標普全球 (SPGI) 2018 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to S&P Global's Fourth Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. I would like to inform you that this call is being recorded for broadcast. (Operator Instructions) To access the webcast and slides, go to investor.spglobal.com. (Operator Instructions)

早安，歡迎參加標普全球（S&P Global）2018 年第四季財報電話會議。在此提醒各位，本次通話將被錄音以供播出。(Operator Instructions) 如需收看網路直播並取得簡報投影片，請至 investor.spglobal.com。(Operator Instructions)

I would now like to introduce Mr. Chip Merritt, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for S&P Global. Sir, you may begin.

現在我想介紹標普全球投資人關係資深副總裁 Chip Merritt 先生。先生，您可以開始了。

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for S&P Global's earnings call. Presenting on this morning's call are Doug Peterson, President and CEO; and Ewout Steenbergen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

早安。感謝各位參加標普全球的財報電話會議。今天早上的電話會議由總裁暨執行長 Doug Peterson，以及執行副總裁兼財務長 Ewout Steenbergen 出席說明。

This morning, we issued a news release with our fourth quarter 2018 results. If you need a copy of this -- of the release and financial schedules, they can be downloaded at investor.spglobal.com.

今天早上，我們已發布新聞稿，公布 2018 年第四季業績。若您需要該新聞稿及財務附表，可至 investor.spglobal.com 下載。

In today's earnings release and during the conference call, we'll provide an adjusted financial information. This information is provided to enable investors to make meaningful comparisons of the corporation's operating performance between periods and to view the corporation's business from the same perspective as management's. This earnings release contains exhibits that reconcile the difference between the non-GAAP measures and the comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

在今天的財報新聞稿以及本次電話會議中，我們將提供經調整的財務資訊。提供此資訊旨在協助投資人就不同期間之間公司的營運表現進行有意義的比較，並以與管理階層相同的視角檢視公司的業務。本次財報新聞稿包含附表，用以調節非 GAAP 指標與依美國 GAAP 計算之可比財務指標之差異。

Before we begin, I need to provide certain cautionary remarks about forward-looking statements. Except for historical information, the matters discussed in the teleconference may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including projections, estimates and descriptions of future events. Any such statements are based on current expectations and current economic conditions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from results anticipated in these forward-looking statements. In this regard, we direct listeners to the cautionary statements contained in our Form 10-Ks, 10-Qs and other periodic reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

在開始之前，我需要就前瞻性陳述提供若干警示性說明。除歷史資訊外，本次電話會議所討論事項可能包含《1995 年私人證券訴訟改革法》所定義之前瞻性陳述，包括預測、估計及對未來事件的描述。任何此類陳述均基於目前預期與當前經濟狀況，並受風險與不確定性影響，可能導致實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述所預期之結果出現重大差異。就此，我們請聽眾參閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交之 Form 10-K、10-Q 及其他定期報告中所載之警示性陳述。

I would also like to call your attention to a European regulation. Any investor who has or expects to obtain ownership of 5% or more of S&P Global should give me a call to better understand the impact of those -- of this legislation on the investor and, potentially, the company.

我也想提醒各位注意一項歐洲法規。任何已持有或預期取得標普全球 5% 或以上所有權的投資人，請致電與我聯繫，以更充分了解該法規對投資人以及（可能）對公司之影響。

We're aware that we do have some media representatives with us on the call. However, this call is intended for investors, and we would ask that questions from the media be delivered to [Suyang Jordan] at (212) 438-2297.

我們知道本次電話會議中也有部分媒體代表與會。然而，本次電話會議主要面向投資人；我們請媒體的提問改由 [Suyang Jordan] 受理，電話 (212) 438-2297。

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Doug Peterson. Doug?

現在，我想把電話會議交給 Doug Peterson。Doug？

Thank you, Chip. Good morning, and welcome to today's earnings call.

謝謝你，Chip。早安，歡迎參加今天的財報電話會議。

As the S&P Global team focused on Powering the Markets of the Future, volatility and uncertainty returned to the markets in 2018. The causes were numerous: rising interest rates, trade negotiations, Brexit and the unwinding of global monetary stimulus. And during the fourth quarter, this volatility and uncertainty impacted debt issuance and, therefore, our Ratings business. Fortunately, our remaining 3 businesses performed well and the company delivered strong financial results. I'm going to review our full year highlights, and Ewout will review the fourth quarter results in a moment.

在標普全球團隊專注於「驅動未來市場（Powering the Markets of the Future）」之際，2018 年市場再度出現波動與不確定性。原因眾多：利率上升、貿易談判、英國脫歐，以及全球貨幣刺激措施的退場。而在第四季，這些波動與不確定性影響了債務發行，進而影響我們的評級（Ratings）業務。所幸，我們其餘 3 項業務表現良好，公司也交出強勁的財務成果。我將先回顧全年重點，稍後 Ewout 會回顧第四季結果。

In 2018, we delivered 3% revenue growth and 23% adjusted diluted EPS growth. We generated significant margin improvement in every business. We reported $2 billion in free cash flow, excluding certain items, an 8% increase year-over-year. We returned $2.2 billion through share repurchases and dividends. As you know, our target is to return at least 75% of free cash flow excluding certain items to shareholders, but we returned more than 100% in 2018.

2018 年，我們實現營收成長 3%，經調整稀釋每股盈餘（EPS）成長 23%。我們在各項業務皆帶來顯著的利潤率改善。在排除特定項目後，我們的自由現金流達 20 億美元，年增 8%。我們透過庫藏股回購與股利合計回饋股東 22 億美元。如各位所知，我們的目標是將排除特定項目後自由現金流至少 75% 回饋股東，但 2018 年我們回饋超過 100%。

We initiated a new -- we're initiating a new $500 million ASR in the next few days, and we made great strides towards our Investor Day targets. But in the meantime, we always need to build for the future, both through organic projects and by adding new capabilities from outside the company. To that end, we added leading-edge technology and unique data sets with the acquisitions of Kensho, Panjiva and RateWatch.

我們將在未來幾天啟動新的 5 億美元加速庫藏股回購（ASR），並且在達成投資人日（Investor Day）目標方面取得重大進展。但同時，我們也必須持續為未來奠基，既透過內生成長專案，也透過引進公司外部的新能力。為此，我們透過收購 Kensho、Panjiva 與 RateWatch，納入領先的技術與獨特的資料集。

Revenue for 2018 increased 3% despite a 4% decline in our Ratings segment. Our adjusted operating profit increased 8%, and our adjusted operating profit margin increased 230 basis points to 48.8%. This marks great progress on our Investor Day adjusted operating profit margin target over the next 3 to 4 years of low 50s. In addition, we continued to reduce our shares outstanding. The 2% reduction achieved in 2018 helped us reduce shares by 10% over the past 5 years. Finally, our adjusted diluted EPS increased by 23%. While revenue growth, margin improvement and share count reduction played a role, approximately 1/2 of the increase in 2018 was the benefit U.S. tax reform had on our effective tax rate. Revenue growth and productivity efforts propelled the adjusted operating profit margin in 2018. Revenue declined in Ratings due to reduced issuance. Despite this decline, Ratings delivered greater margin improvement than any other segment.

2018 年營收成長 3%，儘管我們的評級（Ratings）部門營收下滑 4%。我們的經調整營業利益成長 8%，經調整營業利益率提升 230 個基點至 48.8%。這代表我們在未來 3 至 4 年將經調整營業利益率提升至 50% 出頭（low 50s）的投資人日目標上，取得了很大進展。此外，我們持續降低流通在外股數。2018 年達成的 2% 降幅，使我們在過去 5 年累計將股數降低 10%。最後，我們的經調整稀釋 EPS 成長 23%。雖然營收成長、利潤率改善與股數下降皆有所貢獻，但 2018 年增幅約有一半來自美國稅改對我們有效稅率的利多。營收成長與生產力提升措施推動了 2018 年的經調整營業利益率。由於發行量下降，評級業務營收下滑。儘管如此，評級業務的利潤率改善幅度仍高於其他任何部門。

I'm pleased with the efforts of our employees to continue to drive revenue growth and productivity gains across S&P Global. This performance extended our succession of solid revenue growth and adjusted operating margin growth. We've delivered a 4-year CAGR for revenue of 6% and improved our adjusted operating profit margin by more than 1,200 basis points in the past 4 years. The results of these collective efforts has been a 21% compounded annual growth rate of adjusted diluted EPS over the past 4 years. As we've delivered these results, we've continued to invest for future growth and productivity.

我很高興看到員工持續努力，在標普全球各項業務推動營收成長與生產力提升。這樣的表現延續了我們一貫穩健的營收成長與經調整營業利益率成長。過去 4 年，我們的營收 4 年複合年成長率（CAGR）為 6%，且經調整營業利益率在過去 4 年提升超過 1,200 個基點。這些共同努力的成果，是過去 4 年經調整稀釋 EPS 的複合年成長率達 21%。在交出這些成果的同時，我們也持續投資於未來的成長與生產力。

In 2018, we continued to invest in technology and data. We acquired world-class artificial intelligence and machine learning technology with Kensho; unique technology and supply chain data with Panjiva; differentiated banking data with RateWatch; and in the fourth quarter, certain index intellectual property rights. In addition to these acquisitions, we invested in companies pioneering new technologies. These included: regtech solutions with FiscalNote, and energy production information with Xpansiv. We also licensed private company data from Crunchbase and through our other agreements, licensed new data sets for companies in China and the U.K.

2018 年，我們持續投資於科技與資料。我們透過 Kensho 收購世界級的人工智慧與機器學習技術；透過 Panjiva 取得獨特技術與供應鏈資料；透過 RateWatch 取得差異化的銀行業資料；並於第四季取得部分指數智慧財產權。除上述收購外，我們也投資於引領新技術的公司。其中包括：與 FiscalNote 合作的監理科技（regtech）解決方案，以及與 Xpansiv 合作的能源生產資訊。我們也向 Crunchbase 授權取得私人公司資料，並透過其他協議，授權取得中國與英國公司的新資料集。

Finally, we accelerated our ESG investments organically and through the full acquisition of the climate data pioneer, Trucost. This has allowed us to expand Trucost's unique data across S&P Global and combine our data resources with our world-class data operations in Market Intelligence. In aggregate, during 2018, we invested more than $800 million in acquisitions. We made another $60 million in internal investments that were expensed for work associated with Kensho, Panjiva, RateWatch, ESG and China.

最後，我們透過內生成長以及全面收購氣候數據先驅 Trucost，加速了我們在 ESG 方面的投資。這使我們得以在 S&P Global 內擴展 Trucost 的獨特數據，並將我們的數據資源與 Market Intelligence 世界級的數據營運能力相結合。合計而言，在 2018 年，我們在收購方面投資超過 8 億美元。我們另投入 6,000 萬美元的內部投資，並將其作為費用列支，用於與 Kensho、Panjiva、RateWatch、ESG 及中國相關的工作。

One of the highlights of 2019 so far has been our recent approval to enter the China domestic bond market. We're honored to receive the first approval for a wholly owned subsidiary of an international CRA to rate domestic Chinese bonds. We're now authorized to rate issuers and issuances from financial institutions, corporates, structured finance bonds and panda bonds or renminbi-denominated bonds from foreign issuers. Our new entity, S&P Ratings (China) Ltd., will be headquartered in Beijing and has 36 employees, 31 of which are Ratings analysts. We were able to assemble an exceptional team made up of our existing Ratings employees as well as experts from the Chinese debt capital markets and local ratings agencies. It's important to understand that S&P Ratings (China) Ltd. and S&P Global Ratings are 2 independent entities, each with their own methodologies and analytical autonomy. The methodologies in the new business have been developed with reference to and leveraged from S&P Global Ratings methodologies. This brings our total presence in Greater China for Ratings to more than 200 employees.

截至目前，2019 年的一大亮點是我們近期獲准進入中國境內債券市場。我們深感榮幸，成為首家獲批、由國際信用評等機構（CRA）全資子公司對中國境內債券進行評等的機構。我們現已獲授權，可對金融機構、企業、結構性融資債券以及熊貓債（或外國發行人發行的人民幣計價債券）的發行人與發行項目進行評等。我們的新實體 S&P Ratings (China) Ltd. 將以北京為總部，員工共 36 人，其中 31 人為評等分析師。我們成功組建了一支卓越團隊，成員包括我們現有的評等業務員工，以及來自中國債務資本市場與本地評等機構的專家。需要理解的是，S&P Ratings (China) Ltd.與 S&P Global Ratings 是兩個獨立實體，各自擁有自身的方法論與分析自主性。新業務的方法論是在參考並借鑑 S&P Global Ratings 方法論的基礎上開發而成。這使我們在大中華區的評等業務總人員規模超過 200 人。

We plan to initiate coverage on the roughly 400 existing corporate clients that already issue cross-border bonds. Today, issuance spreads within China's bond markets are virtually uncorrelated with domestic rating categories. We intend to offer a national scale rating for issuers in the Chinese market. We're well prepared and ready to issue Chinese domestic ratings.

我們計劃對約 400 家既有企業客戶啟動覆蓋，這些客戶已經發行跨境債券。目前，中國債券市場的發行利差與境內評等類別幾乎不相關。我們擬為中國市場的發行人提供國內評等尺度（national scale rating）。我們已準備就緒，隨時可以發布中國境內評等。

Both our Ratings business and our indices businesses can be impacted by short-term market movements. I'd like to put some of these movements into perspective, starting with 2018 issuance. Global issuance decreased 6% in the volatile market environment. In particular, high-yield issuance declined 40%. This category has a disproportionate impact on our revenues since few, if any, of these companies are in frequent issuer programs. We often talk about the correlation between spreads and issuance. This can be seen very clearly in the high-yield market. Issuance levels have a strong negative correlation with spreads. So as spreads widened and 2018 progressed, especially in the fourth quarter, issuance was impacted. Just for comparison purposes, you can see that the correlation between spreads and issuance is not nearly as strong in investment grade where GDP growth, business confidence and maturity pipeline are more highly correlated to issuance volumes.

我們的評等業務與指數業務都可能受到短期市場波動的影響。我想把其中一些波動放在更宏觀的脈絡中來看，先從 2018 年的發行量談起。在市場環境波動之下，全球發行量下降 6%。其中，高收益債發行量下滑 40%。由於這類公司幾乎沒有（即便有也很少）參與常態發行人計畫，因此該類別對我們營收的影響不成比例地大。我們經常談到利差與發行量之間的相關性。在高收益市場，這一點表現得非常明顯。發行量與利差呈現強烈的負相關。因此，隨著利差擴大且 2018 年推進，尤其在第四季，發行量受到影響。僅作比較之用，你可以看到在投資級市場中，利差與發行量的相關性遠沒有那麼強；在投資級市場，GDP 成長、企業信心與到期結構（maturity pipeline）與發行量更為高度相關。

While the impact from U.S. tax reform has been positive for our bottom line, it has, as we expected, been a drag on issuance. In fact, the 50 U.S. companies with the largest overseas cash balances at the end of 2017 issued $170 billion of debt in 2017 and only $42 billion in 2018. This drop is responsible for a 10% decline overall in investment-grade issuance. In aggregate over 2018, the global cash balances of these 50 companies have declined by $91 billion or 10%. While 18 of these companies have returned to the bond market, we expect more will return as cash balances continue to normalize. We'll continue to monitor this very closely.

雖然美國稅改對我們的獲利表現帶來正面影響，但如我們所預期，它也對發行量造成拖累。事實上，截至 2017 年底海外現金餘額最高的 50 家美國公司，2017 年發行了 1,700 億美元的債務，但 2018 年僅發行 420 億美元。這一下滑導致投資級發行量整體下降 10%。2018 年全年合計，這 50 家公司的全球現金餘額下降 910 億美元，或 10%。雖然其中已有 18 家公司重返債券市場，但我們預期隨著現金餘額持續回歸常態，將有更多公司回到市場。我們將持續非常密切地監測此一情況。

During the fourth quarter, global issuance decreased 19% as the weakness in corporate issuance exceeded strength in some pockets of the structured market. In the U.S., issuance declined 36% as investment grade decreased 34%. High-yield cratered 79%. In fact, December was the first month since LCD began tracking issuance in 2005 that there was no high-yield issuance. Public finance decreased 44% and structured finance declined 16%, with gains in RMBS offset by declines in ABS, CLOs and CMBS. In Europe, issuance decreased 11% as investment grade decreased 25%, high-yield declined 73% and structured finance increased 59%, almost entirely due to strength in covered bonds, a category where we have very little presence. In Asia, issuance increased 8%. Since much of this is made up of local Chinese debt that we currently don't rate, this increase is not meaningful to our results.

在第四季，全球發行量下降 19%，因企業發行的疲弱超過結構性市場部分領域的強勢。在美國，發行量下降 36%，其中投資級下降 34%。高收益債暴跌 79%。事實上，自 LCD 於 2005 年開始追蹤發行量以來，12 月是首次出現沒有任何高收益債發行的月份。公共融資下降 44%，結構性融資下降 16%；其中 RMBS 的增長被 ABS、CLO 與 CMBS 的下滑所抵消。在歐洲，發行量下降 11%，其中投資級下降 25%、高收益下降 73%，而結構性融資上升 59%，幾乎完全來自擔保債（covered bonds）的強勁表現；而在該類別中，我們的市場參與度非常有限。在亞洲，發行量增加 8%。由於其中很大一部分是我們目前不予評等的中國本地債務，因此這一增長對我們的業績並不具實質意義。

While these declines are very significant, let me put the fourth quarter global issuance into perspective. This slide depicts quarterly global issuance for the past 6 years. The fourth quarter of each year is highlighted in dark blue. As you can see, the fourth quarter of 2018 was in line with historical fourth quarters. It's the exceptional issuance in the fourth quarter of 2017 which created a very difficult comparison.

雖然這些下滑幅度非常顯著，但讓我把第四季的全球發行量放在更宏觀的脈絡中來看。這張投影片呈現過去 6 年的季度全球發行量。每年的第四季以深藍色標示。如你所見，2018 年第四季與歷史上的第四季水準大致一致。真正造成比較基期非常困難的是 2017 年第四季的異常高發行量。

There's another dynamic increasingly impacting high-yield issuance. This chart shows that U.S. speculative-grade borrowers are increasingly turning to the bank loan market. The light and dark blue bars illustrate leveraged loans, and the brown bars depict high-yield bonds. The movement from high-yield bonds to leveraged loans is not a concern for the company. These charts depict that in both the U.S. and Europe, leveraged loan volumes have increased and the percentage of these loans that we rate is also increasing. In fact, in 2018, we rated 92% of U.S.-leveraged loans and 84% of European-leveraged loans. And so our bank loan ratings revenue continues to increase, reaching $380 million in 2018. Remember when doing your analysis, leveraged loan activity is not included in bond issuance data.

還有另一個動態正日益影響高收益債發行。這張圖表顯示，美國投機級借款人正愈來愈多轉向銀行貸款市場。淺藍與深藍色長條代表槓桿貸款（leveraged loans），棕色長條代表高收益債。從高收益債轉向槓桿貸款的趨勢並不令公司擔憂。這些圖表顯示，在美國與歐洲，槓桿貸款量均有所增加，而我們對這些貸款進行評等的比例也在提高。事實上，2018 年我們評等了美國槓桿貸款的 92% 與歐洲槓桿貸款的 84%。因此，我們的銀行貸款評等收入持續成長，2018 年達到 3.8 億美元。請記住，在進行分析時，槓桿貸款活動不包含在債券發行數據之中。

Now let me turn to indices. The savings to investors from the lower fees associated with index investing has been dramatic. The bars on this chart depict the growth in total index assets invested in products linked to the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and the S&P SmallCap 600. As the end of 2017, they totaled $3.6 trillion. The line on this chart depicts the fees saved by investors on these products, more than $150 billion in the last 10 years.

接下來我談指數業務。由於指數投資相關費用較低，投資人因此節省的成本相當可觀。此圖表中的長條顯示，連結至 S&P 500、S&P MidCap 400 與 S&P SmallCap 600 的產品，其指數資產總規模的成長。截至 2017 年底，合計達 3.6 兆美元。圖中的折線顯示投資人在這些產品上節省的費用：過去 10 年超過 1,500 億美元。

Turning to industry trends affecting our indices business. This chart depicts the continuing outflows from actively managed U.S. mutual funds into index-based ETFs and mutual funds, a trend that has benefited us as we worked with the markets to provide index products and solutions. And much of this success arose from the visionary legend in the index investment world who passed away last month, Jack Bogle, the father of indexing. Jack wanted to help individual investors save and give them, as he would say, a fair shake, and we're grateful for his vision. In 1976, Jack introduced the first indexed mutual fund, now called the Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Today, this fund, based on the S&P 500, is one of the largest mutual funds in the world with more than $400 billion in AUM. Jack didn't just build a fund, he built an industry.

接著談影響我們指數業務的產業趨勢。這張圖表呈現美國主動式管理共同基金持續出現資金外流，轉而流入以指數為基礎的 ETF 與共同基金；在我們與市場合作提供指數產品與解決方案的過程中，這一趨勢對我們有利。而這些成功有很大一部分源自指數投資領域的遠見傳奇——上個月辭世的「指數之父」Jack Bogle。Jack 希望幫助個人投資人節省成本，並讓他們——如他常說的——得到公平的對待（a fair shake），我們對他的遠見深表感謝。1976 年，Jack 推出了第一檔指數型共同基金，如今稱為 Vanguard 500 Index Fund。今天，這檔以 S&P 500 為基礎的基金，是全球規模最大的共同基金之一，資產管理規模（AUM）超過 4,000 億美元。Jack 不僅打造了一檔基金，他打造了一個產業。

Specifically to ETF AUM associated with our indices, we saw a decline in 2018 due to the year-end market correction. For the full year, market declines led to a $125 billion reduction in year-end ETF AUM. Despite this decline, inflows continued, adding $90 billion in ETF AUM.

具體而言，就與我們指數相關的 ETF 資產管理規模（AUM）而言，我們在 2018 年因年末市場修正而出現下滑。就全年而言，市場下跌導致年末 ETF AUM 減少 1,250 億美元。儘管出現下滑，資金流入仍持續，為 ETF AUM 增加了 900 億美元。

I'd like to shift to our 2019 outlook. Our economists expect 2019 global GDP growth of 3.6%, slightly lower than the 2018 forecast of 3.8%, with lower growth in the U.S., Europe and China. Our economists believe that there is only a 15% to 20% chance of a U.S. recession in 2019.

我想轉到我們對 2019 年的展望。我們的經濟學家預期 2019 年全球 GDP 成長為 3.6%，略低於 2018 年預測的 3.8%，且美國、歐洲與中國的成長將較低。我們的經濟學家認為，2019 年美國發生衰退的機率僅有 15% 至 20%。

Last month, Ratings issued its annual global refinancing study. This yearly study shows debt maturities for the upcoming 5 years. The chart on the left illustrates data from the 2018 and 2019 studies. The 5-year period in the 2019 study shows a $400 billion increase in the total debt maturing versus the 2018 study. We use this study, along with other market-based data, to forecast issuance. Taking a closer look at data from the study reveals an important trend in high-yield maturities. Over the next 5 years, the level of high-yield debt maturing significantly increases each year, which is a potential source of revenue in the coming years.

上個月，Ratings 發布了其年度全球再融資研究報告。這份年度研究顯示未來 5 年的債務到期情況。左側圖表呈現 2018 與 2019 年研究中的數據。2019 年研究所涵蓋的 5 年期間顯示，與 2018 年研究相比，到期的債務總額增加了 4,000 億美元。我們使用這份研究，並結合其他以市場為基礎的數據，來預測發行量。更仔細檢視研究數據可揭示高收益債到期的一項重要趨勢。在未來 5 年內，每年到期的高收益債規模都將顯著增加，這可能成為未來幾年的潛在營收來源。

The company updated its 2019 bond issuance forecast in a report issued last week. Excluding international public finance, issuance is expected to decrease less than 1%.

公司在上週發布的一份報告中更新了其 2019 年債券發行預測。若排除國際公共融資，預期發行量降幅將不到 1%。

During Investor Day, we introduced the framework, Powering the Markets of the Future, including 6 foundational capabilities. We used this framework to set our goals and allocate resources.

在投資人日（Investor Day）上，我們介紹了「驅動未來市場（Powering the Markets of the Future）」的框架，其中包含 6 項基礎能力。我們運用此框架來設定目標並配置資源。

So in 2019, here are some of the top projects and initiatives we've prioritized and aligned to this framework. Under Global, we believe that they're in a unique position to bring additional transparency and independent analytics to the capital markets in China. The Ratings opportunity that I just discussed is one example. In addition, Market Intelligence will be expanding its private company and local content within rich data, risk analytics and models in China. Platts will be extending its commercial presence in Asia in additional locations with a larger sales force.

因此在 2019 年，以下是我們優先推動並與此框架對齊的一些重點專案與倡議。在全球（Global）方面，我們相信他們具備獨特優勢，能為中國資本市場帶來更多透明度與獨立分析。我剛才談到的 Ratings 機會就是一個例子。此外，Market Intelligence 將在中國擴充其私營公司與在地內容，並納入更豐富的數據、風險分析與模型。Platts 將在亞洲更多地點擴大其商業布局，並以更大的銷售團隊拓展業務。

Under customer orientation, we continue to build out the Market Intelligence platform, which will be rebranded as the S&P Global platform. We'll continue to migrate both Capital IQ content and Capital IQ users to the platform. In addition, we will be adding Platts pricing and news content to the platform and expanding the Ratings360 content. These efforts are intended to create an increasingly rich user experience for our customers.

在客戶導向（customer orientation）方面，我們持續建置 Market Intelligence 平台，並將其重新品牌為 S&P Global 平台。我們將持續把 Capital IQ 內容與 Capital IQ 使用者遷移至該平台。此外，我們也會把 Platts 的定價與新聞內容加入平台，並擴充 Ratings360 內容。這些努力旨在為客戶打造愈加豐富的使用者體驗。

Under innovation, we're ramping up our ESG data factory by centralizing data sets from across the company as well as adding new data sets. We're also creating new data feeds for our customers. Our indices business will be expanding its offering of ESG and smart beta indices.

在創新（innovation）方面，我們正加速推進 ESG 數據工廠，將公司各處的資料集集中化，並新增新的資料集。我們也在為客戶建立新的數據饋送（data feeds）。我們的指數業務將擴大其 ESG 與智慧貝塔（smart beta）指數的產品供給。

Under technology, we're moving out of several data centers and into cloud operation. In addition, as Ewout will review in a moment, we're implementing numerous Kensho-related projects.

在科技（technology）方面，我們正從多個資料中心遷出並轉向雲端運作。此外，正如 Ewout 稍後將回顧的，我們正在推動多項與 Kensho 相關的專案。

Under operational excellence, we'll continue our efforts to optimize the management of data ingestion and operations. We'll also be leveraging artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities throughout our data operations. And while cybersecurity has already been an area of focus, it's important that we keep improving our capabilities as benchmarked against the NIST framework.

在營運卓越（operational excellence）方面，我們將持續努力優化資料匯入（data ingestion）與營運的管理。我們也將在整個資料營運中運用人工智慧與機器學習能力。此外，雖然資安（cybersecurity）已是我們的重點領域，但重要的是，我們必須持續提升能力，並以 NIST 框架作為對標。

Under people, we'll extend a program that was initiated in 2018 to raise the technological acumen of all of our employees through a series of online and classroom training courses. We'll also maintain our commitment to diversity and inclusion.

在人員（people）方面，我們將延續一項於 2018 年啟動的計畫，透過一系列線上與教室課程訓練，提升所有員工的科技素養。我們也將維持對多元與共融（diversity and inclusion）的承諾。

And finally, I want to bring your attention to a campaign that we introduced at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. It's entitled #ChangePays. Using our data and insights, we were able to demonstrate that greater workforce inclusivity leads to healthier, stronger economies. Our campaign illuminates the positive impact of women in the workforce on companies, organizations, economies and global communities. Please take a look at our research and watch the #ChangePays video. And while you're at it, take a look at our 2018 corporate responsibility report for all we are doing in ESG.

最後，我想請各位注意我們上個月在達沃斯世界經濟論壇推出的一項活動。其名稱為 #ChangePays。運用我們的數據與洞見，我們得以證明，更高程度的勞動力共融能帶來更健康、更強韌的經濟。我們的活動闡明女性在職場中對企業、組織、經濟與全球社群所帶來的正面影響。請查看我們的研究並觀看 #ChangePays 影片。同時，也請看看我們的 2018 年企業責任報告，了解我們在 ESG 方面所做的一切。

And now I'd like to turn the call over to Ewout Steenbergen, who'll provide additional insights into our capital plans and financial performance. Ewout?

現在我想把電話會議交給 Ewout Steenbergen，他將就我們的資本規劃與財務表現提供更多洞見。Ewout？

Thank you, Doug, and good morning to all of you on the call.

謝謝你，Doug，也向各位參與電話會議的朋友道早安。

Let me start with our fourth quarter financial results. Organic revenue decreased 4% as issuance-driven declines in Ratings exceeded growth in the other 3 segments. Adjusted corporate and allocated loss was improved by 24% due to lower incentive compensation as well as our productivity efforts to lower real estate costs and a reduction in professional fees. Adjusted total expense declined due to lower incentive compensation and success with our ongoing productivity efforts. This led to a 270-basis-point improvement in our adjusted operating profit margin.

我先從我們第四季的財務結果談起。由於 Ratings 因發行量驅動的下滑幅度超過其他 3 個事業部的成長，有機營收（organic revenue）下降 4%。由於獎酬性薪酬降低，以及我們透過生產力提升措施降低不動產成本並減少專業服務費用，調整後公司層級與分攤損失（adjusted corporate and allocated loss）改善了 24%。調整後總費用因獎酬性薪酬降低，以及我們持續推動的生產力提升措施奏效而下降。這使我們的調整後營業利益率提升了 270 個基點。

While U.S. tax reform has substantially lowered our adjusted effective tax rate, this quarter, it was unusually low because new tax regulations related to U.S. tax reform were issued in the fourth quarter, which altered our previous assumptions. When the stock declined in the fourth quarter, we initiated a new $500 million ASR. This program, along with other share repurchases, resulted in a 2% decline in our diluted weighted average shares outstanding. And finally, we achieved a 20% increase in our adjusted diluted EPS to $2.22 during the fourth quarter.

雖然美國稅改已大幅降低我們的調整後有效稅率，但本季稅率異常偏低，原因是與美國稅改相關的新稅務規定於第四季發布，改變了我們先前的假設。當股價在第四季下跌時，我們啟動了一項新的 5 億美元 ASR（加速股票回購）。此計畫連同其他股票回購，使我們的稀釋加權平均流通股數下降 2%。最後，我們在第四季達成調整後稀釋每股盈餘（EPS）成長 20% 至 2.22 美元。

Because of the unusual level of stock option activity in the third quarter of 2017, the stock-based compensation tax benefit that we received in 2018 was $0.14 lower than in 2017. As the number of employee stock options continues to decline, we expect the stock-based compensation tax benefit to decline as well. For 2019, we estimate a positive EPS impact of $0.05 to $0.10.

由於 2017 年第三季股票選擇權活動水準異常，導致我們在 2018 年取得的股票基礎薪酬稅務利益（stock-based compensation tax benefit）較 2017 年少 0.14 美元。隨著員工股票選擇權數量持續下降，我們預期股票基礎薪酬稅務利益也將隨之下降。對於 2019 年，我們估計對 EPS 的正面影響為 0.05 至 0.10 美元。

Changes in foreign exchange rates had a modest negative impact on revenue in the Ratings business and a positive $15 million impact on adjusted operating profit for the company or about $0.05 of adjusted diluted EPS. Our expenses were positively impacted by the weakening of the Indian rupee, British pound and Argentine peso. For the full year, changes in foreign exchange rates had a favorable impact of $0.19 on adjusted diluted EPS.

外匯匯率變動對 Ratings 業務營收造成輕微負面影響，但對公司調整後營業利益帶來 1,500 萬美元的正面影響，約相當於調整後稀釋 EPS 的 0.05 美元。由於印度盧比、英鎊與阿根廷披索走弱，我們的費用受到正面影響。就全年而言，外匯匯率變動對調整後稀釋 EPS 帶來 0.19 美元的有利影響。

There were a number of non-GAAP adjustments to operating profit this quarter: $16 million in restructuring charges in Ratings and Market Intelligence, we expect that this will result in $15 million in annual savings; a $5 million noncash accounting adjustment associated with our U.K. pension plan; $9 million in Kensho retention-related expenses; and we had $31 million in deal-related amortization.

本季營業利益有多項非 GAAP 調整：評級（Ratings）與市場情報（Market Intelligence）業務的重組費用 1,600 萬美元，我們預期這將帶來每年 1,500 萬美元的節省；與我們英國退休金計畫相關的 500 萬美元非現金會計調整；Kensho 的 900 萬美元留任相關費用；以及 3,100 萬美元的交易相關攤銷。

This is a slide that we shared at our Investor Day in May. It depicts the framework that we outlined to show the areas where we can most impact shareholder value. The first 2 require investments. We need to continue to invest to fuel revenue momentum by improving our products, introducing new technology, adding new data sets and entering new geographies. We have made great progress delivering EBITDA enhancement, and we must continue to fund new organic opportunities to drive additional productivity gains. Driving financial leverage involves optimizing interest costs, reducing shares outstanding and optimizing the tax rate. And finally, we want to return capital to shareholders while maintaining flexible debt capacity. We are committed to returning at least 75% of annual free cash flow to shareholders each year.

這是我們在 5 月投資人日分享的一張投影片。它呈現了我們所概述的架構，用以說明我們最能影響股東價值的領域。前兩項需要投資。我們需要持續投資，透過改善產品、導入新技術、增加新資料集並進入新地理市場，以推動營收動能。我們在提升 EBITDA 方面已取得重大進展，且必須持續投入新的有機機會，以帶動進一步的生產力提升。推動財務槓桿涉及最佳化利息成本、降低流通在外股數並最佳化稅率。最後，我們希望在維持彈性的負債承載能力之下，將資本回饋給股東。我們承諾每年將至少 75% 的年度自由現金流回饋給股東。

This quarter, we recorded strong revenue growth in S&P Dow Jones Indices, Market Intelligence and Platts. Ratings declined due to lower debt issuance. With the exception of the revenue-driven shortfall in Ratings, revenue growth and productivity efforts resulted in substantial adjusted operating profit and adjusted operating profit margin improvement in every other business segment.

本季，S&P 道瓊指數（S&P Dow Jones Indices）、市場情報（Market Intelligence）與 Platts 的營收成長強勁。評級（Ratings）因債務發行量下降而下滑。除評級（Ratings）因營收驅動的缺口外，營收成長與生產力措施使其他各業務部門的調整後營業利益與調整後營業利益率皆大幅改善。

Here, you see our headcount by business at the end of the last 3 years. The key takeaway is that over the past 2 years, headcount has increased 6% and revenue and adjusted diluted EPS have increased 11% and 59%, respectively. The major additions have been from acquisitions and insourcing of contractors.

在此可看到我們過去 3 年年底按業務別的員工人數。重點是，過去 2 年員工人數增加 6%，而營收與調整後稀釋 EPS 分別增加 11% 與 59%。主要新增人力來自併購以及將外包承包商內部化。

At Investor Day, we cited a new $100 million 3-year cost-reduction plan. It was based on productivity improvements often through investments in support functions, real estate, technology and digital infrastructure. I'm pleased to report that after our first year, we estimate that we have achieved run rate savings of approximately $60 million, of which about $40 million was realized in our 2018 results. Examples includes: reducing our real estate footprint by exiting space at our New York headquarters and at our London office; consolidating data centers; and offshoring certain business services.

在投資人日，我們提出一項新的 3 年期 1 億美元成本削減計畫。該計畫以生產力提升為基礎，通常透過對支援職能、不動產、科技與數位基礎設施的投資來達成。我很高興報告，在第一年結束後，我們估計已達成約 6,000 萬美元的年度化（run rate）節省，其中約 4,000 萬美元已反映在 2018 年的結果中。例子包括：退出紐約總部與倫敦辦公室的部分空間以縮減不動產占用；整併資料中心；以及將部分企業服務離岸外包。

Now turning to the balance sheet. In 2018, our return of capital to shareholders exceeded 100% of 2018 free cash flow. This was accomplished by returning $1.66 billion to repurchase 8.4 million shares and paying $503 million in dividends. In addition, we're actively working to fuel future revenue growth through acquisitions and organic investments. Collectively, these actions resulted in a $800 million decline in our cash balances versus the end of 2017.

接著看資產負債表。2018 年，我們回饋股東的資本超過 2018 年自由現金流的 100%。這是透過回饋 16.6 億美元以回購 840 萬股，以及支付 5.03 億美元股利所達成。此外，我們也正積極透過併購與有機投資來推動未來營收成長。綜合而言，這些行動使我們的現金餘額較 2017 年底減少 8 億美元。

Our adjusted gross leverage to adjusted EBITDA is holding steady at 1.9x, well within our targeted range. While we have begun already our 2019 share repurchases program with open market purchases of approximately $130 million in January, we'll initiate a new $500 million ASR in the next few days.

我們的調整後總槓桿（相對於調整後 EBITDA）維持在 1.9 倍，仍遠在我們的目標區間之內。雖然我們已在 1 月透過公開市場買進約 1.3 億美元，啟動 2019 年股票回購計畫，但我們將在未來幾天內啟動一項新的 5 億美元 ASR（加速股票回購）。

Free cash flow, excluding certain items, increased 8% in 2018 to $2 billion. This level is a bit lower than our 2018 forecast due to lower fourth quarter Ratings revenue and a longer renewal process associated with enterprise-wide contracts in Market Intelligence. The latter is due to a timing issue that will reverse in 2019.

2018 年，扣除特定項目後的自由現金流增加 8% 至 20 億美元。由於第四季評級（Ratings）營收較低，以及市場情報（Market Intelligence）與企業級合約相關的續約流程較長，該水準略低於我們對 2018 年的預測。後者屬於時點因素，將在 2019 年反轉。

Now let's turn to the segment results, starting with Ratings. The decline in issuance, particularly high-yield issuance that Doug discussed, resulted in a 16% decline in Ratings revenue. Nevertheless, we reported a 16% decline in adjusted expenses, resulting in a 10-basis-point increase in adjusted segment operating profit margin. The expense reductions were primarily from productivity programs, lower incentive compensation accruals and lower IT spend as Ratings has established an IT center in India and has insourced much of its IT spend. For 2018, Ratings delivered a 240-basis-point improvement in adjusted segment operating profit margin to 56%. This is particularly notable in light of the 4% decline in revenue for the year. The Ratings cost structure is well positioned for a recovery in issuance.

接下來看各部門表現，先從評級（Ratings）開始。發行量下滑，特別是 Doug 所提到的高收益發行，導致評級（Ratings）營收下滑 16%。儘管如此，我們的調整後費用下降 16%，使調整後部門營業利益率提高 10 個基點。費用下降主要來自生產力計畫、較低的獎酬激勵提列，以及較低的 IT 支出；因為評級（Ratings）已在印度設立 IT 中心，並將多數 IT 支出內部化。2018 年，評級（Ratings）的調整後部門營業利益率提升 240 個基點至 56%。考量全年營收下滑 4%，這點尤其值得注意。評級（Ratings）的成本結構已為發行量復甦做好良好準備。

Non-transaction revenue decreased primarily due to a $6 million impact from changes in foreign exchange. In addition, there were lower excess issuance fees associated with medium-term notes and lower Rating Evaluation Services activity. Transaction revenue decreased due to debt issuance reductions, partially offset by increased bank loan rating activity. Non-transaction revenue has been a steady source of growth. This is because the majority of the revenue is subscription-like. However, there is some volatility of certain components, namely Rating Evaluation Services, ebb and flow with M&A activity and changes in foreign exchange rates can always have an impact.

非交易型營收下降，主要是外匯變動帶來 600 萬美元的影響。此外，與中期票據相關的超額發行費用較低，以及評級評估服務（Rating Evaluation Services）活動減少。交易型營收因債務發行量下降而減少，部分被銀行貸款評級活動增加所抵銷。非交易型營收一直是穩定的成長來源。這是因為大部分營收具有類訂閱性質。然而，某些組成項目仍有波動性，尤其是評級評估服務（Rating Evaluation Services）會隨併購活動起伏；而外匯匯率變動也一向可能造成影響。

This slide depicts Ratings revenue by its end markets. The largest contributor to the decline in Ratings revenue was the 15% decline in corporates, primary as a result of U.S. tax reform that Doug discussed earlier. Issuance declines associated with market volatility also drove the declining revenue. Financial services revenue decreased 22%, structured finance declined 14% and governments decreased 33%. While the CRISIL and other category decreased 2%, it included an increase in intersegment royalties for Market Intelligence, offset by a decline in CRISIL's dollar-denominated revenue.

這張投影片呈現評級（Ratings）按終端市場劃分的營收。評級（Ratings）營收下滑的最大因素是企業（corporates）下滑 15%，主要是 Doug 先前提到的美國稅改所致。與市場波動相關的發行量下降也推動營收下滑。金融服務營收下降 22%，結構性融資下降 14%，政府類別下降 33%。CRISIL 與其他類別下降 2%；其中包含對市場情報（Market Intelligence）的跨部門權利金增加，但被 CRISIL 以美元計價營收下降所抵銷。

Market Intelligence delivered a strong quarter with organic revenue, excluding revenue from Panjiva and RateWatch, increasing 7% and active desktop user growth of 12%. With adjusted expenses down 1%, adjusted segment operating profit increased 27%. And the adjusted segment operating profit margin increased 570 basis points to 38.5%, a new high point. For the full year, the adjusted segment operating profit margin increased 200 basis points to 34.1%. While we are thrilled with the fourth quarter margin, the full year margin is more representative of our current run rate.

市場情報（Market Intelligence）本季表現強勁：扣除 Panjiva 與 RateWatch 的營收後，有機營收成長 7%，活躍桌面端使用者成長 12%。在調整後費用下降 1% 的情況下，調整後部門營業利益增加 27%。調整後部門營業利益率提高 570 個基點至 38.5%，創新高。全年而言，調整後部門營業利益率提高 200 個基點至 34.1%。雖然我們對第四季的利潤率表現非常振奮，但全年利潤率更能代表我們目前的常態化水準（run rate）。

Beginning this quarter, we began integrating Trucost into Market Intelligence. Market Intelligence has a lot of ESG activity underway, and we believe the business is better suited to be included here. Desktop, the largest category, grew 6%. Data Management Solutions realized 12% revenue growth, once again benefiting from expansion of the data feeds business. Risk Services grew 6% with RatingsXpress providing the greatest level of growth as we continue to expand the data feeds portion of Risk Services.

自本季起，我們開始將 Trucost 整合至市場情報（Market Intelligence）。市場情報（Market Intelligence）正在推進大量 ESG 相關工作，我們認為將該業務納入此處更為合適。桌面端（Desktop）作為最大類別，成長 6%。資料管理解決方案（Data Management Solutions）營收成長 12%，再次受惠於資料饋送（data feeds）業務的擴張。風險服務（Risk Services）成長 6%，其中 RatingsXpress 提供了最大幅度的成長，因為我們持續擴大風險服務中的資料饋送部分。

Turning to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The segment delivered 13% revenue growth, 7% adjusted expense growth and 17% adjusted segment operating profit growth. This led to an adjusted segment operating profit margin of 67.1% for the quarter and 68% for the full year, increases of 220 and 160 basis points, respectively. Strong revenue growth during the quarter was driven by a 43% increase in exchange-traded derivatives from increased market volatility and a 19% increase in data and custom subscriptions. Data and custom subscriptions increased due to a catch-up in real-time reporting that we first discussed in the second quarter as well as from organic growth. Asset-linked fees increased 4%, primarily due to increased average AUM in ETFs and mutual funds linked to our indices. It is important to understand that asset-linked fees include revenue associated with ETFs, mutual funds and certain over-the-counter derivatives. Investors frequently assume that all this revenue is related to ETFs.

接著談到 S&P 道瓊指數（S&P Dow Jones Indices）。該業務分部營收成長 13%，調整後費用成長 7%，調整後分部營業利益成長 17%。因此，本季調整後分部營業利益率為 67.1%，全年為 68%，分別提升 220 與 160 個基點。本季強勁的營收成長主要由交易所交易衍生性商品（exchange-traded derivatives）因市場波動加劇而成長 43%，以及資料與客製化訂閱成長 19%所帶動。資料與客製化訂閱的增加，來自我們在第二季首次提到的即時報導（real-time reporting）補回進度，以及有機成長。資產連結費用（asset-linked fees）成長 4%，主要因與我們指數連結之 ETF 與共同基金的平均資產管理規模（AUM）增加。需要理解的是，資產連結費用包含與 ETF、共同基金以及某些場外（over-the-counter）衍生性商品相關的營收。投資人常常以為這些營收全部都與 ETF 有關。

Despite the market downturn at the end of 2018, inflows into passive products continued in the fourth quarter, both for the industry and for ETFs tied to our indices. For our indices, business ETF net inflows were $22 billion in the fourth quarter and $90 billion for the full year. The average AUM in the fourth quarter increased 9% year-over-year. I want to make a clear distinction between average AUM and quarter-ending AUM.

儘管 2018 年底市場下跌，被動式產品的資金流入在第四季仍持續，不論是整體產業或是與我們指數連結的 ETF 皆然。就我們的指數業務而言，第四季 ETF 淨流入為 220 億美元，全年為 900 億美元。第四季平均 AUM 年增 9%。我想清楚區分平均 AUM 與季末 AUM。

Our contracts are based on average AUM. We disclose quarter-ending figures because flows and market gains and losses are best depicted using quarter-end figures, as shown in the waterfall chart on the right. While average AUM increased, quarter-ending AUM declined versus the end of the fourth quarter 2017. A year ago, there was $1.343 trillion in ETF AUM linked to our indices. At the end of 2018, there was $1.309 trillion. During 2018, we saw $90 billion of inflows and $125 billion in stock market declines. Industry inflows into exchange-traded funds were $168 billion in the fourth quarter and $499 billion in 2018. Clearly, we are encouraged by the recovery in ETF AUM in January.

我們的合約是以平均 AUM 為基礎。我們揭露季末數字，是因為資金流向以及市場漲跌最適合用季末數字呈現，如右側瀑布圖所示。雖然平均 AUM 增加，但季末 AUM 相較於 2017 年第四季末有所下降。一年前，與我們指數連結的 ETF AUM 為 1.343 兆美元。到 2018 年底為 1.309 兆美元。2018 年期間，我們看到 900 億美元的資金流入，以及 1,250 億美元的股市下跌影響。產業整體流入交易所交易基金（ETF）的資金在第四季為 1,680 億美元，2018 年全年為 4,990 億美元。顯然，我們對 1 月 ETF AUM 的回升感到鼓舞。

Key indicators for our exchange-traded derivatives volume were extremely strong during the quarter. S&P 500 index options activity increased 36%, VIX futures and options activity increased 2% and activity at the CME equity complex increased 71%. For the full year, S&P 500 index options activity increased 26%. VIX futures and options activity decreased 6% and activity at the CME equity complex increased 34%.

本季我們的交易所交易衍生性商品成交量關鍵指標極為強勁。S&P 500 指數選擇權活動量增加 36%，VIX 期貨與選擇權活動量增加 2%，CME 股票相關產品組合（equity complex）活動量增加 71%。全年而言，S&P 500 指數選擇權活動量增加 26%。VIX 期貨與選擇權活動量下降 6%，CME 股票相關產品組合活動量增加 34%。

And now turning to the last business segment. Platts delivered healthy revenue and margin growth. Revenue increased 7% as a result of a 7% increase in core subscriptions and 11% increase in Global Trading Services, partially offset by a decline in other revenue, which is mostly from conferences. Adjusted expense declined 2% due to reduced incentive accruals and a reduction in outside services. The fourth quarter adjusted segment operating profit margin increased 470 basis points to 48.2%. The full year adjusted segment operating profit margin increased 200 basis points to 49.1%.

接著談到最後一個業務分部。Platts 交出穩健的營收與利潤率成長。營收成長 7%，來自核心訂閱成長 7%以及全球交易服務（Global Trading Services）成長 11%，部分被其他營收下滑所抵銷，而其他營收主要來自會議。由於獎酬提列（incentive accruals）降低以及外部服務費用減少，調整後費用下降 2%。第四季調整後分部營業利益率提升 470 個基點至 48.2%。全年調整後分部營業利益率提升 200 個基點至 49.1%。

This chart depicts Global Trading Services revenue by quarter for the last 3 years. There's volatility from quarter to quarter as the underlying trading volume fluctuates. However, GTS does provide a constant revenue contribution to the Platts business. During the fourth quarter, revenue improved due mainly to increased trading volumes in certain gas oil and fuel oil markets. Platts revenue increased in the quarter as all 4 commodity groups delivered mid-single-digit growth.

此圖呈現過去 3 年全球交易服務（GTS）按季營收。由於基礎交易量波動，季度之間會有起伏。然而，GTS 的確為 Platts 業務提供穩定的營收貢獻。第四季營收改善主要來自特定燃料油（gas oil）與燃料油（fuel oil）市場交易量增加。本季 Platts 營收增加，因為四大商品群皆繳出中個位數成長。

During Investor Day in May 2018, we introduced medium-term aspirational targets for the company. We are pleased to use this morning's investor call to reiterate these targets and to share the great progress we have made in just the first year. We target to deliver organic revenue growth of mid to high single-digit each year. During 2018, we achieved the target in 3 of our 4 businesses. Unfortunately, Ratings fell short due to market factors.

在 2018 年 5 月的投資人日（Investor Day），我們提出公司中期的願景性目標（medium-term aspirational targets）。我們很高興利用今天早上的投資人電話會議重申這些目標，並分享我們僅在第一年就取得的重大進展。我們的目標是每年達成中到高個位數的有機營收成長。2018 年，我們在 4 個業務中的 3 個達成了該目標。遺憾的是，評級（Ratings）因市場因素未達標。

We target low double-digit adjusted EPS growth. During 2018, we delivered 23%. We're committed to return at least 75% of our free cash flow each year. In 2018, we returned 108% through share repurchases and dividends. And we established adjusted operating profit margin levels that we target to achieve in the next 3 to 4 years. In the first year, we made substantial progress with each of the businesses contributing to an overall 230 basis point improvement in the company's adjusted operating profit margin. We're energized by our progress and confident as we begin the second year of this effort.

我們的目標是調整後每股盈餘（EPS）達到低雙位數成長。2018 年我們達成 23%。我們承諾每年至少回饋 75% 的自由現金流。2018 年我們透過庫藏股回購與股利回饋了 108%。我們也設定了未來 3 到 4 年要達成的調整後營業利益率水準。在第一年，各業務皆做出重大貢獻，使公司整體調整後營業利益率提升 230 個基點。我們對進展感到振奮，並在展開第二年努力之際充滿信心。

In 2019, we plan to invest $90 million to $110 million in new projects to fuel additional future organic growth. This is an increase over the $60 million we invested in 2018.

2019 年，我們計畫投資 9,000 萬至 1.1 億美元於新專案，以推動未來更多的有機成長。這高於我們在 2018 年投資的 6,000 萬美元。

The first category for investment is global growth. With regulatory approvals now secured, Ratings will continue to build its domestic ratings capability in China and Platts is working to expand its commercial operations in Asia. Market Intelligence has a China initiative that involves setting up digital infrastructure and domestic operations as well as adding additional global capability to the S&P Global platform.

第一類投資是全球成長。在取得監管核准後，Ratings 將持續在中國建立其國內評級能力，而 Platts 正致力於擴展其在亞洲的商業營運。Market Intelligence 有一項中國計畫，包含建立數位基礎設施與國內營運，同時也為 S&P Global 平台增添更多全球能力。

The second category is innovation with plans to ramp up our ESG data factory as a central source to serve ESG offerings from various business segments, including new ESG analytics and data products that we will be piloting. Platts agriculture acceleration involves extending news and data offerings and expanding into additional commodities. We'll also expand the number of projects that are underway as part of our Kensho initiative.

第二類是創新；我們計畫加速擴建 ESG 資料工廠（ESG data factory），作為集中來源以支援各業務分部的 ESG 產品，包括我們將進行試點的新 ESG 分析與資料產品。Platts 農業加速計畫包含延伸新聞與資料服務，並擴展至更多商品。我們也將擴大 Kensho 計畫下正在進行的專案數量。

The third category is in technology. We're adding investments to continue the deployment of data science, AI, cloud, machine learning and robotics tools. We'll also continue to raise the technology acumen of all employees through a multitude of training programs. All of these investments are aimed at either growing revenue or enhancing EBITDA.

第三類是科技。我們將增加投資，以持續部署資料科學、AI、雲端、機器學習與機器人流程自動化（robotics）工具。我們也將透過多元訓練計畫，持續提升全體員工的科技素養與能力。所有這些投資的目的，不是為了帶動營收成長，就是為了提升 EBITDA。

Next, I would like to update you on Kensho. One of the greatest challenges we have had with Kensho is prioritizing the large number of projects that employees have identified. Projects generally can be grouped in 3 key areas: data ingestion, data processing, and data and document delivery. Within these categories, there are a number of projects that are underway. Omnisearch and entity linking are 2 we have cited in the past.

接下來，我想向各位更新 Kensho 的進展。我們在 Kensho 面臨的最大挑戰之一，是如何在員工提出的大量專案中排定優先順序。這些專案通常可歸納為 3 個關鍵領域：資料匯入（data ingestion）、資料處理（data processing），以及資料與文件交付（data and document delivery）。在這些類別之下，有多個專案正在進行中。Omnisearch 與實體連結（entity linking）是我們過去曾提到的兩項。

Omnisearch is the next generation of search capability for our Market Intelligence, Ratings360 and Platts LNG service applications. It leverages advanced machine learning techniques to bring natural language search to our web and mobile platforms. We're also working to link user personas to more relevant responses as well as expanding the data sets that will be searchable. The first release will be available in the first half of 2019 to a select group of clients for preview and feedback and then released in a broader capacity later in 2019 or the first half of 2020.

Omnisearch 是我們 Market Intelligence、Ratings360 以及 Platts LNG 服務應用程式的下一代搜尋能力。它運用先進的機器學習技術，將自然語言搜尋帶到我們的網頁與行動平台。我們也正致力於將使用者角色（persona）與更相關的回應連結起來，並擴大可被搜尋的資料集。第一版將於 2019 年上半年提供給一小部分客戶進行預覽與回饋，之後於 2019 年下半年或 2020 年上半年更廣泛地推出。

Entity linking involves using machine learning to link data from different sources to correct entities without errors and in a fraction of the time it would take our employees. It unlocks the ability to ingest data sets that are too large to be done with traditional methods. In addition to the Crunchbase data we previously discussed, we have been working on certain data sets for private company data in China and the U.K. For the U.K. data, we plan to make the first 100,000 companies available in the first quarter of this year with subsequent releases of coverage throughout 2019.

實體連結（entity linking）是運用機器學習，將不同來源的資料在無錯誤的情況下連結到正確的實體，且所需時間僅為我們員工所需時間的一小部分。它讓我們能夠匯入以傳統方法無法處理、規模過於龐大的資料集。除了我們先前討論過的 Crunchbase 資料外，我們也一直在處理中國與英國的私營公司資料之特定資料集。

Codex is a next-generation, customer-oriented platform designed to ingest any document and provide the relevant data and information for a particular user's needs. A first version of the platform has been built and demonstrations are underway. A proof-of-concept user case has been created for Ratings analysts to alert them to new relevant information more quickly.

Codex 是新一代、以客戶為導向的平台，旨在匯入任何文件，並依特定使用者的需求提供相關資料與資訊。平台的第一個版本已建置完成，並正在進行展示。我們已為評級分析師建立一個概念驗證（proof-of-concept）的使用案例，以更快速地提醒他們新的相關資訊。

We have numerous other projects underway in data processing and delivery. The first projects were initiated in just 9 months since acquiring Kensho. We estimate the initial projects in Omnisearch, entity linking and Codex, which are the most advanced, have the potential to generate a net present value equal to approximately 1/3 of the purchase price of Kensho. We have numerous other projects underway in data processing and data delivery and numerous others that have been identified but not yet begun. We believe that this is a very positive start with much more value generation to be achieved during the next few years.

我們在資料處理與交付方面還有許多其他專案正在進行中。自收購 Kensho 起僅 9 個月，我們就啟動了第一批專案。我們估計，Omnisearch、實體連結與 Codex 這些最先進的初始專案，具有創造相當於 Kensho 收購價約三分之一之淨現值（NPV）的潛力。我們在資料處理與資料交付方面還有許多其他專案正在進行，也已辨識出更多專案但尚未開始。我們相信這是一個非常正面的起步，未來幾年仍有更多價值可望實現。

Now lastly, I would like to introduce our 2019 guidance. This slide depicts our GAAP guidance. Please keep in mind that our guidance reflects current spot market ForEx rates. This slide shows our adjusted guidance, an increase in revenue of mid-single-digits with contributions by every business segment.

最後，我想介紹我們對 2019 年的財測指引。這張投影片呈現我們的 GAAP 指引。請記得，我們的指引反映目前即期市場的外匯（ForEx）匯率。這張投影片顯示我們的調整後指引：營收成長為中個位數百分比，且每個業務部門皆有貢獻。

We have decided to record Kensho revenue in Market Intelligence going forward. Therefore, we are providing guidance on corporate unallocated expense excluding any revenue, of $155 million to $165 million; deal-related amortization of $120 million to $125 million; Kensho retention plans of $20 million to $25 million; operating profit margin in the range of 48.8% to 49.8%; interest expense of $145 million to $150 million; a tax rate of 22.5% to 23.5%, this is an increase over 2018 because we expect to have a lower benefit from employee stock-based compensation as well as less discrete benefits from prior year tax adjustments; and diluted EPS, which excludes deal-related amortization, of $8.95 to $9.15. In addition, we expect capital expenditures of approximately $120 million and free cash flow, excluding certain items, in the range of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion.

我們已決定，未來將 Kensho 的營收計入 Market Intelligence。因此，我們提供的指引包括：公司未分攤費用（不含任何營收）為 1.55 億至 1.65 億美元；交易相關攤銷為 1.20 億至 1.25 億美元；Kensho 留任計畫為 2,000 萬至 2,500 萬美元；營業利益率介於 48.8% 至 49.8%；利息費用為 1.45 億至 1.50 億美元；稅率為 22.5% 至 23.5%，較 2018 年提高，因我們預期員工股票基礎給付的稅務利益較低，且來自前一年度稅務調整的一次性利益較少；以及稀釋後每股盈餘（EPS）（不含交易相關攤銷）為 8.95 至 9.15 美元。此外，我們預期資本支出約為 1.20 億美元，自由現金流（排除特定項目）介於 22 億至 23 億美元。

In 2019, we are increasing our organic investments in productivity programs and new revenue opportunities, and we will continue to look for opportunities to add unique data analytics and geographies. Despite so many pending global economic issues, this guidance reflects our expectation that we will continue to deliver solid financial performance again in 2019.

在 2019 年，我們將增加對提升生產力計畫與新營收機會的有機投資，並將持續尋找機會，納入獨特的資料分析能力與新的地理區域。儘管全球經濟仍有許多待解決的議題，這份指引反映我們的預期：我們將在 2019 年再次交出穩健的財務表現。

With that, let me turn the call back over to Chip for your questions.

接下來，我把電話交回給 Chip 來回答各位的問題。

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Operator, we'll now take our first question.

謝謝。(接線員指示) 接線員，現在我們開始第一個問題。

This question comes from Toni Kaplan from Morgan Stanley.

這個問題來自 Morgan Stanley 的 Toni Kaplan。

Transaction revenue this quarter was, not surprisingly, weak just given the issuance levels. And January issuance was maybe modestly better than 4Q, but still down double digits according to our sources. So can you give a bit more color on how you're thinking about the credit environment as we progress through the year?

本季的交易收入不意外地偏弱，主要是因為發行量的水準。而根據我們的消息來源，1 月的發行量可能比第四季略有改善，但仍呈現兩位數下滑。因此，能否請你們多談一些，隨著今年進展，你們如何看待信用環境？

Toni, thank you. This is Doug. First of all, as you know, during the year last year, we had a solid year during the year. But the fourth quarter, in particular December, ended up with very, very weak comparables from prior years. In particular, there was a shift in the high-yield market where people started thinking differently about the type of covenants that were going out to the markets. We also had, as you know, the impact from tax reform from the largest cash holders that started bringing their cash back and had not gone to the market.

Toni，謝謝你。我是 Doug。

We think that January is not necessarily indicative of the entire year. As you know, typically, January is a pretty weak month. One of the things that was important in January was to see in the second half of January, in the third and fourth week, the markets actually started rebounding. You saw more people coming back to the market. You saw spreads came down in the high-yield market. But as you know, in our forecast overall, we have a forecast for total issuance, which takes into account the pipeline that we see coming in from maturities. We speak with investment banks and with issuers. And right now, we have projected that, for the entire year, debt issuance will be down about 0.6%, so call it down a little bit or flat.

我們認為 1 月不一定能代表全年走勢。如你所知，通常 1 月是相當疲弱的月份。1 月重要的一點是，在 1 月下半月、也就是第三與第四週，市場其實開始反彈。你看到更多人回到市場。你看到高收益市場的利差收斂。但如你所知，在我們的整體預測中，我們對總發行量有一個預測，並將我們看到的到期帶來的發行管線納入考量。我們與投資銀行及發行人保持溝通。目前我們預估全年債務發行量將下滑約 0.6%，也就是小幅下降或大致持平。

We think that in the corporate sector, that's going to be down about 4%. Financial services is going to be down about 1.3%; structured finance, basically, flat; and public finance up over the prior year of about 9%. So if you look across different categories, this is how we've calculated, and this is what we've used to build into our plans for the year.

我們認為企業部門將下滑約 4%。金融服務將下滑約 1.3%；結構性融資基本持平；公共融資則較前一年成長約 9%。因此，若你橫向比較不同類別，這就是我們的計算方式，也是我們用來納入年度計畫的假設。

Great. And then in Market Intelligence, you expanded margin significantly this quarter. And I know you said that full year is probably more representative of run rate margins. But could you give some additional color on what I guess maybe the onetime pieces were in 4Q and what's ongoing? And then are margins in Market Intelligence an area that you can flex when -- if there's a weak issuance environment?

了解。另外，在 Market Intelligence 方面，你們本季的利潤率顯著擴張。我知道你們提到全年可能更能代表常態化（run rate）的利潤率。但能否再多說明一些，我想可能是第四季有哪些一次性因素、哪些是持續性的？另外，如果發行環境疲弱，Market Intelligence 的利潤率是否是你們可以彈性調整的領域？

Toni, this is Ewout. So the strong margin improvement in Market Intelligence was driven, on the one hand, as you've seen, by very healthy revenue growth; and then on the other hand, by a small decline in expenses. If you look at the underlying components in the expense movements, there were a couple of items that were going in opposite directions and therefore showing the decline -- small decline -- modest decline in expenses.

Toni，我是 Ewout。Market Intelligence 利潤率大幅改善，一方面如你所見，是由非常健康的營收成長所帶動；另一方面，則是費用小幅下降。若你看費用變動的底層組成，有幾個項目走勢相反，因此呈現出費用下降——小幅下降——溫和下降的結果。

Compensation, base compensation was up, but then there was an offset in lower incentive compensation accruals. So the net was close to 0. We saw strong sales in the fourth quarter. Strong sales was driving up the cost of sales as well as intersegment royalties. But then also strong sales leads to a higher capitalization of acquisition costs under the new revenue accounting method. So those are also a bit offsetting.

薪酬方面，基本薪酬上升，但較低的激勵薪酬提列有所抵銷。因此淨額接近 0。我們在第四季看到強勁銷售。強勁銷售也推升了銷貨成本以及部門間權利金。但同時，強勁銷售在新的收入會計方法下，會帶來更高的取得成本資本化。所以這些也有些相互抵銷。

We saw FX having a positive impact on the expenses of Market Intelligence. Allocations were down. So corporate allocations were down. But then acquisitions that were down during the year, most notably Panjiva and RateWatch, were driving expenses up. So a lot of moving pieces. But net-net, a small decline in expenses and therefore, a good improvement in margins. But we don't expect all of these items to recur in every quarter. So therefore, the full year margin is a better guidance for Market Intelligence going forward.

我們看到匯率（FX）對 Market Intelligence 的費用有正面影響。分攤費用下降。也就是公司分攤下降。但另一方面，年內表現下滑的收購項目，尤其是 Panjiva 和 RateWatch，推升了費用。所以有很多變動因素。但整體而言，費用小幅下降，因此利潤率有不錯的改善。不過我們不預期這些項目每一季都會重複出現。因此，就 Market Intelligence 而言，往後以全年利潤率作為指引會更合適。

This question comes from Manav Patnaik from Barclays.

這個問題來自 Barclays 的 Manav Patnaik。

Just on the 2019 top line guidance, what's the FX impact you are assuming? And also, you kind of gave us the framework for the Ratings business. I know you don't like to give specific guidance on the others, but is there anything to call out for next year for each of those businesses? Or can we just assume kind of the trends that we've seen so far?

關於 2019 年營收（top line）指引，你們假設的匯率（FX）影響是多少？另外，你們也給了我們評級業務的框架。我知道你們不喜歡對其他業務給出具體指引，但明年各業務是否有任何需要特別指出的地方？或者我們可以就假設延續目前看到的趨勢？

Manav, this is Ewout. First, in our guidance, we assume current spot market ForEx rates. So that is what is the underlying assumption. If you look at our guidance with respect to top line for the company as a whole, as you know, we're not breaking out guidance for each of the segments. But what I can explain to you is some of the assumptions underneath.

Manav，我是 Ewout。首先，在我們的指引中，我們假設採用目前即期市場外匯（ForEx）匯率。這就是基本假設。至於公司整體的營收指引，如你所知，我們不會拆分到各個事業部門提供指引。但我可以向你說明一些背後的假設。

So if you have to think about Ratings, as Doug already mentioned, our assumption is more or less flat issuance markets during 2019. Then we have some small adjustments in market shares in certain segments. And then we also take into account price increases based on the new list price that we're using from the 1st of January of this year. So that is the underlying assumption we have under our plan for 2019 for Ratings.

如果談到評級（Ratings），如 Doug 已提到，我們的假設是 2019 年發行市場大致持平。接著，我們在某些細分市場的市占率會有一些小幅調整。此外，我們也納入基於今年 1 月 1 日起採用的新價目表所帶來的漲價因素。以上就是我們 2019 年評級業務計畫的基本假設。

We have 2 subscription businesses. So those are, I think, businesses that see growth based on the annualized contract value that we are increasing every year. And you have seen the good progress we are making with Platts and Market Intelligence. And then with respect to indices, as you know, there is a natural hedge in our indices business. If stock markets will come down, we see exchange-traded derivative volumes going up, and the other way around. So you have to take that into account in your modeling to also reflect the growth of our indices business. But as we have said in the prepared remarks, we expect mid-single-digit revenue growth for the company as a whole and the contributions by each of our segments to achieve that.

我們有兩個訂閱型業務。我認為這些業務的成長，主要來自我們每年提高的年化合約價值（annualized contract value）。你也看到我們在 Platts 與 Market Intelligence 方面取得的良好進展。至於指數（indices），如你所知，我們的指數業務存在自然避險。如果股市下跌，我們會看到交易所交易衍生品的交易量上升，反之亦然。因此你在建模時需要把這點納入考量，以反映我們指數業務的成長。但如同我們在事先準備的發言中所說，我們預期公司整體營收將呈現中個位數成長，而各事業部門都會對達成該目標有所貢獻。

Got it. And then I guess just thinking about China, you've talked about the ratings opportunity there for some time. But I guess I was struck by it sounds like Market Intelligence is doing something new, Platts, Kensho. I was just wondering if you could briefly address how we should think about the opportunity that those other areas present.

了解。另外我想談談中國，你們談到那裡的評級機會已經有一段時間了。但我注意到，聽起來 Market Intelligence 正在做一些新的事情，還有 Platts、Kensho。我想請你們簡要說明一下，我們應該如何看待其他領域所帶來的機會。

Let me take that one. Well, first of all, as you know, the Chinese financial markets are still a very bank-centric market. In fact, as we were doing the work to understand the opportunity for our Ratings business, we did a lot of macro analysis of the market. And just to share with you a couple of the numbers, for instance, in the bond market in China, 54% of the bonds are held by banks and 32% by mutual funds and wealth management projects. Only 2% of the bonds in China are held by foreign investors. And the issuers themselves are spread between corporate bonds, which is actually quite low compared to other markets, local governments, commercial banks, et cetera.

我來回答這題。首先，如你所知，中國金融市場仍然是一個非常以銀行為中心的市場。事實上，當我們為了了解評級業務的機會而進行研究時，我們做了大量的市場總體分析。分享幾個數字，例如在中國債券市場中，54% 的債券由銀行持有，32% 由共同基金與理財管理計畫持有。在中國，只有 2% 的債券由外國投資人持有。而發行人本身則分布於公司債（相較其他市場其實偏低）、地方政府、商業銀行等等。

But what's important is the Chinese market becomes more sophisticated as the bond markets shift to become a true bond market and not a commercial banking market as more foreign investors start going into the Chinese market. We looked at the structured markets and the way they change over time as they become more developed. And what we believe is that there is -- our basic thesis is that there will be more and more demand for independent analytics. So one of the first products is obviously the Ratings. And we think that that is a market which will develop pretty quickly, especially because there's going to be demand not just from the domestic investors, but also over time from international investors. And along with that is in any market comes demand for other types of products and services, data products, information, more information about private companies that don't have -- that are not publicly traded. And this is where we're looking at the Market Intelligence offering to be able to provide more data and analytics at Cap IQ, SNL-like data service for the Chinese markets. And we've just started dimensioning that. We've just started rolling it out. We have a team on the ground.

但重要的是，隨著債券市場轉型為真正的債券市場、而非商業銀行市場，並且有更多外國投資人開始進入中國市場，中國市場會變得更成熟。我們也研究了結構性市場在逐步發展成熟時的演變方式。我們相信——我們的基本論點是——對獨立分析的需求將會愈來愈高。因此，最早的產品之一顯然就是評級（Ratings）。我們認為這個市場會發展得相當快，特別是因為需求不僅來自國內投資人，隨著時間推進也會來自國際投資人。此外，在任何市場中，對其他類型產品與服務也會產生需求，例如數據產品、資訊，以及更多關於未上市私營公司的資訊——也就是那些沒有公開交易的公司。這正是我們著眼於 Market Intelligence 產品的地方，希望能在中國市場提供更多數據與分析，提供類似 Cap IQ、SNL 的數據服務。我們才剛開始評估其規模。我們也才剛開始推出。我們在當地有團隊。

One of the other elements, which is, for us, actually quite exciting of the launch of the Chinese market is that we're also doing this as a team. We're doing it as S&P Global. Even though the rating agency has its own license and it has its own staff, we're also going in with one effort when it comes to hiring and our human resources and people policies, one legal and compliance team, so we can actually leverage our sources on the ground so we're able to go to the market. But overall, our thesis is that as the market becomes more sophisticated, more connected, there's going to be a whole set of data and analytic and financial products, which are going to be necessary in the market, and we want to be on the ground floor as they become more important.

另一個要素——對我們而言其實相當令人振奮——是我們在中國市場的推出也是以團隊方式進行。我們是以 S&P Global 的整體來推動。即使評級機構有自己的牌照與自己的員工，我們在招募、人力資源與人事政策上仍以同一套方式推進，並由同一個法務與合規團隊支援，因此我們能夠善用在地資源，進而進入市場。但總體而言，我們的論點是：隨著市場變得更成熟、連結更緊密，市場將需要一整套數據、分析與金融產品，而我們希望在它們變得更重要時，就站在最前線、從一開始就參與其中。

This question comes from Hamzah Mazari from Macquarie Capital.

這個問題來自 Macquarie Capital 的 Hamzah Mazari。

You talked about the shift from high yield to leveraged loans in the U.S. Could you maybe remind us what the margin difference is in your business between loan ratings and high yield, and then whether you're seeing the same trend in Europe? Because a secular thesis a while back on Ratings was European bank disintermediation. So wondering if that has sort of reversed. Any color there?

你們談到美國市場從高收益債轉向槓桿貸款的趨勢。你能否提醒我們，在你們的業務中，貸款評級與高收益債之間的利潤率差異大概是多少？以及你們是否也在歐洲看到相同趨勢？因為之前對評級業務的一個長期論點是歐洲銀行去中介化。所以想了解這是否某種程度上已經反轉。能否提供一些補充說明？

Thanks, Hamzah. This is Doug. First of all, on the pricing, it's basically about the same. It's not -- there's not a material difference between the pricing between the 2 different products. In Europe, we continue to see Europe -- the capital markets are continuing to develop, but you have one major impact, which has, in a sense, slowed down what we thought was going to be the ultimate development. And that is the ECB is continuing to provide a lot of liquidity for the markets. But in the last quarter, up until you had the slowdown of the leveraged loan market, the European markets were actually moving quite fast. So there was a lot of issuance. And in the last 2 weeks of January, the European leveraged markets actually came back to life, and there was issuance back in the European market.

謝謝你，Hamzah。我是Doug。首先，關於定價，基本上差不多。也就是說——兩種不同產品之間的定價沒有實質性的差異。在歐洲，我們持續看到歐洲——資本市場仍在持續發展，但有一個重大影響因素，在某種程度上，放慢了我們原本認為最終會出現的發展速度。那就是歐洲央行（ECB）仍在持續為市場提供大量流動性。但在上一季，在槓桿貸款市場放緩之前，歐洲市場其實推進得相當快。因此發行量很大。而在1月最後兩週，歐洲槓桿市場其實又恢復活力，歐洲市場也重新出現發行。

So we do think in the long run, the European markets will continue to move towards capital markets more quickly. Obviously, compared to what we just talked about in the prior questions about China, Europe is a much more developed capital market than what we see as one that's just starting out, but it's not quite still at the level of U.S. when it comes to participation of traditional capital market entities like insurance companies and pension funds and asset managers. But it's -- we're seeing continued move in that direction.

因此我們確實認為，長期來看，歐洲市場將會持續更快速地朝向資本市場化發展。顯然，與我們在前面問題中談到的中國相比，歐洲的資本市場成熟得多；中國我們看到的是才剛起步的市場，但歐洲在傳統資本市場參與者（如保險公司、退休金基金與資產管理機構）的參與程度上，仍未達到美國的水準。但我們——正持續看到朝這個方向的移動。

Okay. And just a follow-up question. On Ratings margins, you talked about up 10 bps on a 16% revenue drop and highlighted various reasons. If Ratings revenue does come back, how quickly do costs come back in that segment? Just any comments on operating leverage in that segment being structurally much higher or -- any thoughts on sort of how costs come back to that segment if you see revenue come back?

好的。再追問一個問題。關於評級業務的利潤率（margins），你提到在營收下滑16%的情況下上升了10個基點，並強調了各種原因。如果評級營收回升，該部門的成本會以多快的速度回升？能否談談該部門的營運槓桿是否在結構上高得多——或是——如果你看到營收回來，成本會如何回到該部門，有沒有任何想法？

Hamzah, this is Ewout. A couple of thoughts that hopefully are helpful. On the one hand, Ratings is working on very active programs to think about how to redesign its operations, its business model, its processes, its systems, it's introducing new technologies in order to make the life of the current analysts more effective, to take away some of the lower value-added work, the spreadsheet work and updating of the models and to replace that with new technologies and to get that done in a more efficient way. So we expect operating leverage for Ratings to continue. You saw that we took another restructuring charge for Ratings as well. So those are benefits in the programs where we will continue to see improvements in overall productivity in the Ratings organization. The other element that you have to take into account is incentive compensation. And we had some expense benefit during the quarter from the incentive compensation accruals. For the full year, the way how to dimensionalize that is the following. So first, Ratings had a very good year in 2017 as had some other businesses in the company, as you will recall, so we had very good payout. So we will see a reduction just every year, a reset to a 100% of the accrual levels. And then this year, particularly in the fourth quarter, the performance was, of course, lower. So now you have a reflection of lower payout from that 100% level. So if you look at the overall expense reduction year-over-year for Ratings, which was approximately $120 million, the majority of that came from incentive accruals. A little over half of that was just to reset year-over-year to the 100% level. And a little bit less than half of that reduction came from the lower accruals that we established in 2018. That, of course, will come back up to the 100% level in 2019. So that is an automatic increase in the costs that we will see in 2019 from 2018. But again, we expect also, at the same time, continued improvement of the productivity programs that we are implementing in Ratings.

Hamzah，我是Ewout。有幾點想法，希望能有所幫助。一方面，評級部門正在推動非常積極的計畫，思考如何重新設計其營運、商業模式、流程與系統；也正在導入新技術，以提升現有分析師的工作效率，移除一些附加價值較低的工作，例如試算表作業與模型更新，並以新技術取代，讓這些工作能以更有效率的方式完成。因此我們預期評級業務的營運槓桿將會持續。你也看到我們對評級業務又提列了一筆重組費用。因此，這些計畫將帶來效益，我們也將持續看到評級組織整體生產力的提升。另一個你必須納入考量的因素是獎勵性薪酬。本季我們在獎勵性薪酬提列上獲得了一些費用上的好處。就全年而言，量化方式如下。首先，如你所記得的，評級部門在2017年表現非常好，公司內其他一些業務也是如此，因此我們的發放（payout）非常高。因此我們每年都會看到下降，也就是把提列水準重設回100%。而今年，特別是在第四季，表現當然較低。因此你現在看到的是從100%水準反映出較低的發放。所以如果你看評級業務的整體費用年減，約為1.2億美元，其中大部分來自獎勵提列。其中略高於一半，是單純因為年對年重設回100%水準。而略低於一半的降幅，來自我們在2018年建立的較低提列。當然，這在2019年會回升到100%水準。因此，這會使我們在2019年相較2018年看到成本的自動增加。但同時，我們也預期評級部門正在推行的生產力計畫將持續改善。

This question comes from Alex Kramm from UBS.

這個問題來自UBS的Alex Kramm。

Just hoping you can expand on the conversation about China that was asked about earlier. And in your prepared remarks, you gave some nice data points. You have, I think 35 employees in that new entity, but 200 in the other parts. Like how quickly are you ramping people here? And what cost is tied to that end? Secondarily, you said 400 companies are already rated out of the other entities, so that can come pretty quickly. So maybe just talk about the next few quarters, few years in terms of how quickly that business can ramp. And then in terms of pricing, like how do you think -- envision the pricing structure? Are they very comparable to the rest of the world? Or is there something we should be thinking about differently in terms of basis points?

希望你能就先前被問到的、關於中國的討論再多做一些延伸。在你準備好的發言中，你提供了一些不錯的數據點。我想你在那個新實體裡有35名員工，但在其他部分有200名。你們在這裡擴編人員的速度有多快？相關成本會是多少？另外，你說在其他實體之下已經有400家公司被評級，所以那可能會很快發生。所以也許談談接下來幾季、幾年，這項業務能以多快的速度擴張。然後在定價方面，你認為——你如何設想定價結構？它們是否與世界其他地區非常可比？或者在基點（basis points）方面，有沒有什麼我們需要以不同方式思考的？

Okay. Thanks, Alex. Well, just to give you a little bit more of the ramp-up plan, as you heard, we have 36 employees in the entity, 31 of those are analysts. Of those analysts, about 10 of them are employees from S&P Global that transferred in from other parts of the world who are bringing their core knowledge and expertise of how S&P Global works everywhere else. They're native Mandarin speakers that have come in from other offices. And then we've hired 21 more analysts from the market. Being a first mover was an advantage to us because we were able to go out in the market and attract a very large pool of candidates and hire a really highly qualified set of people. And because we were there first and we already have started hiring, we think that we can ramp up very quickly if the demand comes in. Right now, in China, there's about 4,000 issuers that are rated across the markets by the domestic rating agencies. We rate about 400 of those offshore. We've already developed plans to go out and meet with all of those different 400 that we're working with already as well as the others, as many as possible, of the other issuers that are rated. I can't -- I don't want to give you any kind of financial projections on this. But I can tell you that the pricing that we're looking at over time will develop to a similar level as around the globe. It's likely to start out where you need to enter the market at a level of pricing that's going to be able to get us to close the transactions and get out into the markets. But we expect over time that the pricing is going to be similar to the rest of the world. As you know, pricing on bond ratings is actually a very low amortized cost for -- compared to the cost of actual bond issuance. And so that's why we think we can -- over time, we can develop to that level of pricing. We -- when we look at the different kinds of bond markets, as you saw in our prepared remarks, there's 4 different categories of bonds that we're able to rate that we've been approved for. We think that the financial institutions and the corporates are really the core area that we will start rating right away because that's where we have the relationships with the 400 issuers. We do -- as you know, we have a very long-term thinking about this. This is something that developed over the long term. This didn't just come about over one quarter. We've been working on this for years. John Berisford, Ewout and myself have been visiting China for years to build the relationships and to understand the markets. And with that kind of a long-term commitment in the way we've approached this is the same way we think about building out the business and ensuring that we build it with a really strong foundation and a really strong team on the ground.

好的。謝謝你，Alex。那我再多補充一點我們的擴編（ramp-up）計畫：如你所聽到的，我們這個實體共有36名員工，其中31名是分析師。在這些分析師當中，大約有10位是從標普全球（S&P Global）世界其他地區調任過來的員工，他們帶來了對標普全球在各地如何運作的核心知識與專業。他們是以中文（普通話）為母語、從其他辦公室加入的同仁。另外，我們也從市場上再招募了21位分析師。作為先行者對我們是個優勢，因為我們能夠到市場上吸引非常龐大的候選人池，並聘用到一批資歷非常優秀的人才。而且因為我們先進入、也已經開始招募，我們認為一旦需求進來，我們可以非常快速地擴編。目前在中國，國內評級機構在各個市場加總約評了4,000家發行人。其中大約有400家是我們在離岸市場評級的。我們已經制定計畫，將去拜訪我們目前已合作的這400家，以及其他已被評級的發行人——能見多少就見多少。我不能——我不想在這裡提供任何財務預測。但我可以告訴你，我們所考量的定價，隨著時間推進，會發展到與全球其他地區相近的水準。一開始很可能需要以能夠進入市場的定價水準切入，讓我們能夠促成交易完成並走向市場。但我們預期隨著時間推進，定價會與世界其他地區相當。如你所知，債券評級的定價相對於實際發債成本而言，其實是非常低的攤銷成本。因此我們認為，隨著時間推進，我們可以把定價發展到那樣的水準。我們——當我們看不同類型的債券市場時，如你在我們事先準備的發言中所看到的，我們已獲核准可評級的債券共有4大類。我們認為金融機構與企業將是我們一開始就會立即展開評級的核心領域，因為我們與那400家發行人已有既有關係。我們也——如你所知，我們對此採取非常長期的思維。這是一件長期發展出來的事情。並不是在一個季度內突然發生的。我們為此已經努力了多年。John Berisford、Ewout以及我本人多年來一直造訪中國，以建立關係並了解市場。而以這種長期承諾、以及我們推進此事的方式，也同樣是我們思考如何擴展業務、並確保以非常扎實的基礎與一支強而有力的在地團隊來建構它的方式。

Excellent. Super helpful color. And then just secondly, maybe also coming back to a prior question, but if you think about the issuance forecast, and I know it's another team that does it. But if I think about the last few quarters, I think that it was revised lower every quarter and, obviously, it's very difficult to forecast. But if you think about it from a bigger picture perspective, what are the big puts and takes that you're thinking about as you look at that forecast and where things could do a lot better or do worse? And then a couple of things to maybe highlight is like you said the loans businesses has been an area of strength. But I think people are getting increasingly more worried about what's going on in that market. And then we're hearing increasingly CFOs talking about deleveraging their balance sheets. So what are the kind of puts and takes I guess you would be watching out for?

非常好。這些補充資訊非常有幫助。接著第二點，或許也回到先前的一個問題：如果你從發行量預測來看——我知道那是另一個團隊負責——但如果我回顧過去幾個季度，我記得每一季都往下修，當然預測本來就非常困難。不過若從更宏觀的角度，你在看這個預測時，主要會考量哪些關鍵的正負因素（puts and takes），也就是哪些因素可能讓情況好很多或差很多？另外有幾點或許值得點出：如你所說，貸款業務一直是強項。但我想大家對那個市場正在發生的事情愈來愈擔心。而且我們也愈來愈常聽到財務長（CFO）談到要降低槓桿、縮減資產負債表。所以你大概會觀察哪些正負因素（puts and takes）呢？

Yes. So let me give you a few of the thoughts on that, and let me start with the leveraged market. And it's -- as you have seen in the numbers that we presented, the leveraged market has the component of the financial -- or the corporations that go to the leveraged market can go either to the bond market or the loan market. They've increasingly been going to the loan market for various reasons based on the kinds of lenders and investors that have gone to the market, the attraction of a floating rate versus fixed rate, the attraction of the kinds of covenants and other aspects of the loan market that they could get. We saw a correction in that market in December. And there's a lot of people, including myself, that think that some of the aspects of that were probably healthy. Leverage had gotten quite high. You saw leverage in some deals going over 6, 7, sometimes even 8x. And so since the market has opened up, even though there's a lot of investors going back to the market, there's been some correction in terms of leverage. Not so much in covenants so far, but much more in total leveraged amounts. And so we see that as one of the factors which will be driving our forecasts going forward. A little bit more specifically on the forecast, and you mentioned that since our October outlook, our December outlook and our January outlook, we've seen, actually, a moderation of that. When we first did our 2019 forecast in October, we expected that it was going to be up about 0.6%; December about the same, up 0.6%, and now we see it going down 0.6%. So just to give you some of the sentiment in some of the areas that we see those changes, we did drop a little bit on the corporates. We dropped it by about another 1% down from the prior forecast just based on the pipelines that we've seen from the market participants. But financial services is the one that we saw the largest shift between the end of the year and now the beginning of the year. And that had originally been expected to go up 5%, and now we expect it to only go up about 1.3%. And the main difference there is based on what we expect financial institutions are going to be issuing related to reserve requirements. And some of them, by speaking with them, a lot of them are not going to be growing their balance sheets as much as we had originally expected. So this goes back to policies, capital policies at the Fed as well as capital policies of the banks themselves. And that's probably the largest difference overall that drove that. So a little bit in the corporates, a lot more from financial institutions. And then our outlook for the leveraged market is to come back not necessarily with the same level of leverage that we saw in the middle of the year last year. But it actually has come back pretty healthy. The last couple of weeks of January, the markets were back. They were open again after 45 days of being closed.

是的。我分享幾點想法，先從槓桿市場（leveraged market）談起。如你從我們提供的數據所見，槓桿市場的一個特性是：進入槓桿市場的金融機構——或企業——可以選擇到債券市場或貸款市場融資。近來他們因各種原因愈來愈偏向貸款市場，包括進入市場的放款人與投資人的類型、浮動利率相對於固定利率的吸引力、以及他們在貸款市場能取得的契約條款（covenants）與其他面向的吸引力。我們在12月看到該市場出現一次修正。很多人——包括我——認為其中一些面向可能其實是健康的。槓桿水準已經變得相當高。你看到有些交易的槓桿倍數超過6倍、7倍，有時甚至8倍。因此自市場重新開放以來，儘管有許多投資人回到市場，槓桿水準確實出現了一些修正。到目前為止，契約條款的修正不算多，但總槓桿金額的修正更明顯。因此我們將其視為未來推動我們預測的一項因素。更具體談到預測，你提到自我們10月展望、12月展望以及1月展望以來，我們其實看到那個趨勢有所降溫。我們在10月首次做2019年預測時，預期成長約0.6%；12月大致相同，也是成長0.6%；而現在我們看到會下降0.6%。為了讓你了解我們在哪些領域看到這些變化的情緒與原因，我們確實把企業（corporates）部分小幅下修。我們在先前預測的基礎上再下修約1%，主要是根據我們從市場參與者看到的發行管線（pipelines）。但金融服務（financial services）是我們看到年末到年初之間變動最大的一塊。原本預期成長5%，現在我們預期只會成長約1.3%。主要差異在於我們對金融機構因應準備金要求（reserve requirements）而可能發行的規模之預期。而且透過與他們交流，很多機構的資產負債表成長幅度將不如我們原先預期。因此這又回到政策面：聯準會（Fed）的資本政策，以及銀行自身的資本政策。這大概是推動整體差異的最大因素。所以企業端小幅、金融機構端幅度更大。另外，我們對槓桿市場的展望是：市場會回來，但不一定會回到去年年中所見的同等槓桿水準。不過它確實回來得相當健康。1月最後幾週，市場回來了。在關閉45天之後，市場再次開放。

This question comes from Tim McHugh from William Blair & Company.

這個問題來自 William Blair & Company 的 Tim McHugh。

I just want to ask about how you would characterize the -- you talked about the incremental $100 million of investments. I guess you're always investing somewhat in the business. So is this a stepped up level of investment that's different than other years? Or are you just trying to highlight to us I guess what you -- what the focus is for the year? Just trying to understand the context of what you're saying with that.

我想問一下你會如何描述——你提到額外增加的 1 億美元投資。我想你們一直都會在業務上做一些投資。所以這是否是一個相較於其他年度更高一級的投資水準？或者你只是想向我們強調，我想，是你——今年的重點是什麼？我只是想了解你這麼說的背景脈絡。

Tim. Yes, we are just trying to highlight and to make this transparent to you and also show you the specific areas where we are investing. To give you a little bit broader perspective, we are of course always investing in our businesses, in business as usual to keep our benchmarks relevant in systems, in processes, in new designs of the organization. So there is always a lot of level of business as usual investments. What we are trying to highlight here is investments specifically in new initiatives, new products and new markets. As we showed you in 2018, those investments were at the level of $60 million. And that will go up by approximately $40 million, $50 million to that new number for 2019 in those areas like China. And I think everyone would agree with me that the Chinese ratings opportunity for the company is very large, and it makes a lot of sense to make this investment. And the company will see, hopefully, a lot of benefit out of that in the mid and long term. So obviously, we are self-funding those initiatives. You see that we have productivity programs going on where we will have savings on the one hand in capturing the operating leverage and then reinvesting it. And also, you see the margins still going up for the company. So another indication that we are self-funding those initiatives. So we hope it's overall helpful to give this clarity and that you have a feel where the company is making the large investments in new initiatives going forward to expect future revenue growth for the company on top of our current business activities.

Tim。是的，我們只是想把這件事凸顯出來，讓你清楚了解並保持透明，同時也讓你看到我們投資的具體領域。為了給你更廣一些的視角，我們當然一直都在投資我們的業務，作為日常營運的一部分，以確保我們的基準在系統、流程以及組織的新設計上保持相關性。所以日常營運層面的投資一直都有相當的規模。我們在這裡想強調的是，特別針對新計畫、新產品與新市場的投資。如同我們向你展示的，2018 年這些投資約為 6,000 萬美元。而在 2019 年，這些領域（例如中國）的投資將增加約 4,000 萬到 5,000 萬美元，達到新的數字。我想大家都會同意，中國評級市場對公司而言機會非常大，進行這項投資非常合理。而公司希望能在中期與長期從中獲得大量效益。因此很明顯，我們是以自有資金來支持這些計畫。你也看到我們正在推動生產力計畫，一方面透過營運槓桿帶來節省，另一方面再把節省下來的資源重新投入。同時，你也看到公司的利潤率仍在上升。這也是我們以自有資金支持這些計畫的另一個佐證。因此我們希望，提供這樣的清晰度整體上是有幫助的，讓你能感受到公司未來在哪些新計畫上進行較大投資，以在現有業務活動之上，帶動公司未來的營收成長。

Okay. That's helpful. And then just want to follow up, I think it was -- when you were talking about cash flow, there was a quick comment you made about longer renewal cycles for some of the enterprise deals in Market Intelligence. I guess can you elaborate on what that was? And I guess just -- you said I think you thought it was a timing issue. So why do you think that necessarily?

好的。這很有幫助。接著我想追問一下，我記得——當你在談現金流時，你很快提到 Market Intelligence 的一些企業級交易有較長的續約週期。你能否進一步說明那是什麼情況？另外——你說你認為那是時間點的問題。所以你為什麼會這麼認為？

Sure, Tim. What is happening is, as you know, we're going through the process to move all Market Intelligence customers to enterprise-wide contracts. So this is purely an administrative process where we are changing the contracts. You have discussions about the new language of the new contracts. Those contracts then need to be signed, new invoices needs to be issued and then there needs to be a cash collection on those new invoices. So going through this process right now, the change in time lines have shifted from about 10 days to 52 days in terms of cash collection. So this is purely a delay in the process. We expect a catch-up of that during 2019. So therefore, you see a free cash flow number guidance for 2019, which is up 10% to 15% over the free cash flow we generated in 2018.

當然可以，Tim。目前發生的情況是，如你所知，我們正在推動把所有 Market Intelligence 客戶轉為企業級（enterprise-wide）合約。所以這純粹是一個行政流程，我們是在更換合約。你需要就新合約的新條款文字進行討論。接著合約需要簽署、需要開立新的發票，然後還需要對這些新發票進行現金收款。在我們目前進行這個流程的過程中，就現金收款而言，時間線已從大約 10 天延長到 52 天。所以這純粹是流程上的延遲。我們預期在 2019 年會把這部分補回來。因此你會看到我們對 2019 年自由現金流的指引，較 2018 年我們產生的自由現金流提高 10% 到 15%。

Okay. So the comment about the delay is more about the collection process on -- not necessarily the sale or negotiation of the agreement?

好的。所以你提到的延遲，更多是關於收款流程——而不一定是銷售或協議談判本身？

E

呃

It's just going through the whole process of new contract, legal documentation, signing, processing, invoicing and so on. It's purely the administrative renewal process itself.

就是走完整個流程：新合約、法律文件、簽署、處理、開立發票等等。純粹是行政性的續約流程本身。

This question comes from Jeff Silber from BMO Capital Markets.

這個問題來自 BMO Capital Markets 的 Jeff Silber。

I know it's late, I'll just ask a couple of quick ones. You mentioned when talking about the outlook for the Ratings segment the price increases you anticipated at the beginning of the year. Can you give us some order of framework roughly what that was and how they compare to prior years?

我知道時間很晚了，我就問幾個簡短的問題。你在談評級（Ratings）部門展望時提到，你們在年初預期會有價格上調。你能否大致給我們一個框架，說明那大概是多少，以及與往年相比如何？

Yes. The list price that has been issued is 6.95%. You see, that was up from approximately 6.75%. So about 3% increase year-over-year. That is just the headline list price. Of course, there's a lot of differentiation by type of customer, type of arrangements and so on. But that would be the headline number.

是的。已發布的牌價（list price）是 6.95%。你可以看到，這高於約 6.75%。所以年增大約 3%。那只是表面上的牌價數字。當然，會依客戶類型、合作安排類型等等而有很大差異。但這就是那個頭條數字。

And what was the headline increase in 2018?

那 2018 年的頭條增幅是多少？

More or less the same. So that is the usual increase that we see over the past few years.

差不多一樣。所以這就是我們過去幾年看到的常態增幅。

Okay, great. And again, I know you don't give quarterly guidance. But beside potentially Ratings being more back-end loaded, is there anything you want to point out for the quarters for 2019?

好的，很好。再來，我知道你們不提供季度指引。但除了評級（Ratings）可能會更偏向下半年認列之外，對 2019 年各季度還有什麼你想特別指出的嗎？

No, there's nothing else that we can point out at this time.

沒有，目前沒有其他我們可以指出的事項。

This question comes from Craig Huber from Huber Research Partners.

這個問題來自 Huber Research Partners 的 Craig Huber。

Doug, I want to just get back to China for a second here. You mentioned you have about 31 analysts in that market you've hired or switched over there. I guess roughly 2% of maybe your analysts on a global basis. How quickly do you think this market from your perspective, from a Ratings revenue standpoint, can pick up here in the coming years? Where, actually, maybe we'll see it in the numbers. And I just -- it's a long-term play, obviously. But do you expect any material positive impact on revenues and profits, say, in the first 2 years say? Is there any big pent-up demand or kind of big bump up front in your revenue boost here with the Ratings being in that market? Or is this going to take a little long time to play out?

Doug，我想再回到中國這個話題一下。你提到你們在那個市場大約有 31 位分析師，是你們聘用或調派過去的。我猜大概是你們全球分析師的約 2%。從你的角度、以評級（Ratings）營收的觀點來看，你認為未來幾年這個市場能多快起量？也就是說，我們實際上可能何時會在數字上看到它。我只是——這顯然是一個長期布局。但你是否預期在前兩年內，營收與獲利會有任何實質性的正面影響？是否存在任何大量的被壓抑需求，或是你們進入該市場做評級後，營收會在一開始就有一個很大的跳升？還是說這需要比較長的時間才能逐步顯現？

My expectation is that this will take a little bit to play out. I -- and what I'd like to do is give you numbers as we start looking at this over quarter-by-quarter. We'll figure out how often and how much we're going -- we'll give you about our progress. But just a couple of more statistics about the market. Overall, in China, the total lending market, including everybody, is about $20.6 trillion. Of that, about $13 trillion is corporate. So it's a little bit more than half of the market is corporate loans. And of that, about $2 trillion, more or less, is -- are bonds, of which $1 trillion are bonds outstanding of corporate. So think about it, it's a $1 trillion corporate bond market, about 4,000 issuers. We think that we've got 400 relationships that we can tap as the first companies that we go to. We also -- as you know, the panda bond market where foreign issuers go into the Chinese market is one that is -- it's very small right now, but we think that's another area that we'll bring specific expertise as well as interests from foreign issuers to go into the Chinese market using S&P as the company that's going to do the rating. So I don't want to give you any projections or numbers on the revenues over time. As I've said, we see this as a market which is going to transform to more of a global capital market, much more connected. As I mentioned earlier that it's only 2% of the bonds in China are held by foreign investors. So we see that growing. And so let us come back to you to give you updates on our progress, so we can really understand how fast this is going to move once we're starting to see our volume come in through the door.

我的預期是，這需要一點時間才會逐步顯現。我——而我想做的是，當我們開始按季度逐季觀察時，提供給你一些數字。我們會弄清楚我們要多頻繁、以及要提供多少——我們會向你說明我們的進展。不過再補充幾個關於市場的統計數據。整體而言，在中國，包含所有參與者在內的總放貸市場約為20.6兆美元。其中約13兆美元是企業端。所以市場中略多於一半是企業貸款。而在這之中，大約2兆美元（或多或少）是——是債券，其中約1兆美元是企業存量債券。所以你可以這樣想：這是一個1兆美元的企業債市場，約4,000個發行人。我們認為，我們有400個關係可作為我們首先接觸的公司。另外——如你所知，外國發行人進入中國市場的熊貓債市場目前規模很小，但我們認為這也是另一個領域：我們將帶來特定的專業能力，以及外國發行人進入中國市場的興趣，並以標普作為進行評級的公司。因此，我不想對未來一段時間的營收做任何預測或給出數字。如我所說，我們將其視為一個會轉型為更全球化資本市場、連結更緊密的市場。如我先前提到，在中國的債券中，只有2%由外國投資人持有。所以我們預期這會成長。因此，讓我們之後再回來向各位更新我們的進展，這樣一旦我們開始看到量能進門，我們就能真正了解這會以多快的速度推進。

And then on the second, Doug, you mentioned, I guess, on a global basis, expecting debt issuance down 0 to 1%, call it. If you could just segment for us just the U.S. part of that, I'd be curious on your thoughts how you think that might play out the debt issuance for investment grade and high yield? And then also maybe with a -- maybe how you maybe see bank loan issuance for this year playing out, those 3 segments within this country.

接著第二點，Doug，你提到我想是在全球層面，預期債務發行量下滑0%到1%，大概是這樣。如果你能把其中美國的部分再拆分一下，我很想聽聽你認為投資級與高收益的債務發行量會如何演變。另外也許——也想請你談談你如何看待今年銀行貸款發行的走勢，也就是在這個國家內的這三個分項。

Well, the 2 pieces which are the most significant that I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, the corporates, which are down 4.8% more or less of what we're projecting, that's mostly the U.S. And that's mostly the U.S. and it's partially because of tax reform and what our projections are as to what will be the issuance level for the companies that have very cash-rich balance sheets. And then the other, which is probably the most significant, as I said, financial services. That's also U.S. And that's the U.S. financial institutions that are the ones that are projecting to have smaller balance sheets or less growth on their balance sheets than we had expected 3 and 4 months ago. So that's the color that I can give you based on the analysis that our team has done.

嗯，我剛才幾分鐘前提到的兩個最重要的部分：企業端，我們的預測大約下滑4.8%，那主要是在美國。這主要是美國，而且部分原因是稅改，以及我們對於那些現金非常充裕的公司，其發行水準將會如何的預測。另一個——我說過，可能是最顯著的——是金融服務。那也是美國。也就是美國的金融機構，我們預期它們的資產負債表會更小，或資產負債表的成長會低於我們在3到4個月前的預期。所以，根據我們團隊所做的分析，我能提供的補充說明大致就是這些。

This question comes from Joseph Foresi from Cantor Fitzgerald.

這個問題來自Cantor Fitzgerald的Joseph Foresi。

My first question is just on China. Do you -- can you give us a little bit of a better understanding of maybe what the risks are of the -- of having ratings in that region? Is there sufficient accounting standards there? Do you feel like you're more exposed? I'm just trying to get a sense of how the market works from a risk perspective.

我的第一個問題是關於中國。你們——能否讓我們更清楚了解，在那個地區做評級可能有哪些風險？那裡的會計準則是否足夠？你們是否覺得自身曝險更高？我只是想從風險角度了解這個市場是如何運作的。

Well, thanks, Joseph, for the question. As we've gone into the Chinese market, as I've mentioned earlier, this is something that we've been looking at for years. This isn't just something that cropped up in the last quarter. And we've also already had a business on the ground for over 10 years of -- with the Ratings analysts on the ground in China who have been rating Chinese corporations on offshore issuance or dim sum bonds that are issued offshore. And as I mentioned, we have 400 of those that we've already rated. So we know that there's at least 400 companies that are already audited by global auditing firms. They have transparency in their financials. They've been going offshore to raise funds. And so there's already a core group of corporations and financial institutions in China that are rated and are already issuing bonds at global standards. But clearly, you're raising what, for us, is -- are very important points. And how do we roll out a ratings business in a market which is developing? We're using our knowledge and experience of how we've gone into other markets like India through CRISIL or Mexico, which we did an acquisition many years ago to go into that market. Both India and Mexico are markets where we issue with local rating scales where we do not have rating scales that are linked to the global scales. They're based on local market conditions. And so one of the reasons that we're rolling out our China rating agency as a local independently scaled rating agency is that we want to be able to meet and understand all the local conditions of what are the conditions of bankruptcy laws, what are the conditions of workouts, what are the conditions of companies that could potentially have any kind of a default or a payment issue. And this is why it's important for us to go in that market independently with a locally managed rating agency. We've been working closely with the regulators to ensure that they understand the rating agency model as we roll it out. It's critical that they understand that we're independent and that our ratings are going to be issued with an independent opinion, that we've got the right kind of analysts that are well trained. So we've looked at what are the kinds of risks; do we get the right kind of disclosure from companies; do we have the ability to understand if there's been a payment issue; do we have the right kind of regulatory environment, which we think is being developed in a way that's very professional and understanding; what are the other environments around the globe for rating regimes, et cetera. So we've gone in with this over many, many years of analysis; many, many years of building relationships. And we think that some of those risks that you've mentioned are things that we have good ways to mitigate or manage.

Joseph，謝謝你的問題。我們進入中國市場時，如我先前提到，這是我們多年來一直在研究的事情。這不是上一季才突然冒出來的事。而且我們在中國當地已經有超過10年的業務——我們的評級分析師在中國當地，長期對中國企業的離岸發行或在境外發行的點心債進行評級。如我所提到，我們已經評過其中400家。因此我們知道，至少有400家公司已由全球審計師事務所審計。它們的財務資訊具透明度。它們一直透過離岸市場籌資。因此，中國已經有一個核心群體的企業與金融機構，已被評級，並且已按全球標準發行債券。但很明顯，你提出的對我們而言——是非常重要的觀點。也就是我們如何在一個仍在發展中的市場推展評級業務？我們運用我們在其他市場的進入經驗與知識，例如透過CRISIL進入印度，或是多年前我們透過收購進入墨西哥市場。印度與墨西哥都是我們採用本地評級尺度的市場，我們的評級尺度並不與全球尺度連結。它們是基於當地市場條件。因此，我們以本地、獨立尺度的評級機構來推展中國評級業務，其中一個原因是：我們希望能夠符合並理解所有當地條件，例如破產法的條件、重整/協商（workouts）的條件、以及可能出現任何違約或付款問題的公司情況。這也是為什麼對我們而言，以一家在地管理的評級機構、獨立進入該市場很重要。我們一直與監管機構密切合作，確保他們在我們推展時理解評級機構的商業模式。關鍵在於他們必須理解我們是獨立的，我們的評級將以獨立意見出具，而且我們擁有受過良好訓練、合適的分析師。因此我們檢視了各類風險：公司是否提供適當的揭露；我們是否有能力了解是否出現付款問題；我們是否具備合適的監管環境——我們認為該環境正以非常專業、且具理解力的方式發展；以及全球其他評級制度的環境等等。所以，我們是經過多年、長期的分析進入；多年來建立關係。我們認為，你提到的一些風險，我們有很好的方式去降低、或加以管理。

Got it. And then just to switch gears, any way to start to quantify the impact of the increase in your focus on data? I'm thinking more on the Kensho side, and I'm just trying to get a sense of I know we're early stage and you're sort of building the foundation. But clearly, it's a focus. Clearly, it's something that I would agree is going to be an important part of the future. But I'm wondering how, internally, you're starting to think about quantifying that and any anecdotes you can provide.

了解。接著換個話題，有沒有辦法開始量化你們加大對數據聚焦所帶來的影響？我想的比較偏Kensho那一塊，我只是想了解：我知道我們還在早期階段，你們也正在打基礎。但很明顯，這是個重點。很明顯，我也同意這會是未來的重要組成部分。但我想知道你們在內部如何開始思考量化它，以及你能否提供任何案例或軼事。

Yes. Let me give you a couple of thoughts on that. First, we are looking at more and more data sets. Ideally, proprietary data sets that are unique and only can be found on our platform. But there could also be other data sets that we'd license and, therefore, incorporate. As we mentioned during the prepared remarks, with data sets, it's very important that those data sets are linked to our existing master database. So that there is an automatic link between entities, between individuals, between a lot of different other data sets. Because data is only valuable if it is put in perspective of all the other data, rich data that we have already today on our platform. Therefore, it's so important that we are working on that new search engine, the Omnisearch with Kensho. Because the more data we put on our platform, the more important it will be for our customers to find the right data and to use that data in the future. Hence, the investments we are doing with Kensho on the Omnisearch. Moreover, we are having a lot of data intake elements within the organization. And we're thinking now about a design of the overall data factory to make data more a commodity within the firm based on the same definitions, the same data architecture, have an efficient data intake, which is based on a lot of technology tools and to take the benefit of the enterprise as a whole. So data is core to our strategy, core to our business growth, core to the commercial propositions that are being developed by our businesses. And we make a lot of investments in this area but ultimately, this will be the main driver of revenue growth for the company in the future.

是的。我給你幾點想法。首先，我們正在檢視越來越多的資料集。理想情況下，是獨有的專有資料集，只能在我們的平台上找到。但也可能會有其他我們會授權取得、因此納入的平台資料集。正如我們在事先準備的發言中提到的，對於資料集而言，非常重要的一點是，這些資料集要能與我們既有的主資料庫連結。如此一來，實體之間、個人之間，以及與許多其他不同資料集之間，就能建立自動連結。因為資料只有在與我們平台上目前已擁有的其他資料（我們已有的豐富資料）相互對照、置於脈絡中時，才有價值。因此，我們正在與 Kensho 一起開發新的搜尋引擎 Omnisearch，這點非常重要。因為我們在平台上放入的資料越多，客戶就越需要能找到正確的資料，並在未來使用這些資料。因此，我們才會與 Kensho 在 Omnisearch 上進行投資。此外，我們在組織內部也有許多資料導入（data intake）的要素。我們目前正在思考整體資料工廠（data factory）的設計，讓資料在公司內更像一種商品化資源，基於相同的定義、相同的資料架構，建立高效率的資料導入流程；該流程將以多種技術工具為基礎，並讓整個企業都能受益。因此，資料是我們策略的核心、是我們業務成長的核心，也是我們各業務正在開發的商業主張的核心。我們在這個領域投入大量資金，但最終，這將成為公司未來營收成長的主要驅動力。

This question comes from Dan Dolev from Nomura Securities.

這個問題來自野村證券（Nomura Securities）的 Dan Dolev。

Just from a housekeeping item, is the Kensho $20 million to $25 million expense embedded in the guidance for retention? Is that the main difference between the '18 unallocated expense and what you're guiding for '19?

先問一個行政性問題：Kensho 的 2,000 萬到 2,500 萬美元費用是否已包含在你們對留任（retention）的指引中？這是否就是 2018 年未分攤費用（unallocated expense）與你們對 2019 年指引之間的主要差異？

No. If you look at the unallocated, what we are doing is moving the Kensho revenue to the Market Intelligence revenue. And the reason why we are doing that is more and more, the Kensho contracts with Kensho customers are being folded into overall Market Intelligence relationships with the same customers. And therefore, it's more difficult to separately identify Kensho revenue in the future. So that's why it's being integrated with revenue of Market Intelligence. So if you look purely at unallocated expenses, unallocated expenses were $171 million for 2018, which is then excluding the $50 million Kensho revenue. That included $20 million of funding for the foundation that happened last year and Kensho expenses. But Kensho expenses, you have to realize, those were Kensho expenses over a 9-month period. So now we are, of course, having Kensho expenses for the full year of 2019. So if you look at those -- all those elements, we will continue to see a nice reduction in unallocated expenses to that range of $155 million to $165 million in 2019, which is ultimately then based on the productivity programs we are introducing within the company.

不是。如果你看未分攤項目（unallocated），我們正在做的是把 Kensho 的營收移到 Market Intelligence 的營收之中。我們這麼做的原因是，越來越多與 Kensho 客戶簽訂的 Kensho 合約，正在被納入與同一客戶的整體 Market Intelligence 合作關係之中。因此，未來要單獨辨識 Kensho 營收會更困難。所以才會把它整合到 Market Intelligence 的營收裡。因此，如果你只看未分攤費用，2018 年未分攤費用為 1.71 億美元，這個數字是排除 5,000 萬美元 Kensho 營收之後的。其中包含去年對基金會（foundation）的 2,000 萬美元資助，以及 Kensho 的費用。但你必須了解，Kensho 的費用是以 9 個月期間計入的。所以現在我們當然會在 2019 年承擔全年的 Kensho 費用。因此，綜合所有這些因素，我們預期 2019 年未分攤費用仍會持續有不錯的下降，降至 1.55 億到 1.65 億美元的區間；這最終是基於我們在公司內推行的生產力計畫。

Yes. That's helpful. I just -- so the Kensho retention plans, I believe they were excluded from the adjusted number, right? The $34 million in '18, they were not in the non-GAAP number.

了解。這很有幫助。我只是——所以 Kensho 的留任計畫，我相信它們被排除在調整後（adjusted）的數字之外，對嗎？2018 年的 3,400 萬美元沒有納入非 GAAP 數字。

If you look at Kensho expenses, we have Kensho expenses that are being included from a performance basis. And then we have excess Kensho expenses that are based on the rollover equity as part of the consideration for the acquisitions. So what we have done is we looked at what is market compensation for employees of Kensho. Everything that is market level is being included on the non-GAAP basis. And everything that's over and above what would be normalized market levels, which is based on that rollover equity, that is being stripped out as the Kensho retention-related expenses. That number, you should see coming down over time. And the reason is just purely the accounting. It's an accelerated accounting method. So every year, you see that number coming down very quickly, the excess expenses for Kensho that are being pulled out on a non-GAAP basis.

如果你看 Kensho 的費用，我們有一部分 Kensho 費用是以績效（performance）基礎納入的。另外還有超額的 Kensho 費用，這部分是基於作為收購對價一部分的 rollover equity（展期股權）。因此我們所做的是，先評估 Kensho 員工的市場薪酬水準。所有屬於市場水準的部分，都會以非 GAAP 基礎納入。而所有高於正常化市場水準的部分（這是基於該 rollover equity），則會作為與 Kensho 留任相關的費用被剔除。你應該會看到這個數字隨時間下降。原因純粹是會計處理。這是一種加速的會計方法。所以每一年你都會看到這個數字很快下降，也就是在非 GAAP 基礎下被剔除的 Kensho 超額費用會快速下降。

Got it. And then just my follow-up is on the overall headcount. I see some nice growth in the headcount on a year-over-year. If you have to sort of think about the different segment, it looks like the corporate headcount increased dramatically, yet, say, in Ratings, the headcount declined. If you had to sort of normalize that in terms of the centers of excellence, like how would that roughly look like? Would you be expecting Ratings headcount to go up as well if you didn't allocate it into corporate? That's sort of the question.

明白了。接著我追問一下整體人力（headcount）。我看到人力在年對年方面有不錯的成長。如果要從不同部門來看，似乎公司層級（corporate）的人力大幅增加，但例如在 Ratings，人力卻下降。如果要以卓越中心（centers of excellence）的角度把它大致正常化（normalize），大概會是什麼樣子？如果你們沒有把它分配到 corporate，你們是否也會預期 Ratings 的人力會增加？大概是這個問題。

Yes. That's really a great question. So there's always going to be some movements in headcount. So when we do acquisitions, of course, headcount will go up. So for example, in corporate, headcount went up, for example, based on the Kensho acquisition. But also headcount in Market Intelligence is up. And that's based on the acquisitions of Panjiva, RateWatch, but also new content sets that MI is introducing. So we will have reductions of headcount based on productivity on existing data sets in Market Intelligence, and then headcount additions for the new data sets that are being introduced. Corporate headcount might go up a bit over time because when we are centralizing certain activities in centers of excellence, it might mean a shift from headcount in the divisions through corporate. So that could be another shift. Also, when we are insourcing certain activities, for example, the IT and engineering activities in Ratings will ultimately be an increase in headcount for Ratings, but that is an offset on external services that will be eliminated going forward. So that's a shift in headcount numbers, but not so much a shift in expenses or, actually, that is a decline in expenses that we will realize as a company.

是的。這確實是個很好的問題。人力編制總是會有一些變動。當我們進行收購時，當然人力會上升。例如在 corporate，人力增加，部分就是因為收購 Kensho。但 Market Intelligence 的人力也在增加。這是因為收購了 Panjiva、RateWatch，以及 MI 正在導入的新內容集（content sets）。因此，我們會因為既有資料集的生產力提升而在 Market Intelligence 減少人力，同時也會因為導入新的資料集而增加人力。隨著時間推移，corporate 的人力可能會略有上升，因為當我們把某些活動集中到卓越中心時，可能意味著人力會從各事業部轉移到 corporate。所以這也可能是另一種轉移。另外，當我們把某些活動內製（insourcing）時，例如 Ratings 的 IT 與工程活動，最終會使 Ratings 的人力增加，但這會由未來將被取消的外部服務所抵銷。因此，這是人力數字上的轉移，但不太是費用上的轉移；或者更準確地說，這將帶來我們公司層面可實現的費用下降。

And just to add one thing. One of the things that John's trying to do in Ratings is he aspires to try to be able to handle more and more and more credits each year with the same number of analysts. So we're not really looking to reduce there. We're looking to try to make them more and more efficient with all the technology and -- that we're trying to deploy.

再補充一點。John 在 Ratings 想做的一件事是，他希望能夠在每一年用相同數量的分析師處理越來越多、越來越多的信用（credits）。所以我們並不是要在那裡削減人力。我們是希望透過我們正在部署的各種技術，讓他們變得越來越有效率。

This question comes from George Tong from Goldman Sachs.

這個問題來自高盛的 George Tong。

Your non-transaction revenues took a step back in the Ratings business in part because of tougher comps. Were there specific items that weighed on non-transaction revenues this quarter? And how do you see non-transaction revenues performing next year?

由於比較基期更具挑戰性，你們在評級業務的非交易收入部分有所回落。本季是否有特定項目拖累了非交易收入？你們如何看待明年非交易收入的表現？

George, FX had a negative impact on non-transaction revenue. If you strip that element out, it was more or less flat. The other element that impacted non-transaction revenue was Rating Evaluation Services. We've always called out that, that could go up or down by quarter. That's very much driven by the M&A environment. So we'll have quarters where the rest of the revenues will be a little higher or a little lower. But overall, we look at non-transaction revenue as a very stable source of revenues. And we expect that to continue to be a very steady source for the Ratings business in the future.

George，外匯對非交易收入造成了負面影響。如果把這個因素剔除，基本上大致持平。另一個影響非交易收入的因素是評級評估服務（Rating Evaluation Services）。我們一直都有提到，這項收入可能會按季度上下波動。這在很大程度上取決於併購（M&A）環境。因此，有些季度其餘收入會略高或略低。但整體而言，我們將非交易收入視為非常穩定的收入來源。我們預期未來它仍將持續成為評級業務非常穩健的收入來源。

Got it. That's helpful. You've achieved $60 million in cost savings through year-end 2018 out of your $100 million of cost reductions planned in your Analyst Day over the intermediate term. Can you talk about the pacing of when you expect to achieve the remainder of your cost savings? And what the principal drivers of savings will be going forward?

了解。這很有幫助。截至 2018 年底，你們已實現 6,000 萬美元的成本節省；相較於你們在分析師日（Analyst Day）所規劃的中期 1 億美元成本削減目標。你能談談你們預期何時能達成剩餘的成本節省、其進度節奏如何嗎？以及未來節省的主要驅動因素會是什麼？

Yes. We are very encouraged by the progress we have made during the first year, $60 million in run rate and $40 million of that in our annual results for 2018. We will continue on the same pace what you have seen towards our targets. And the main areas where we find those opportunities are in our functions. So we are trying to create new operating models for our functions across the enterprise, both in the businesses as well as in the corporate center. We are looking at opportunities in our digital infrastructure area. For example, consolidation of some of our data centers moving to the cloud, other outsourcing arrangements, et cetera. And we are taking care of real estate costs. We are reducing excess real estate we have in the company and are significantly driving down real estate expenses. And we will continue with all those levers over the next few years. Of course, we will let you know once we have achieved this target and at that point, announce to you a new target. But at this moment, we are very encouraged by the progress we're making with all of those programs.

是的。我們對第一年的進展感到非常振奮：執行率（run rate）達到 6,000 萬美元，其中 4,000 萬美元反映在我們 2018 年的年度業績中。我們將以你們目前看到的相同節奏，持續朝目標推進。我們發現機會的主要領域在於各項職能部門。因此，我們正嘗試在全企業範圍內，為各項職能建立新的營運模式，涵蓋各業務單位以及公司總部。我們也在數位基礎設施領域尋找機會。例如，整併部分資料中心並遷移至雲端、其他外包安排等等。此外，我們也在處理不動產成本。我們正在縮減公司多餘的不動產，並大幅降低不動產費用。未來幾年我們將持續運用所有這些槓桿。當然，一旦我們達成這個目標，我們會告知各位，並在那時向各位宣布新的目標。但就目前而言，我們對這些計畫所取得的進展感到非常鼓舞。

We will now take our final question from Bill Warmington from Wells Fargo.

接下來我們將進行最後一個提問，來自富國銀行的 Bill Warmington。

The final question. Here it is. Actually, two, all right? So first on Kensho. You mentioned the entity linking work you're doing with Kensho, Crunchbase, the private company databases in China and the U.K. Can you frame that opportunity for us? That commercial credit information space is typically an area we associate with DMB and BBD, and it sounds like you're moving increasingly into that space.

最後一個問題。是這樣。其實有兩個，好嗎？首先談 Kensho。你提到你們與 Kensho、Crunchbase，以及中國與英國的私營公司資料庫在做實體連結（entity linking）工作。你能為我們說明這個機會的輪廓嗎？商業信用資訊這個領域通常是我們與 DMB 和 BBD 連結在一起的，而聽起來你們正愈來愈多地進入這個領域。

Yes. This is an area where we are very pleased with some of the first results of the Kensho collaboration. We have talked to you about Crunchbase. But in the meantime, we have done the same with the algorithms that have been developed on other private company data sets. And the benefit of entity linking is the following. It's not only a expense-reduction opportunity. Of course, in the past, we could do the same entity linking but by asking a lot of teams and a lot of employees to work on that. And that will take a lot of time to achieve data linking with the right quality of data. Is it the same entity? The name is spelled in a slightly different way, a slightly different abbreviation. Is it a subholding? Is it in another jurisdiction? So a lot of work has to be done to make sure that entity linking is correct and accurate. So by doing this now based on algorithms, of course, we find efficiency opportunities. But the larger benefit is in fact in the revenue opportunity. Why? Because of speed to market, we can significantly increase speed to market of new data sets the quality of the products we bring out. Because in the end, with the algorithm, we can achieve a higher quality and less errors going forward. And we can think about new products that we could never bring to the market in the past. Certain data sets are so large that it is almost impossible to achieve any ingestion of that by humans. But we can do that now in a fraction of the time by our algorithms. And therefore, we can now introduce products that we could never think of in the past. So in the end, we always look at this as a larger revenue opportunity than an efficiency opportunity. And again, we are very pleased with the results so far we have been able to achieve.

是的。這是我們對 Kensho 合作初步成果感到非常滿意的領域之一。我們曾與各位談過 Crunchbase。但同時，我們也用在其他私營公司資料集上所開發的演算法做了同樣的事情。而實體連結的好處如下。它不僅是一個降低費用的機會。當然，過去我們也可以做同樣的實體連結，但需要請很多團隊、很多員工投入這項工作。而要以正確的資料品質達成資料連結，會花非常多時間。是不是同一個實體？名稱拼法略有不同、縮寫略有不同。它是子控股公司嗎？它是否在另一個司法管轄區？因此必須做大量工作，才能確保實體連結正確且精準。現在透過以演算法為基礎來做這件事，當然我們能找到效率提升的機會。但更大的好處其實在於營收機會。為什麼？因為上市速度（speed to market），我們可以大幅提升新資料集與我們推出產品的上市速度與品質。因為最終透過演算法，我們可以達到更高品質，並在未來降低錯誤。而且我們可以思考一些過去根本無法推向市場的新產品。有些資料集規模非常龐大，幾乎不可能靠人工完成任何導入（ingestion）。但現在我們可以透過演算法在極短時間內完成。因此，我們現在可以推出一些過去想都不敢想的產品。所以歸根結底，我們一直把這視為比效率機會更大的營收機會。而且再次強調，我們對目前已取得的成果感到非常滿意。

And then for the second and final question, the $8.95 to $9.15 EPS guidance for 2019, just wanted to ask about the level of share repurchases built into that number. I know you announced the $500 million ASR today. I would assume that was built into that guidance. But then if you assume about $550 million in dividends, that would leave about $600 million in excess cash that you're going to return. Is that $600 million built in as well as the $500 million ASR?

接著第二個也是最後一個問題：2019 年每股盈餘（EPS）指引為 8.95 到 9.15 美元，我想問一下這個數字中包含了多少股票回購的規模。我知道你們今天宣布了 5 億美元的加速股票回購（ASR）。我猜那已經納入這個指引。但如果再假設約 5.5 億美元的股利，那就會剩下大約 6 億美元的超額現金要返還。這 6 億美元是否也已納入，以及那 5 億美元 ASR 是否也已納入？

Yes. Obviously, we cannot give you a very precise answer on that question. But let me give you some of the components. We have provided guidance with respect to free cash flow generation for this year. You know that we are committed to return at least 75% of that number. You are aware of the dividend payout level we will do this year. So it's not too difficult to assume what is the remainder in share repurchases that will be achieved. If we are going to exceed that number or not is to be seen. That depends very much on opportunities we will have this year. We always look first in investments in organic opportunities because we think those are the most valuable as long as those make sense strategically and we can achieve the right returns in organic opportunities. But if those are not available, then we can always return more than the 75% commitment that we have to the market. So those are the components. And I think that probably helps you, Bill, with what you are looking for in terms of question.

是的。顯然，我們無法就這個問題給你非常精確的答案。但我可以提供一些構成要素。我們已就今年的自由現金流產生提供了指引。你知道我們承諾至少返還其中的 75%。你也了解我們今年將進行的股利配發水準。因此，不難推算其餘將以股票回購形式完成的金額大概是多少。至於我們是否會超過該數字，還有待觀察。這很大程度取決於我們今年會遇到的機會。我們一向會優先考慮投資於內生成長（organic）機會，因為只要在策略上合理，且我們能在內生成長機會上取得適當報酬，我們認為那是最有價值的。但如果沒有這些機會，那麼我們也可以返還超過我們對市場所承諾的 75%。以上就是這些構成要素。我想這大概能幫助你，Bill，釐清你在問題中想了解的部分。

Bill, you asked a great pile of questions, but the operator said we do have one more in the queue. Let's see if there's -- if anyone is still out there.

Bill，你問了一大堆問題，但接線員說我們佇列裡還有一位。我們看看是否還有——是否還有人在線上。

It's peter Appert. Am I on?

是 Peter Appert。我有接通嗎？

You are on, Peter.

你接通了，Peter。

You are on. Peter.

你接通了。Peter。

Oh, yay. Okay. So much for Bill Warmington. Doug, I was just interested on any quick thoughts you have on market share trends in the Ratings business. Your revenue in the first part of the year lagged a little bit about some of your competitors. We don't know the second half numbers, obviously, relatively. But wondering if that's a red flag at all for you? Maybe does it suggest that some of the cost-cutting initiatives perhaps are hurting you a little bit from a share perspective? Just your thoughts on that.

喔，太好了。好。那就先不談 Bill Warmington 了。Doug，我只是想請教你對評級（Ratings）業務的市佔率趨勢，有沒有什麼快速的看法。你們上半年營收相較於部分競爭對手稍微落後一些。當然我們不知道下半年的數字，相對而言。但想問這對你們來說是否算是一個警訊？是否可能意味著某些成本削減措施，從市佔角度看，可能對你們有些不利？想聽聽你的想法。

Yes. Well, first of all, thank you, Peter, that you've been able to get on the call. And when it comes to the Ratings business or when we look at the market share globally, we continue to have a very strong market share. It's -- there's a couple of areas where we see weaknesses. One of them is in CLOs. As you know, there is a couple of other businesses like covered bonds that we're not really active in at all. So if there's any place where we have seen areas that we will put some additional concentration on looking at our penetration, it's all in the structured finance area.

是的。首先，謝謝你，Peter，你能加入這通電話。談到評級業務，或我們從全球角度看市佔率，我們仍然維持非常強的市佔。——有幾個領域我們確實看到一些弱點。其中之一是在 CLO。如你所知，還有一些其他業務，例如擔保債券（covered bonds），我們基本上完全沒有積極參與。所以如果要說我們看到需要額外聚焦、檢視滲透率的地方，主要都在結構性金融（structured finance）領域。

Okay. Great.

好的。很好。

Do you have a second question?

你還有第二個問題嗎？

I do, actually. On Market Intelligence, the migration to...

有的，其實。關於 Market Intelligence，遷移到……

[This will be our] final question.

[這將是我們的]最後一個問題。

Is this going to be better than Bill's question?

這會比 Bill 的問題更好嗎？

Okay. It's probably not as good as Bill's. He's way more intellectual than I. In Market Intelligence, the migration to enterprise contracts. I mean, how far along are we in that? And has that had measurable implications in terms of profitability for the segment?

好。可能沒有 Bill 的好。他比我有學問多了。在 Market Intelligence 方面，轉向企業合約（enterprise contracts）的遷移。我的意思是，我們目前進展到哪個階段了？而這是否在該部門的獲利能力方面，帶來可衡量的影響？

Peter, the progress we have made over the last quarter is moving from 76% to 81% of Cap IQ customers moving to enterprise-wide agreements. So a nice 5% step-up. What we're seeing now is what we call the long tail. We are now making those changes for a large group of smaller customers. We're not planning to really pull out those numbers anymore in the future. We'll continue over the next period to drive this to 100% level over the next year or so. But we will continue to make progress to ultimately have 100% of our customers on enterprise-wide agreements. So good progress. And I think basically, for us, the last final number of customers, we'll deal with over the remainder of this year.

Peter，我們在上一季的進展，是將 Cap IQ 客戶轉為企業級協議（enterprise-wide agreements）的比例，從 76% 提升到 81%。所以是很不錯的 5% 提升。我們現在看到的是我們所稱的長尾（long tail）。我們正在為一大群較小型客戶進行這些變更。未來我們不打算再把這些數字單獨揭露。接下來一段期間，我們會持續推進，預計在未來一年左右把比例推到 100%。但我們會持續取得進展，最終讓 100% 的客戶都採用企業級協議。所以進展良好。而我想基本上，對我們而言，最後那一小部分客戶，我們會在今年剩餘時間內處理完。

Great. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining the call this morning. I'm sure you can hear how enthusiastic we are about the company, about our prospects for the future.

很好。那麼，謝謝各位今天早上參加這通電話會議。我相信你們也聽得出來，我們對公司以及未來前景有多麼熱忱。

As you can see, we have a lot of initiatives to look at our top line growth and our productivity. We're committed to continue to manage towards productivity but also very importantly, to growth. And you heard about some of our plans for our data operations, for technology in particular around artificial intelligence and machine learning and the kind of impact that it can have on us.

如你們所見，我們有許多措施要推動營收成長與生產力提升。我們承諾會持續以生產力為導向來管理，但同樣非常重要的是成長。你們也聽到我們在資料營運、技術方面的一些計畫，特別是圍繞人工智慧與機器學習，以及它可能對我們帶來的影響。

And I also want to thank all of you for the questions about China and our international operations. We're very enthusiastic about the opportunity we have going forward in China. And we'll keep bringing you updates on that as we go forward.

我也要感謝各位就中國與我們國際營運所提出的問題。我們對未來在中國的機會感到非常振奮。我們也會在後續持續向各位更新進展。

And on top of that, I want to thank our great Board of Directors, our management team, our global workforce, the commitment they have as well to Power the Markets of the Future, and the framework that we'll continue showing you going forward as to how we're allocating capital, where we're growing. And again, I want to thank all of you, and we look forward to even more success in 2019. Thank you very much.

此外，我要感謝我們優秀的董事會、管理團隊與全球員工，以及他們同樣對「為未來市場提供動力（Power the Markets of the Future）」的承諾；也感謝你們一路以來的支持。我們也會持續向各位展示我們如何配置資本、在哪些領域成長的框架。再次感謝各位，我們期待在 2019 年取得更多成功。非常感謝。

That concludes this morning's call. A PDF version of the presented slides is available now for downloading from investor.spglobal.com. A replay of this call, including the Q&A session, will be available in about 2 hours. The replay will be maintained on S&P Global's website for 12 months from today and by telephone for 1 month from today.

今天早上的電話會議到此結束。簡報投影片的 PDF 版本現已可於 investor.spglobal.com 下載。本次電話會議的重播（包含問答環節）將於約 2 小時後提供。重播將自今日起在 S&P Global 網站保留 12 個月，並透過電話保留 1 個月。

On behalf of S&P Global, we thank you for your -- for participating and wish you have a good day.

我謹代表 S&P Global，感謝各位——感謝各位參與，並祝各位有美好的一天。