a good sales pipeline there and have actually seen some particular interest in Europe and also from those in the private credit market. And then second, Research Assistant. So we've seen sales really start to pick up in the quarter. We're now at 37 sales. We expect that to -- we have a very nice pipeline.

我們已經看到 CreditView 有一些適度的保留壓力。其中一些來自最近的銀行業整合。坦白說，我們已經預料到了這一點。我們預計 ARR 將在下半年回升，並再次加速達到高個位數，原因有幾個。一是CreditView覆蓋範圍擴大。我們在那裡擁有良好的銷售管道，並且實際上看到了歐洲以及私人信貸市場的一些人特別感興趣。然後是第二位，研究助理。因此，我們看到本季的銷售額確實開始回升。我們現在的銷售額為 37 份。我們希望－我們有一個非常好的管道。

And what I mentioned earlier, the earlier adopters of Research Assistant tend to be smaller companies where there's less of a kind of a regulatory risk and control environment that they have to contend with. So we're having some really encouraging discussions with some very large institutions, but those take a little bit more time. And so we've also seen a very nice uptick in user requests and also engagement. And those are really very good leading indicators for us in terms of the market's interest.

正如我之前提到的，研究助理的早期採用者往往是規模較小的公司，他們必須應對的監管風險和控制環境較少。因此，我們正在與一些非常大的機構進行一些非常令人鼓舞的討論，但這些討論需要更多的時間。因此，我們也看到用戶請求和參與度都有了非常好的成長。就市場興趣而言，這些對我們來說確實是非常好的領先指標。

And so when we've got people that we're turning on to Research Assistant and we see very strong upticks in usage, that gives us a lot of confidence. And so I think together, these things, we think, are going to help us pull that ARR growth back up in the back end of the year.

因此，當我們向研究助理求助時，我們看到使用率大幅上升，這給了我們很大的信心。因此，我認為，這些事情將幫助我們在今年年底拉回 ARR 成長。

Next, we'll go to George Tong at Goldman Sachs.

接下來，我們將採訪高盛的喬治唐。

You mentioned seeing some pull forward in refinancing issuance, some from the second half of 2024 and some from beyond 2024. Can you talk about how much opportunistic issuance may have been pulled forward into the quarter and what that could mean for non-refinancing-related issuance in the back half of this year and beyond?

您提到再融資發行有所提前，有些是從2024 年下半年開始，有些是從2024 年以後開始。的意味著什麼是今年下半年及以後發行？

I guess George, maybe the best way I could quantify it is still the meaningful majority of issuance in the quarter was refinancing. So the new money, there was a combination of -- I do think there was some pull forward of new money transactions, but a lot of what was getting done was refinancing activity. Does that give you some -- does that help?

我想喬治，也許我能量化的最好方法仍然是本季有意義的大部分發行是再融資。因此，新資金的結合——我確實認為新資金交易有所提前，但所做的很多事情都是再融資活動。這對你有幫助嗎？

Yes. Yes, that helps. And I guess, what's the view on new money over the next several quarters in the back half of the year?

是的。是的，這有幫助。我想，對下半年接下來幾季的新增資金有何看法？

Yes. George, so that's where I come back to. If -- for us to really have confidence that the first quarter is not kind of a one-trick pony of pull forward of issuance, either in new opportunistic issuance from the second half of the year or a pull forward of maturity walls, what we really want to see is the mix of refi to new money start to pick up. And that's why I go back to that M&A. I think that's going to be an important driver because there is a mountain of money at these private equity firms that has got to get deployed. So there's actually two things going on.

是的。喬治，這就是我回來的地方。如果我們真的有信心第一季不是一種提前發行的單招小馬，無論是下半年新的機會主義發行還是到期期限的提前，我們會做什麼？ 真正希望看到的是再融資與新資金的混合開始回升。這就是我回到併購的原因。我認為這將成為一個重要的驅動因素，因為這些私募股權公司有大量資金需要部署。所以實際上發生了兩件事。

The private equity players have got to exit, and the last couple of years have been very difficult for sponsor exits because of a very soft IPO market and obviously a quiet M&A environment. So the sponsors are looking to exit, and you've also got sponsors with a huge amount of dry powder that has got to get deployed. And so we have started to see some of that in -- towards the end of the first quarter. We started to see some of these multibillion-dollar, sponsor-backed transactions in the public markets. That's the kind of thing we're going to look for. If that continues into the second half of the year, that's going to give upside, I think, to our current issuance outlook.

私募股權公司必須退出，而過去幾年，由於 IPO 市場非常疲軟，而且併購環境明顯安靜，發起人退出非常困難。因此，贊助商正在尋求退出，還有一些贊助商擁有大量必須部署的乾粉。因此，我們在第一季末開始看到其中的一些情況。我們開始在公開市場上看到一些價值數十億美元、由贊助商支持的交易。這就是我們要尋找的東西。如果這種情況持續到今年下半年，我認為這將為我們當前的發行前景帶來上行空間。

We'll go next to Craig Huber at Huber Research.

接下來我們將採訪 Huber Research 的 Craig Huber。

Noémie, I'm curious, you're new CFO here. You're following roughly 20 years, very strong, the prior 2 CFOs, your company there and stuff. What are you thinking you can improve upon at the company that you're willing to talk about publicly here?

諾米，我很好奇，你是這裡的新財務長。你關注了大約 20 年，非常強大，前兩位首席財務官，你的公司等等。您認為您可以在公司中改進哪些方面並願意在此公開談論？

Thanks for the question. I think the -- if I think about stepping back a bit about the company's priorities and where we're headed, I think my priorities are very much aligned with where the company is going and what we're focused on to accomplish our medium-term targets and beyond.

謝謝你的提問。我認為——如果我考慮退一步討論公司的優先事項和我們的發展方向，我認為我的優先事項與公司的發展方向以及我們為實現我們的目標所關注的目標非常一致——長期目標及後續目標。

The first thing I'd say is continuing to focus on a very thoughtful capital allocation, balancing the investment spend to drive future growth and really move from a legacy onetime revenue into full recurring, which will then in turn expand the margin. I think that's very important. I have worked with companies before who evolved their business model from on-premise, lower margin into SaaS recurring and scaled businesses. And I think that's an area that really excites me. What I've seen so far really resonates with me, and that's really what I want to focus on.

我要說的第一件事是繼續專注於非常周到的資本配置，平衡投資支出以推動未來成長，並真正從傳統的一次性收入轉變為完全經常性收入，這反過來又會擴大利潤率。我認為這非常重要。我之前曾與一些公司合作過，他們將業務模式從本地、低利潤發展為 SaaS 經常性和規模化業務。我認為這是一個真正令我興奮的領域。到目前為止我所看到的確實引起了我的共鳴，這才是我真正想要關注的。

And then obviously, continuing to drive efficiencies both internally as well as for our customers and talking to a lot of our customers. The other thing I want to do as well, spend some time with you all to understand what are the things you're looking at, what things you think we're doing well, things where you'd like us to see do differently, and I'm really much looking forward to that as well.

顯然，繼續提高內部和客戶的效率，並與我們的許多客戶交談。我還想做的另一件事是，花一些時間與大家一起了解哪些事情是你們正在關注的，哪些事情是你們認為我們做得很好的，哪些事情是你們希望我們看到以不同方式做的，我也非常期待這一點。

Yes. And Craig, I will add. I think Noémie is also going to bring a wonderful perspective and I think help communicate to the market the real value of this business and using the perspective that she's had from software and SaaS businesses in the past. So we're really excited about it.

是的。我還要補充一下克雷格。我認為 Noémie 也將帶來一個精彩的視角，並利用她過去從軟體和 SaaS 業務中獲得的視角，幫助向市場傳達該業務的真正價值。所以我們對此感到非常興奮。

We'll take our next question from Jeff Meuler at Baird.

我們將接受貝爾德 (Baird) 的傑夫·莫勒 (Jeff Meuler) 提出的下一個問題。

So great to hear the progress on RMS. On the revenue acceleration, does the revenue lift come as the upgraded -- as they do the platform upgrade? Or is it that the platform upgrade enables follow-on sales? Just trying to understand the sequencing.

很高興聽到 RMS 的進展。在收入加速方面，收入的提升是否會像平台升級一樣隨著升級而來？還是平台升級可以實現後續銷售？只是想了解順序。

And then on the synergies bit, it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, but mostly two-way cross-sell synergies between heritage RMS and Moody's products. Where are you on, I guess, net new product synergies that combine the capabilities from each of the firms?

然後在協同效應方面，聽起來像是，如果我錯了，請糾正我，但主要是傳統 RMS 和穆迪產品之間的雙向交叉銷售協同效應。我想，結合各公司能力的淨新產品綜效，您處於什麼位置？

Yes. Jeff, great question. RMS is really turning into a nice story for us. And I guess I would -- maybe I'll call it core RMS ARR, that is now growing in line with MA ARR. And that is a far cry from the quite low single-digit percent growth when we acquired the business. And part -- there's a couple of things going on there just with the core business, excluding the synergies.

是的。傑夫，好問題。對我們來說，RMS 真的變成了一個美好的故事。我想我會——也許我會稱之為核心 RMS ARR，它現在正在與 MA ARR 保持一致。這與我們收購該業務時相當低的個位數百分比成長率相去甚遠。還有一部分——除了協同效應之外，核心業務還發生了一些事情。

One is, in fact, an acceleration of the migration of customers from on-prem to the Intelligent Risk Platform. And those of you who know the history of RMS know that we -- RMS struggled with a prior SaaS rollout. The Intelligent Risk Platform is the real deal, its industrial strength, and we're really seeing some very nice migration.

事實上，其中之一就是加速客戶從本地遷移到智慧風險平台。了解 RMS 歷史的人都知道，我們 RMS 在先前的 SaaS 部署中遇到了困難。智慧風險平台是真正的交易，它的工業實力，我們確實看到了一些非常好的遷移。

And to your question, there are -- there's two things. So one, there are commercial benefits as we move customers over; and two, exactly as you said, Jeff, once you're there, it's much easier to adopt additional solutions because now you've got all the data in one spot, you can integrate your own models, third-party models. So there are a lot of benefits driving customers to migrate to the SaaS platform and to continue to grow their relationship with RMS.

對於你的問題，有兩件事。因此，第一，當我們轉移客戶時會帶來商業利益；第二，正如你所說，傑夫，一旦你到達那裡，採用其他解決方案就會容易得多，因為現在你已經將所有資料集中在一處，你可以整合你自己的模型、第三方模型。因此，有許多好處可以促使客戶遷移到 SaaS 平台並繼續發展與 RMS 的關係。

The second thing is just good old-fashioned sales blocking and tackling. We moved our -- one of our most experienced sales managers in to be the Head of Sales and really have even more discipline around the RMS sales program, and that has also paid dividends.

第二件事是很好的老式銷售攔截和處理。我們將我們最有經驗的銷售經理之一調任為銷售主管，並且在 RMS 銷售計劃方面確實有更多的紀律，這也帶來了紅利。

And then the nature of the synergies, I mean, you're exactly right. So I'll give you one very exciting example of what I would call kind of outbound synergies. So this is RMS IP to other Moody's customers. We just signed one of the world's largest banks as a customer of the cat model. So this isn't even kind of our Climate On Demand for banks. This is literally the full cat models. So this is a bank who wanted to have a very sophisticated view of the impact on -- of climate and extreme weather events on their portfolio and to be able to do stress testing and all sorts of things. So that's really exciting.

然後是協同效應的本質，我的意思是，你是完全正確的。因此，我將向您提供一個非常令人興奮的例子，我稱之為「對外協同效應」。這是穆迪其他客戶的 RMS IP。我們剛剛簽約了世界上最大的銀行之一作為貓模型的客戶。因此，這甚至不是我們為銀行提供的「氣候隨需應變」。這實際上是完整的貓模型。因此，這家銀行希望對氣候和極端天氣事件對其投資組合的影響有一個非常複雜的了解，並且能夠進行壓力測試和各種事情。所以這真的很令人興奮。

And we're seeing more and more demand from banks and asset managers and corporates around supply chain who want to do exactly that, the physical risk relating to climate and extreme weather. And then the other is the inbound cross-sell. Again, a very nice story. And a lot of that is around the KYC, know your third party, leveraging our master data in our data solutions team. So we have a very nice momentum there. So all in all, I feel quite good about what's going on at RMS.

我們看到銀行、資產管理公司和供應鏈企業的需求越來越多，他們希望做到這一點，也就是與氣候和極端天氣相關的物理風險。另一個是入站交叉銷售。又是一個非常好的故事。其中許多都是圍繞著 KYC、了解您的第三方、利用我們數據解決方案團隊中的主數據進行的。所以我們在那裡有一個非常好的勢頭。總而言之，我對 RMS 的情況感覺很好。

We'll go next to Andrew Steinerman at JPMorgan.

接下來我們將採訪摩根大通的安德魯·斯坦納曼。

I just wanted to get with the current guide for credit issuance. Are you assuming that issuance on a transactional basis will be down in the fourth quarter this year? And also, I just wanted to check your pulse on if you thought we were in the midst of a multiyear issuance recovery following the pullback in '22?

我只是想了解當前的信貸發行指南。您是否認為今年第四季交易發行量將會下降？另外，我只是想了解一下您的脈搏，您是否認為我們正處於 22 年回調後的多年發行復甦之中？

Andrew, great questions. So thinking about, I guess, year to go. Obviously, we've held the issuance forecast range. I mentioned that we expect to be in the higher end of that range. And so obviously, that invites questions about, okay, given the strong first quarter, what does that imply then about the second half? And it does, in fact, imply a, I'd say, for year to go, so that's 3 quarters a, call it, mid-single-digit decline in issuance for the balance of the year.

安德魯，好問題。所以我想，接下來的一年。顯然，我們維持了發行預測範圍。我提到我們預計會處於該範圍的高端。顯然，這引發了這樣的問題：好吧，考慮到第一季的強勁表現，這對下半年意味著什麼？事實上，我想說，這確實意味著，在接下來的一年裡，也就是 3 個季度，今年剩餘時間的發行量將出現中個位數的下降。

And to your point, Andrew, I would say, more focused on the fourth quarter, where we would think the issuance would be down more in the mid-teens range. And part of that again is because of some of the uncertainties I talk about and one of those being elections. And so we just assume that people are going to pull out of the fourth quarter where they can. So for the most part, I'd say our forecast represents really just a change in the calendarization of issuance. But I talked earlier about some of the drivers that we're going to be looking for.

對於你的觀點，安德魯，我想說，更關注第四季度，我們認為發行量將在十幾歲左右的範圍內下降更多。部分原因又是因為我談到的一些不確定因素，其中之一就是選舉。因此，我們只是假設人們會盡可能地退出第四季。因此，在很大程度上，我想說我們的預測實際上只是發行日曆的變化。但我之前談到了我們要尋找的一些驅動程式。

And then maybe, Andrew, to your second point about are we in the midst of a multiyear, I can't remember the term you used, issuance?

然後，安德魯，關於你的第二點，我們是否正處於多年的過程中，我不記得你使用的術語，發行？

Issuance recovery given the pullback in '22.

鑑於 22 年的回調，發行量有所恢復。

Yes. I do think we are. And I think that's consistent with -- we obviously updated our medium-term targets for MIS, and I think that's part of that. And I will go back to that point, Andrew, around what -- one of the things I -- that leads me to that conclusion is -- and while we may have -- again, we may have a little volatility in the quarters here in the year, but I think the trend line is up.

是的。我確實認為我們是。我認為這與我們顯然更新了管理資訊系統的中期目標是一致的，我認為這是其中的一部分。安德魯，我將回到這一點，圍繞什麼——我得出這個結論的一件事是——雖然我們可能有——再次，我們在這些季度可能會出現一些波動今年，但我認為趨勢線是向上的。

And again, I go back to that debt velocity. Just to give you a number, at least the numbers we work with, when you go back to, like, okay, let's say, 2009, so just post-global financial crisis, corporate issuance over total corporate outstanding was all the way back to then of something like 14%. And we're well below that still. So that tells me we've got some room just, again, given the huge amount of issuance over the last few years.

我再次回到債務速度。只是給你一個數字，至少是我們合作的數字，當你回到2009年時，就在全球金融危機之後，企業發行量與企業發行總額之比一路回到了然後是 14% 左右。我們仍然遠低於這個水平。因此，這告訴我，考慮到過去幾年的大量發行，我們還有一些空間。

The one other thing I would say, Andrew, is I get asked -- we've gotten asked a lot on these calls about private credit and is this disintermediating the public markets. I actually have started to think of it almost as another form of maturity wall because look what went on in the quarter. We had 45 deals that got slipped from private markets to public markets. So I had mentioned that I thought of this as a deferral of issuance, not a cannibalization of issuance.

安德魯，我要說的另一件事是，有人問我——我們在這些關於私人信貸的電話會議上被問到了很多，這是否使公共市場脫中介化。實際上，我已經開始將其視為另一種形式的成熟度牆，因為看看本季發生的情況。我們有 45 筆交易從私人市場轉移到公開市場。所以我提到過，我認為這是推遲發行，而不是蠶食發行。

In some cases, of course, there could be some cannibalization, but we're seeing there's a lot of just deferral because the private credit players are rational financial actors. And if they can get cheaper financing in public markets, they're going to do it, and they are doing it. So that I actually think is supported -- I actually started to think private credit is actually a tailwind for us that will be supportive of this, as you say, recovery in issuance.

當然，在某些情況下，可能會出現一些蠶食，但我們看到有很多只是推遲，因為私人信貸參與者是理性的金融行為者。如果他們能夠在公開市場上獲得更便宜的融資，他們就會這麼做，而且他們正在這樣做。所以我實際上認為這是受到支持的——我實際上開始認為私人信貸實際上對我們來說是一種順風，正如你所說，它將支持發行的復甦。

We'll go next to Russell Quelch at Redburn.

我們將前往雷德本的拉塞爾·奎爾奇 (Russell Quelch)。

Wanted to ask a balance sheet-related question. I see that your gross leverage is now down at around 2.2, which is the lowest level we've seen from you guys in years. And you also slowed the pace of the buyback in Q1. Perhaps that cash on the balance sheet went up by about $300 million in the quarter. That actually was quite stable through 2023, so that's a break in trend there. Is there a change in how you're thinking about capital allocation or the cash you need to hold on the balance sheet? And are you perhaps making room for acquisitions here? Can you just give a bit of color there?

想問一個資產負債表相關的問題。我看到你們的總槓桿率現在下降到 2.2 左右，這是我們多年來看到的最低水平。您也放慢了第一季的回購步伐。也許該季度資產負債表上的現金增加了約 3 億美元。實際上，到 2023 年，這一數字都相當穩定，因此這是趨勢的突破。您對資本配置或資產負債表上需要持有的現金的看法是否改變了？您是否可能在這裡為收購騰出空間？你能在那裡給一點顏色嗎？

Yes. On capital allocation, we are maintaining our approach, and it's my intent to continue that. We -- on the share buyback, which I think is where you're going, we -- it's just been 1 quarter of execution. The pace isn't out of line with our planned cadence. We expect to catch up in the second quarter and the second half to hit our targets, so I wouldn't read anything into that. And then last year, we focused on deleveraging because we had ticked up in 2022.

是的。在資本配置方面，我們將維持我們的做法，我也打算繼續這樣做。我們——關於股票回購，我認為這就是你要去的地方，我們——這只是執行了一個季度。節奏並沒有與我們計劃的節奏不一致。我們預計將在第二季和下半年趕上來實現我們的目標，所以我不會對此進行任何解讀。然後去年，我們將重點放在去槓桿化，因為我們在 2022 年有所上升。

We'll move next to Owen Lau at Oppenheimer.

我們將搬到奧本海默的歐文劉 (Owen Lau) 旁邊。

So I have two housekeeping questions for modeling purpose. The first one is I want to go back to the margin. Would you be able to provide more color on the seasonality for the margins of MIS and MA for the rest of this year? And then the second one is on the migration to cloud revenue. My understanding is it will impact your upfront revenue growth, but you'll be better off longer term. Should we expect your MA revenue growth to run below your ARR growth until you completed your migration in like RMS and also research?

所以我有兩個用於建模目的的內務問題。第一個是我想回到邊緣。您能否提供更多有關今年剩餘時間內 MIS 和 MA 利潤率季節性的資訊？第二個問題是向雲端收入的遷移。我的理解是，這會影響您的前期收入成長，但從長遠來看，您會受益匪淺。在您完成 RMS 和研究等方面的遷移之前，我們是否應該期望您的 MA 收入成長低於 ARR 成長？

Owen, this is Rob. I'm going to take the first one. No, I don't think so. I don't think you're going to see us kind of have what I would call kind of a big valley as we're moving from customers from on-prem to SaaS. So that's not something I would anticipate.

歐文，這是羅布。我要選擇第一個。不，我不這麼認為。我認為，當我們將客戶從本地轉移到 SaaS 時，您不會看到我們遇到所謂的大山谷。所以這不是我所預料到的。

And your first question was around the calendarization of MIS margins, I believe.

我認為，你的第一個問題是關於管理資訊系統利潤的日曆化。

Yes. MIS margin, we saw a -- the top line, we expect this to be growing low single digit in the remainder of the year. For the margin for MIS, we're forecasting the expenses to decline slightly in the second quarter in the low single digit sequentially from the first quarter. Our first quarter MIS adjusted operating margin of 64.6%, and expanded full year expectation implies an adjusted operating margin in the range of 53% to 56% on average for the remainder of the year.

是的。 MIS 利潤率，我們看到—頂線，我們預計在今年剩餘時間內將成長低個位數。對於管理資訊系統的利潤率，我們預計第二季的費用將比第一季略有下降，降至低個位數。我們第一季管理資訊系統調整後的營業利益率為 64.6%，擴大的全年預期意味著今年剩餘時間調整後的營業利潤率平均在 53% 至 56% 之間。

Especially for the second quarter, if you want to use that for modeling purposes, we expect that to be slightly higher than the upper end of our fiscal year guidance before then decreasing sequentially each quarter through the end of the year, which is pretty much in line with the MIS revenue cadence as well, which is expected to decline in -- throughout the year. For MA, we -- again, we expect the margin to evolve in the same pattern as the revenue with an uptick in the 30% to 31% in the back half of the year.

特別是對於第二季度，如果您想將其用於建模目的，我們預計該數字將略高於我們財年指導的上限，然後到年底每個季度依次下降，這幾乎是在也與管理信息系統收入節奏一致，預計全年收入將下降。對於 MA，我們再次預期利潤率將按照與收入相同的模式發展，下半年將成長 30% 至 31%。

And we'll take a follow-up from Craig Huber at Huber Research.

我們將聽取 Huber Research 的 Craig Huber 的後續報導。

You sort of touched on this, but can you just talk a little further about your expectations for the whole company for your cost ramp for the remaining 3 quarters in light of your guidance for cost here? That's my first housekeeping question. The other thing I want to ask you, in the past, you guys have given us your incentive compensation that you booked in the quarter. What's your outlook for the year there?

您有點談到了這一點，但您能否根據此處的成本指導進一步談談您對整個公司對剩餘 3 個季度的成本增長的預期？這是我的第一個問題。我想問的另一件事是，過去你們已經向我們提供了你們在本季預訂的激勵薪酬。您對今年的前景有何展望？

Yes. On incentive comp, first of all, we recorded $105 million for the first quarter. We expect, on average, $100 million for the second and third quarter and slightly up in the fourth quarter. So that's for the incentive comp.

是的。在激勵補償方面，首先，我們第一季錄得 1.05 億美元。我們預計第二季和第三季平均營收為 1 億美元，第四季略有上升。這就是激勵補償。

And on the expense cadence, we expect the second quarter expense to be flat sequentially in the second quarter versus Q1, and then gradually increasing by about $20 million to $30 million between Q2 and Q3 and then by $15 million to $25 million in the fourth quarter. That reflects our strategic investments, some merit increase as well as some other variable costs, which are in line with the business growth.

就費用節奏而言，我們預計第二季費用將與第一季持平，然後在第二季和第三季之間逐漸增加約2,000 萬美元至3,000 萬美元，然後在第四季增加1,500 萬美元至2500 萬美元。這反映了我們的策略投資、一些績效成長以及一些其他可變成本，這些成本與業務成長一致。

And I have one more quick thing. Your private credit as a percentage of revenues and ratings right now, Rob or Noémie, where is that sitting at right now? How small is that?

我還有一件事要快說。羅布或諾米，您的私人信用目前佔收入和收視率的百分比，現在處於什麼位置？那有多小？

Craig, it's -- that's an interesting question because I think we could get into a bit of a battle of definitions here. As I kind of step back and think about serving the alternative asset managers, these are the Blackstones, the Apollos, they're both in the public markets and the private markets. And we have, as you'd expect, very significant relationships with a broad range of players in that market.

克雷格，這是一個有趣的問題，因為我認為我們可能會在這裡陷入一場定義之戰。當我退一步思考為另類資產管理公司提供服務時，他們是黑石集團、阿波羅集團，他們既在公開市場，也在私人市場。正如您所期望的那樣，我們與該市場的眾多參與者建立了非常重要的關係。

In fact, when you -- going back to the FIG revenues for the quarter, part of that opportunistic issuance was coming from our funds and asset management segment -- subsegment in FIG. And part of that was actually coming from BDCs and other folks who you would think of as being in the private credit market. So I guess, Craig, it's a little bit of a tough question for me to answer because I think of serving the Apollos and the Blackstones, and I think of that as public and private. And that's quite significant.

事實上，當你回到本季的Fig收入時，部分機會主義發行來自我們的基金和資產管理部門——FIG中的子部門。其中一部分實際上來自 BDC 和您認為屬於私人信貸市場的其他人員。所以我想，克雷格，這對我來說是一個很難回答的問題，因為我想為阿波羅和黑石家族服務，而且我認為這是公共和私人的。這非常重要。

We -- as you know, we did roll out a dedicated private credit team. We do have an expanded offering for specifically [4 things] that you would think of as private credit. So we've got credit estimates for BDCs. We've got a number of different kinds of offerings to support fund finance. In fact, we just rolled out a subscription line methodology, and we have a very nice pipeline. And that I would think of as primarily private credit related. All of that stuff is growing quite significantly.

如您所知，我們確實推出了專門的私人信貸團隊。我們確實針對您認為是私人信貸的具體 [4 件事] 提供了擴展的產品。我們對 BDC 進行了信用評估。我們提供多種不同類型的產品來支持基金融資。事實上，我們剛剛推出了訂閱線方法，並且我們有一個非常好的管道。我認為這主要與私人信貸有關。所有這些東西都在顯著增長。

So I would say, maybe to cap it off, our relationship with the big -- with the alternative asset management community in -- and I'm saying just in MIS for the moment, is quite significant. As it relates to specifically private credit, yes, for now, considerably smaller but growing quite quickly. I hope that gives you some sense.

所以我想說，也許最後，我們與大公司的關係——與另類資產管理社群的關係——我只是說目前在管理資訊系統中，是非常重要的。由於它與特定的私人信貸有關，是的，目前規模相當小，但增長很快。我希望這能給你一些意義。

Yes. You went a couple of different ways I didn't think you were going to go, but yes, that's helpful.

是的。你走了幾種不同的路，我認為你不會走，但是，是的，這很有幫助。

And we'll go next to Shlomo Rosenbaum with Stifel.

接下來我們將與施蒂費爾一起前往什洛莫·羅森鮑姆 (Shlomo Rosenbaum)。

Rob, can you talk a little bit about the KYC growth? It was 18% in 3Q; 20% 4Q; 23% in -- now this last quarter. You're kind of accelerating on a larger revenue base. If you can give us some idea as to what's driving that. And then also, at the same time, you're seeing the revenue growth, but you're seeing the ARR kind of still around the 18% -- 17%, 18%. And maybe you could talk about that in the context of the revenue growth.

Rob，可以談談 KYC 的成長嗎？第三季為18%；第四季 20%； 23%，現在是最後一個季度。您在更大的收入基礎上正在加速發展。如果您能給我們一些關於是什麼推動了這一點的想法。同時，你會看到收入成長，但 ARR 仍然在 18% - 17%、18% 左右。也許你可以在收入成長的背景下談論這個問題。

Shlomo, thanks for the question. Yes, this is a powerful growth engine here. And it's -- they're just -- there's a number of demand drivers. You probably heard me talk about on the call before that I've gotten to a point where I think KYC is not doing this justice in terms of the name because it talks about know your customer. And you heard me earlier on the call say, a theme with literally every customer I talk to is know your -- who you're doing business with and being able to connect the dots. So that is a big opportunity for us. And KYC is right in the middle of it. And we are broadening out our solution set, leveraging all of the content that supports KYC. So that's the massive company database that we call Orbis. It's all of the people and PEPs information. It's the AI-curated news. That supports what you would think of as traditional KYC.

什洛莫，謝謝你的提問。是的，這是一個強大的成長引擎。這是——他們只是——有許多需求驅動因素。您可能之前在電話會議上聽過我談到，我認為 KYC 在名稱方面並沒有做到這一點，因為它談到了了解您的客戶。你早些時候在電話會議上聽到我說過，與我交談的每一位客戶的主題都是了解你的——你正在與誰做生意，並能夠將這些點聯繫起來。所以這對我們來說是一個很大的機會。 KYC 就處於其中。我們正在擴大我們的解決方案集，利用所有支援 KYC 的內容。這就是我們稱為 Orbis 的龐大公司資料庫。這是所有人員和政治公眾人物的訊息。這是人工智慧策劃的新聞。這支持您所認為的傳統 KYC。

And then people want to understand, okay, well, I need to have that information about my suppliers plus other information. And so the demand for what you would think of as the KYC solutions just continues to broaden out, and we're selling into that. And that's one of the areas of investment for us, Shlomo.

然後人們想要明白，好吧，我需要獲得有關我的供應商的資訊以及其他資訊。因此，您所認為的 KYC 解決方案的需求不斷擴大，我們正在對此進行銷售。這是我們的投資領域之一，什洛莫。

We talked about really wanting to serve corporates because historically, this has been serving financial institutions. But this theme of know who you're doing business with is a big theme with large corporations, and we have some fantastic customer wins that really validate our right to win in that space.

我們談到真正想為企業服務，因為從歷史上看，這一直是為金融機構服務。但是，了解與誰做生意是大公司的一個重要主題，我們贏得了一些出色的客戶，這確實證明了我們在該領域獲勝的權利。

The other thing, I may have mentioned this on some prior calls is, especially in the back half of last year, we had a lot of product innovation going on in that space. You may have even seen like some articles about Moody's and the number of shell companies that we had identified around the world that got a lot of press. Well, that shell company indicators is one of the products we created. We also have something called an entity verification API that pulls together a bunch of our different datasets and allows our customers to do real-time checks. So product innovation, broadening of demand, all of that together, Shlomo, is continuing to drive some very strong growth, I think, for the foreseeable future.

另一件事，我可能在之前的一些電話中提到過這一點，特別是在去年下半年，我們在該領域進行了許多產品創新。您甚至可能看過一些有關穆迪以及我們在世界各地發現的空殼公司數量的文章，這些文章受到了很多媒體的關注。嗯，空殼公司指標是我們創造的產品之一。我們還有一個稱為實體驗證 API 的東西，它將我們的一堆不同資料集匯集在一起，並允許我們的客戶進行即時檢查。因此，我認為，在可預見的未來，產品創新、需求擴大，所有這些加在一起，什洛莫將繼續推動非常強勁的成長。

Should we see the ARR kind of ticking up a little bit? Where we're seeing the revenue ticking up, should we see ARR ticking up as well? I know it's pretty healthy as it is, but revenue is moving ahead of that.

我們是否應該看到 ARR 略有上升？當我們看到收入上升時，我們是否應該看到 ARR 也上升？我知道它的現狀相當健康，但收入正在超前增長。

Yes. I mean we don't guide on that, but I think...

是的。我的意思是我們不會對此進行指導，但我認為......

I'd really look at the ARR as the best indicator of the underlying trends in that business, as with every other line, by the way. I think that's the best way to look at it.

順便說一句，我確實將 ARR 視為該業務潛在趨勢的最佳指標，就像其他所有產品線一樣。我認為這是最好的看待它的方式。

I'd say, Shlomo, we've got some positive momentum there in the ARR, I believe.

我想說，什洛莫，我相信我們在 ARR 中取得了一些積極的勢頭。

And that does conclude the Q&A session. I'll turn the conference back over to Rob for any closing remarks.

問答環節到此結束。我將把會議轉回給羅布，讓他發表閉幕詞。

All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for your questions. And I appreciate you joining the call, and we'll talk to you next quarter. Have a great day.

好的。好的，謝謝大家提出的問題。我感謝您加入電話會議，我們將在下個季度與您交談。祝你有美好的一天。

Thank you.

謝謝。

And this concludes Moody's Corporation First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. As a reminder, immediately following this call, the company will post the MIS revenue breakdown under the Investor Resources section of the Moody's IR homepage. Additionally, a replay will be made available after the call on the Moody's IR website. Thank you.

穆迪公司 2024 年第一季財報電話會議到此結束。提醒一下，在本次電話會議之後，該公司將立即在穆迪投資者關係主頁的投資者資源部分發布管理資訊系統收入明細。此外，穆迪投資者關係網站將在電話會議結束後提供重播。謝謝。