Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Deutsche Börse AG Analyst and Investor Conference Call regarding the Q1 2025 Financial Results. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to Mr. Jan Strecker.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today to go through our Q1 2025 results. With me are Stephan Leithner, CEO, and Gregor Pottmeyer, CFO. Stephan and Gregor will take you through the presentation, and afterwards we will be happy to take your questions. The link to the presentation materials for this call has been sent out via email and can also be downloaded from the investor relations section of our website. As usual, this conference call is recorded and will be available for replay afterwards. With this, let me now hand over to you, Stephan.
Thank you, Jan. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I will begin today's call by providing a summary of the achievements in the Q1 . Following this, I will comment on the latest developments in Europe and the growth opportunities they present for us beyond our existing targets. Let me emphasize, overall, the development in the Q1 has proven to be slightly more successful than what we had originally anticipated. In addition to the underlying growth that we incorporated into our strategy, we observed the initial benefits of the recent surge in market volatility, a trend that has strongly continued in April. All businesses performed in plan, and the key drivers of the overall outperformance were the developments in Cash Equities, Fund Services, and FX, all of which reported strong double-digit net revenue growth.
The broadly, overall-only stable net revenue performance in Investment Management Solutions was mainly driven by high comparables in 2024 in software solutions. In the Q1 of last year, there were exceptionally large contract renewals at Axioma and SimCorp, which resulted in significantly lower upfront license revenues in the Q1 this year. In addition, in the Q1 last year, we signed up a significant new on-premise client in the Middle East. Put those together, and you explain a large difference in terms of the starting point. As we have explained many times in the past, due to the point-in-time recognition element in our software business, revenue development can sometimes be lumpy from quarter- to- quarter. This is why we focus on the annual recurring revenues, or ARR, as our key performance indicator for our growth and client momentum.
Driven by significant customer wins in North America, including one of the largest asset managers in the world, ARR increased 15% year-on-year at the end of the Q1 and amounted to a new record level of EUR 618 million. This performance puts us slightly ahead of our key peers. That is what I want to emphasize, and the momentum continues into April with the addition of one of the largest US public pension funds to our SimCorp One SaaS solution. In summary, business momentum is strong on all key growth vectors of our Software Solutions business, and while the Q1 revenue performance looks somewhat underwhelming at first glance, it is in line with our plan. Our growth expectations for this year and next year also remain unchanged.
Let me really emphasize this: based on a strong customer onboarding, conversions, and upselling pipeline, we expect double-digit net revenue growth in Software Solutions in the Q2 and also on average for the remaining nine months of the year. In Trading & Clearing, there was a 12% increase in net revenues without treasury results, driven by double-digit growth across most markets. In the area of cash equities, increased demand for European equities had a positive effect. In FX, market share gains were made, and there was a substantial increase in volatility.
Commodities at EEX continued secular growth that we have seen over the recent quarters, driven by market share gains and new clients. Furthermore, we have made good progress in the Fixed Income segment of Financial Derivatives, our fixed income roadmap, as we call it, by achieving 11% net revenue growth, excluding the treasury result development.
Let me come to the last two areas and really emphasize one more time the exceptional character of the momentum that we have. In Fund Services and Securities Services, we have seen new all-time highs, both in custody and settlements, which resulted in double-digit net revenue growth without the treasury results. This was driven by three key factors. Firstly, there was continued growth in debt outstanding. Secondly, there were higher equity market levels. And thirdly, there were inflows into European equities, as I alluded before. If I turn from the revenue side to the cost momentum, the underlying operating cost in the Q1 developed in line with our expectations. However, we experienced some headwinds from incremental provisions for share-based compensation and the stronger US dollar at the beginning of the year, contributing to an overall operating cost growth of 6%.
Gregor will explain why we look at the underlying numbers at 3%, which is very much in line with our prediction also for the full year. The US dollar momentum has changed by now, and unless headwinds from share-based compensation persist, we are still targeting, therefore, very much our 3% for the full year. Despite the favorable start for the year, we keep our guidance for the full year of around EUR 5.2 billion for the revenues without treasury results, and that is a statement where we have indeed cautioned it by, or positively cautioned it on the upside, that in case of higher market volatility to persist beyond just April, there is a clear upside also for our overall revenue expectations.
We also started our share buyback program shortly after the announcement in February and have since then repurchased around EUR 78 million of Deutsche Börse shares by the end of last week. This leaves a total of EUR 422 million to be executed until the end of November. Let me turn from the developments of the Q1 to a bit more to the outlook, in particular around the recent developments in Europe and how we expect them to have a sustained positive impact on many parts of our integrated business model. I will therefore turn to page two, where I will comment on the recent developments of the political side as well as the additional growth opportunities for Deutsche Börse Group. We have seen a broad change in flows and outlook momentum. I alluded to that earlier.
This affects our top line, but it is also worth noting that despite the market turbulences of recent weeks and the record volumes processed on some of our systems, everything ran very smoothly and scaling worked very well. We assisted our clients in dealing with exceptional circumstances in an orderly manner, in particular in April, particularly also in terms of managing their portfolios and hedging their exposures. We have identified three significant developments that have positive medium to long-term implications for our business and go beyond what was the March and April turbulences. These developments were not anticipated in our initial forecast for this year or in our Horizon 2026 targets. The first of those three developments we are witnessing is a resurgence of flows into European equities and funds for the first time in many years.
This is driven by the rotation from the US to European markets in light of geopolitical uncertainty, macroeconomic and valuation differentials, as well as the market performance year- to- date. Evidence for this can already be seen in ETF flow data, but there are broader benefits for all equity investment fund-related products and services across the group. This changed flow development has at least broken the persistent outflow dynamics from recent years and supports, in particular, our Cash Equities business and the Fund Services segment. The second, moving beyond just the flow dynamics, is a structural medium-term driver that we anticipate from the German and European defense and infrastructure investments. For example, being also driven on the corporate side with much positive benefits on the tech side and stimulus to the economy.
At the same time, all of that momentum from the public authorities will require an increase in the amounts of debt outstanding both on the public as well as in the private sector. This will benefit our Securities Services business, which handles a significant proportion of the international fixed income custody and settlement activities. It will also benefit our financial derivatives business, and it will emphasize further the ambition that we have around being the home of the European yield curve with Eurex and the fixed income roadmap that we have so much talked about. We continue to develop a comprehensive product portfolio of European capital markets offerings, and the most recent introduction of the EU bond futures just last week is very much a testament to that innovation momentum that we see from the broader trend that I alluded to.
Let me add as a third element, and you can see it on the chart, the most significant and long-term opportunity for Deutsche Börse that lies with the potential benefits of the Savings and Investment Union. This initiative proposed by the European Commission aims to deepen and integrate EU capital markets. With an unprecedented level of rigor, it will address the investment focus of both retail and institutional investors in the securities markets, as well as structural constraints.
There are several potential benefits for our organization from all those initiatives. The objective of the initiative is to channel the EU's EUR 10 trillion in household savings, which are currently held in low-yield bank deposits, into the capital markets. This shift is expected to increase retail investor participation and demand for products offered by our Trading & Clearing segment, including equities and ETFs, and by our Fund Services segment, obviously very directly.
The Savings and Investment Union also builds on the Capital Markets Union to facilitate cross-border investments by reducing market fragmentation and regulatory barriers. Our European presence and infrastructure mean that we are extremely well positioned to capitalize on increased cross-border activities. These activities drive more business to our very liquid and scalable platforms. Lastly, furthermore, the Savings and Investment Union places a high priority on financing SMEs and innovative companies, which would result in increased listings and capital-raising activities, and also aims to facilitate the financing of the EU's green and digital transition. You hear these many themes, these many initiatives. As we look at those, we, as the largest infrastructure provider with a broad footprint across different product services and markets, feel very well placed to benefit from these developments.
We are actively engaging and expect this to be an important component of our next strategy cycle beyond Horizon 2026. However, more importantly, our strong organic growth trajectory of recent years has significant further growth potential beyond 2026. The secular industry trends that support our strategies remain intact, and we are on track to meet our targets. Going forward, our growth will be driven by further momentum from the fixed income roadmap that we so often talked about from Investment Management Solutions, and I gave you my perspective when I look at this year's outlook and obviously beyond, but also the continued double-digit growth in Fund Services, Commodities, and FX and Digital. Taken together, all these factors give us confidence that we can continue to grow successfully well into the future.
Having looked beyond just the results, nevertheless, let me come back and turn it over to you, Gregor, to give us more detail.
Yeah, thank you, Stephan. On page three, we show the details of the Q1 results. Overall net revenue increased by 6% to EUR 1.5 billion. This includes the first more substantial decline in the treasury side since 2021, which decreased by 12% in the Q1 , as anticipated. As Stephan has just explained, net revenue increased by a strong 10% without the treasury side. This was slightly above our general expectation of 8% CAGR growth, mainly due to additional tailwinds from the markets. Despite the slightly higher than expected operating cost, which I will explain on the next page of the presentation, EBITDA without the treasury side demonstrated scalability, increasing by 11%. All other line items in the group's income statement developed as expected.
Only the tax rate was slightly below our guidance of 27% due to small positive one-off effects. Let me now walk you through the operating cost development in the Q1 on page four. Higher provisions for share-based compensation due to the outperformance of our share in the Q1 and the stronger US dollar at the beginning of the year resulted in an overall increase in operating cost of 6%. The 3% growth in underlying operating cost was in line with our expectation and was driven primarily by inflation and additional investments in the group's growth areas. Operating cost benefited slightly from lower exceptional costs in the Investment Management Solution segment. However, some exceptional costs were also incurred in the Q1 of this year. I will now turn to the results of the segments, beginning with the Investment Management Solution segment on page five.
The segment is split into two parts. The first part is Software Solution, which is a combination of SimCorp software business and Axioma analytics business. Stephan has already explained the broader dynamics in the software solution business. Looking at the different revenue line items, SaaS, so software as a service, revenues increased by 18%, while on-premise revenues declined by 32%. This is mainly driven by the general trend of existing clients moving to the cloud and new clients typically being SaaS-based from the outset. In addition, as Stephan has mentioned, we won a large new on-premise client in the Middle East in the Q1 of last year, which resulted in high point-in-time revenues. In terms of the ARR, so the Annual Recurring Revenue Growth of 15%, we continue to see overproportional growth in North America, which amounted to 21% and also in Asia-Pacific.
The second part of the segment comprises the ESG and index business of ISS and STOXX, which saw a net revenue increase of 5%. This was driven by the continued strong performance of the ESG business, with corporate solutions achieving double-digit growth. The index business also benefited from an improved market environment, with inflows in the European ETFs and higher trading volumes in index derivatives. However, the Market Intelligence business continued to face headwinds in the Q1 , as clients in the asset management industry are still more sensitive to costs. Operating costs in the segments increased by 6% due to planned higher growth and infrastructure investments at the beginning of the year in both businesses. Now let me turn to slide six, which shows the Trading & Clearing segment.
In financial derivatives at Eurex, we have seen continued growth in fixed income activity, in line with our ambition to further grow this business. Furthermore, the increase in market volatility since March has led to a notable rise in activity in equity and index derivatives in comparison to the depressed levels last year. Despite higher volumes and market volatility, margin fees on the collateral in our clearing house have shown a slight decline. This was primarily driven by enhancements to the risk methodology and an improvement in netting efficiency. In the commodity business, EEX growth was primarily driven by a significant increase in power derivatives trading in Europe and the US. This was due to significant market share gains from OTC and business from new customers, including quant-driven participants. In addition, we observed strong activity in power spot and record activity in gas products.
As with financial derivatives, we observed a decline in margin fees for commodities. This was primarily driven by the US power derivatives business, Nodal, where margin fees are partly dependent on US interest rates. In the field of foreign exchange, 360T has successfully attracted new buy-side clients and has experienced accelerated growth in regions such as the US and Asia-Pacific. In addition, we have also observed a substantial increase in FX volatility attributable to interest rate speculation, as well as economic and geopolitical factors. In the fund services segment on page seven, the market environment in the Q1 showed further improvement compared to last year. This was driven by higher equity market levels, volatility, and inflows. Together with continued client and fund onboarding, we achieved new record levels in all our business lines. We saw 23% net revenue growth in custody, 30% in settlement, and 20% in distribution.
With under-proportional operating costs, there was significant operating leverage in this business, and we achieved a high double-digit EBITDA growth without the treasury side. I will now turn to our Securities Services segment on slide eight. Custody continued to benefit from the growth in global debt outstanding and higher equity market levels, with the latter being the slightly bigger growth contributor in the Q1 . As a result, asset under custody reached a new record level of EUR 16.1 trillion in March. Settlement activity benefited from higher levels of trading in over-the-counter fixed income securities. A new record of 9.5 million settlement transactions was achieved in March. As a result, net revenue increased by 19%. On the combined net interest income across securities and fund services, we saw a decline of 11% to EUR 172 million.
While cash balances increased by 17%, reaching over EUR 19 billion, interest rates declined significantly compared to the same quarter last year. The Fed fund rate fell by 100 basis points, while the ECB deposit rate fell by up to 150 basis points. I am now reaching the final page of today's presentation, our guidance for 2025. Following careful consideration, we have decided to maintain our full-year guidance for the time being. Therefore, our targets remain at around EUR 5.2 billion net revenue and around EUR 2.7 billion EBITDA, both without the treasury side. This is also in line with the sell- side analysts' consensus that we have collected in April. However, if the recent developments in global trade tension and high volatility, as well as the increased interest in European securities, persist, there is a clear potential for this guidance to be exceeded.
In addition to that, we continue to expect a treasury side of more than EUR 4.8 billion for 2025. Based on current interest rate expectations and slightly lower cash balances compared to the last couple of months, we currently internally forecast a treasury side of around EUR 850 million. This is around EUR 80 million below the current analyst consensus. Despite the slightly higher cost growth in the Q1 , we are still anticipating operating costs to rise by around 3% for the full year. The headwinds from the stronger US dollar in Q1 have reversed by now, and we currently do not anticipate similar headwinds from provisions for share-based compensation, as we experienced in Q1 for the rest of the year. This concludes our presentation. We are now looking forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question at this point, please press nine, followed by the star key on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to cancel your question, please press three, followed by the star key. We kindly ask all participants to limit their questions to one per person. Please press nine and star now to state your question. The first question then comes from Mike Werner, UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much, and thanks for the presentation. Just a question on FX exposure. I've heard a lot about the impact it will have on costs, but we've seen a significant move in the dollar/euro FX rate in recent weeks/months. I was just wondering if you could give us a little bit of color as to what portion of your revenues are generated in US dollars, and in particular, which segments? I presume it's mainly in IMS, but I would love to get your feedback.
Thanks. Mike, thank you very much for your question. Let me use it to open and re-emphasize the breadth and the strength of our business. I mean, we've seen a 10% fee-based revenue momentum. I think we have seen in April that had unprecedented volumes that were testing to many market infrastructure providers. Our platforms have operated really flawlessly. I think, therefore, that the fact of all the pistons in our engines really continuing to move is something that is very much also independent of the effects dynamics that I will hand over to Gregor to comment in a minute.
I truly believe it's good you bring out by the question that certainly we have a global business, but the gist of that is very robust and is euro-based. Gregor can comment on IMS as well as on the Securities Services side, how we see more exposure to the currency there.
Yeah. Overall, the FX headwind we had in our revenues in Q1 was on group level roughly 1%. Right? That was positive. Obviously, on the cost side, it's another 1% headwind. That was a Q1 number. Overall, you can say that one- cent delta means roughly additional EUR 7 million for Deutsche Börse Group revenues and roughly EUR 3 million costs. That's basically the number on Group level.
Obviously, the far majority from the business with regard to FX impact relates to our investments management solution business, where we have the highest share of revenues. Even in the IMS segment, it was, in parentheses, just 1% headwind on the revenue side and 1% headwind on the cost side. The other big element is obviously our treasury side with regard to the US dollar, where we have seen impact on our treasury side.
Thanks, Gregor. Thanks, Stephan.
The next question then comes from Kyle Voigt, KBW. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Maybe just a question on interest rate trading. I believe interest rate futures volumes were up a very strong 18% in the Q1 , but we only saw a 7% increase in your interest rate trading revenues. I don't think margin fees are a substantial part of that revenue line. Just wondering if you could expand upon what drove that divergence in growth rates, whether it was lower revenue capture due to product mix or if there were any headwinds on the repo business to note that might have also contributed to that.
Yeah. Thanks, Kyle, for having the opportunity to explain it a little bit in more detail. Yes, you are right. The interest rate volume increased by 18%. Exactly, the revenue number for the interest rate derivatives also increased by 18%. No deviation in revenue per contract on the pure interest rate derivatives. What led to the plus 7%? First of all, OTC clearing is a little bit flattish compared to last year.
The main reason I mentioned that in my speaking notes is that despite the fact that the onboarding is rightly on track, we onboarded another 200 clients on fund- level basis for the last four months. That is all according to our plan. The reason for the flattish revenues is the cash margin level that did not increase. That is according to our compression runs on the one hand side, increasing the netting efficiency for our clients. We do something good for our clients, obviously. With regard to the risk methodology, the increased volatility does not immediately increase to additional margin requirements. In the long term, if the volatility would be on a higher level over the next 12 months, then the cash margins would continue to increase.
We have these anti-cyclical buffers in our risk models included, and that's basically the explanation for that. The second explanation I would like to give is an update on the repo business, which is basically minus 25% from a revenue perspective in the Q1 . Firsthand, the comparison in Q1 was very strong on the repo business. Currently, there is enough liquidity in the market, right? Therefore, there is currently, in the current situation, a little bit of headwind. Giving you to continue to have the guidance for our fixed income roadmap, it's unchanged, right? We are positive. We see very good chances to continue to achieve our EUR 300 million net revenues additional out of fixed income compared to 2022 in our Horizon 2026 target.
We see continued activity in our interest rate derivatives business, and it will continue to happen, as Stephan alluded to, the three more mid- to long-term growth drivers, and that will benefit in our interest rate derivatives. The OTC clearing will have a significant push in the second half year when you see the impact out of the active accounts discussion. That the onboarded clients, I told you, 200 onboarded clients on funds level will really show more activation. Currently, we do not see a step change in our activation level, but we expect it in the second half year. That is still right on track. Even in our short-term interest rate, where we still have some incentive to clients to move to our platform, we have considerable success here in the short-term rate. In the ESTR, what is already 15%.
Euribor is 85%, and ESTR is some 15%. In this 15% market, we have 50% market share on trading level. I think that's a good success. In the Euribor, it's still below that level. It's about 5% market share. Nevertheless, continuously, we win the liquidity we had originally expected.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Arnaud Giblat, BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I've got a question on Investment Management Solutions. It looks like the transition from on-premise to SaaS is having an impact on your revenues. Could you confirm how long this transition will go on for? Once you've achieved most of your revenues coming from SaaS, do you expect still revenues to grow in line with ARR? Secondly, if I can just double-check if you're having any negative impact on the ISS part of that business coming from lower appetite in the US? Thanks.
Let me start out on the first question with respect to the SaaS transition. Building on what we did in the deep dive in November, it's very important that we do see, obviously, that transformation progressing very strong. The growth rates and the revenues of 18% just in Q1 continue to underscore that. Structurally, however, it is not as though the SaaS solution will completely replace the on-premise. The on-premise business with many of the client groups, take, for example, just the clients that are the central banks in a number of instances, is important for them. That is a good, a very lucrative business.
That is something from an underlying model is something that we are very much able to support, and it does not affect at all the effectiveness of the setup on the software side. That is the important ingoing. That transformation is a combination as many of the new clients are also only SaaS. That is the clear direction there. We have the transformation that is going on. That is why the growth rate momentum will continue for a long time, and we expect to cross sort of the threshold, if you want, in 2027, as we have said before.
Just to add from my perspective, I understand that you say, look, from a revenue perspective, it looks disappointing. Obviously, on the first glance, a minus 5%, right? We already guided in the last call that there was a big one-timer in Q1, right? On the other hand, the quarterly development is really hardly to predict. In principle, we say, look, looking at the ARR number, the annual recurring revenue, that's a plus 15%. This 15% will translate in double-digit growth over the next 24 months. That's why we have that kind of logic. Therefore, the development in several quarters is really difficult to predict.
Nevertheless, we gave now this kind of guidance that we say, look, in Q2, it will be double-digit growth. We already know today, right? For the rest of the year, we also expect double-digit growth. That's why we really confirm from a client perspective, we are really right on track. Stephan mentioned two big Tier 1 clients. One of the biggest US asset managers and, secondly, one of the biggest pension funds in the US, really two Tier 1 clients.
It is great to see, right? Therefore, really, we can confirm we are rightly on track. No change with regard to our guidance of the SimCorp business. Also, the SaaS transformation, plus 18% growth here. SaaS is now more than 50%, right? Yet, it will take another two years before we achieve that, let's say, some 70% SaaS solutions overall, right? Still, the perspective that a SaaS client is 2x from a value proposition compared to an on-premise client. That is exactly the right strategy. Even if it looks we are not on track on the pure revenue recognition perspective, indeed, from a cash flow perspective, from a perspective over the next 24 months, we are rightly on track to deliver our Horizon targets.
Yeah. The second question, could you repeat that? I know, was it software solutions in the US or?
No, I was just wondering, I mean, given all the pushback we've had on ESG in general in the U.S., whether you've seen any impact in ISS?
We do see, and you've heard the numbers from Gregor. We do see a continued momentum in the business, or there's continued growth in the business. Certainly, the complexity of the business has increased by the debates. There's a regional differentiation that is going on. In addition, we in particular see a strong focus on clients on getting tailored solutions. We now have, and we have on our site, we have uploaded a more detailed material already a few weeks ago on ISS STOXX. There you can see that 90% of the solutions that we provide on proxy solutions are by now tailored solutions.
They are not standard voting policy advisory work, but they are really tailored to the individual client demands. That differentiation from higher complexity provides additional revenue opportunities. That is why we have a strong belief in the continued growth momentum of the business.
Due to that fact, we have seen no cancellation on the client side. I think that is really, yes, there is a lot of debate and a lot of noise in the U.S., yes, we all know. At the end of the day, the client makes a decision whether they pay for our advice. We are just a platform, right? As Stephan said, it is 90% customized, another 10% are benchmark-based. We are not an opinion leader. We are a platform providing that. That is much appreciated by clients if you have to do hundreds of AGMs in a very short time horizon. That is the reason why still our offer has additional value for our clients. More importantly, they pay for that.
That is great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Bruce Hamilton, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. One is sort of an ask and another is a question. I think, I mean, obviously, the Software Solutions and IMS has had quite a lot of focus. Stephan, you have addressed quite a lot in your initial comments. I just wonder if there is a way that you could improve the disclosure to help us better understand that convergence between revenues and ARR?
Because I think the risk is that every quarter, you seem to come in light of expectations and say it's all on track, it's all fine. At some point, the risk would be that the market loses confidence if we can't see that convergence happening. I don't understand what you can do, but that would certainly help. In terms of the question, outside of fixed income, I guess both equity derivatives and equities saw a kind of mid to high single-digit decline in revenue per volume. Just checking, were there any kind of volume impacts there? Or is it, I assume, in derivatives, a function of index versus single stock? In cash equities, perhaps that is volume discount related. Thank you.
On the Software Solutions, in terms of better transparency, I think we've really spent time on that. Let me say that. We will need, and we realize after the sort of deep dive we did in November, this is a continued journey. Unfortunately, there is no simple shortcut because, and let me just emphasize there, for those of you that will look at this quarter's numbers, you will see the on-prem decline of 32%. You had the earlier sort of reference that Gregor and myself gave that we had a big singular sort of client win a year ago in on-prem. The differentiation is a number of factors. It is not a simple one item between what is the ARR total amount and then the net revenue. It is really a variation quarter- by- quarter.
We recognize that that is an undue complexity. That's why we really very much stay consistent in giving you an aggregate guidance and pointing to the ARR and giving transparency on ARR, because ARR is the leading indicator we continue to see.
To your second question on the equity index part, does it just specifically the product mix or more single equity, less equity index so that there's no price deviation?
Okay. And for c ash equities?
Very little. I mean, compared to the Q4 , the RPC is down a little bit, but compared to the average over the last three or four quarters, it's pretty much in line. Probably, yes, there was a little bit of a volume effect.
Got it. Thank you.
The next question comes from Johannes Thormann, HSBC. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everybody. Two questions, as I said, in terms of follow-up. First of all, you mentioned that you still have 50% market in ESTR trading. Are you still free of charge or have you changed your pricing in this business? Secondly, you want to reduce your dependency on the cyclical trading businesses with the acquisition of some more stable software business, but the point-in-time accounting is now leading to even more volatile revenues. Please help me understand why you think this is still a good strategy.
Can you provide more details on the deals you just closed? You mentioned another pension manager. Is this the one in Texas or another one in the US? Probably also on the pricing of the very big US asset manager you mentioned to see how this will benefit you in the future. Also, why is the decline in the ARR from 17% last quarter to 15% still good news and not bad news? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Johannes, for the questions. First, to kick out of the quote, the simple one, yes, the training is still free of charge on that specific singular product. Let me turn to your second question in terms of the strategic intent and the stability of the business. I think there is no question if you look at the ARR base that we are building, that will be and is a very steady flow of cash flow that this is generating, totally different. The volatility is only an accounting technicality volatility, which we are as unhappy as many of you about, but which is part of the accounting standards that we need to apply.
The important point, however, and that is critical in your latest question, we've always guided in terms of the range of the ARR growth on a consistent basis. Now, we have seen 17%, which was at the upper end of our sort of guidance range in Q4. That was very exciting. You know how important Q4 is. That growth in Q4 alone, because it's such a big quarter, is a major statement. I think the continuity and stability of that growth to 15% now on the basis at the end of Q1 is not a decline as such, or it's just a continuity of growth. I don't think there's any question around that. If we can help you with more substance around that, happy to do that. But the underlying growth stability is one that is in addition to the stability of the cash flows on an ARR basis.
Does that answer your question, Johannes?
Yes. And probably on the clients, just. Or on the clients. What is another big pension manager or?
No, it's not Texas. You need to continue to move and move to the west. Move to the west.
Okay. So, another big one. Okay.
Yeah, it's a really big one. It's a really big one. It's further west if that is without giving away undue details. But don't walk into the water there. Just move west.
Okay.
Great.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Enrico Bolzoni, JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. So, a couple of questions on the Fund Business, please. First of all, I just wanted to ask you if you can give some update on the competitive landscape, especially after the correction we saw in market. Do you see any sign of changes there from distributors, pricing pressure, or some moves from some of your key competitors? I also wanted to ask you, can you please remind us what proportion of assets are in equities there? Including both fixed income and equity, what is the overall exposure to the United States? Thanks.
Thanks for the questions. I love it for somebody to focus on the fund side. It's indeed a true star business, as Gregor was highlighting. From a competitive landscape, the events in March have not had a particular impact in a way. I don't think there is any short-term type pricing behaviors and patterns.
What seems important to me is to emphasize the breadth again of the business we have on the fund side. We have historically had a unique strength, and we continue to have that in terms of the alternative funds. We have built a very solid position on the private assets and funds. On top of that, our business is closely integrated between funds and ETFs. I think in that sense, I do not even see any now. Clearly, we will need to watch how the market overall from an investment dynamics reacts. For the moment, we continue to see strong momentum there. There is around 70% in terms of equities exposure in the funds business. Very different from the Securities Services, which is clearly dominated in the reverse almost from a fixed income side. The US exposure is one that is very balanced in the overall picture.
We clearly, since we do not have any distribution activity in the U.S., there is no local market exposure. Also, the international exposures are always at the back of a usage funds business. It is not as though we have in Asia, for example, a disproportionate localized funds business, but it is really driven off the international fund business to a very large extent. There, it is a global as well as a European sort of background that clearly dominates. Hope that clarifies your question.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Andrew Coombs, Citi. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. A couple of follow-ups, please. Firstly, on Software Solutions, I just want to make sure you have called out the big Middle East contract that you won this time last year in Q1 2024. Were there any other big contracts in the on-prem upfront revenue recognition through Q2 through Q4 2024 that you'd like to call out? That's the first part.
The second part of that question, you talk about a big contract win in the US in your SaaS business, but presumably that won't be a big point-in-time revenue recognition given that it will get amortized over the life of the contract. Just to make sure I'm right on that.
The second part of the question is from the margin fees. I'm interested in your comments around the risk management and netting being the cause of the decline there because I think my working assumption was that greater volatility would mean you'd have your clients holding more collateral, which means actually your margin fees would go up. I can see why you're doing it. It's obviously in the benefit of the customer, but is this going to be an ongoing tailwind as you try and win market share by improving your risk management and netting going forward? Thank you.
On your first, on the Software Solution side, I think when we look at the 2024 Q2 and Q3, there were no comparable sizable singular sort of renewals or new contracts in the on-prem business. Also, I hope that that takes away some uncertainty there for you. On the second question, I will hand it over to Gregor.
Yeah. We got to the margin fees netting question. As I alluded, first, we do these compression runs. That's standard. We do that on a quarterly basis to support our clients and to increase the netting efficiency. Secondly, from a risk methodical point of view, we have some anti-cyclical buffer. That means if there is high volatility, to avoid that the clients have to immediately put the full amount of margin calls, we reduce it a little bit. That is why you do not see that kind of correlation between higher volatility and cash margins. Again, if the market volatility continues to be on a higher level, then the cash margins will increase over the next months and quarters.
Thank you. On the big US client winning SaaS, I presume that would get amortized over the life of the contract. You will not recognize a significant one-off revenue boost through in Q2?
Yes. Yes. The one I alluded to, the sort of pension client in the US, yes, the asset manager was part of Q1. That was not a big one-off, but that was a big ARR win.
Yeah. Perfect.
Thank you.
The next question then comes from Hubert, Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you for two questions. I just got two of them. Firstly, on cash balances in Securities Services, it still remains quite high at EUR 19 billion. Should we expect this to remain at such a high level going forward? What are the drivers for this? The second question is on the fee holidays within the short-term interest rates. How long do you expect this to continue for? What are you looking for before stopping these fee rebates? Thank you.
Okay. The cash balances in Q1 was at EUR 19.4 billion. Upward continue to be on that level, right? What we expect, and when we guide this EUR 850 million for the full year, then we expect that it will go down, usually seasonalized in Q3, right? Usually in summer, July and August, you see lower activity level due to the holiday season. That is still what we assume. If I look into the consensus forecast, most probably that was ignored and just said, okay, this high level of $19.4 will be extrapolated for the full year and even slightly increased, right? That is why we gave that specific guidance, what we expect here for the cash balances. Obviously, if it continues to be on that high level, then obviously our guidance is too low. That is just the expectation.
The other thing is obviously there could be some deviation out of the interest rate cuts. We included the current three further cuts on US dollar, on euro, and British pound, right? That was basically the consensus. I'm not sure whether some of your houses take your own assumptions out of your economy department. Could be also some differences. That is why we said very openly what is our expectation and what are the premises.
With regard to the fee holidays in the ESTR business, yes, it will continue to happen this year, most probably until year-end, because really our focus is to get the additional liquidity because that is the key element that we build up a new liquidity pool here for Eurex so that we have the strong Bund, Bobl, Schatz futures liquidity, that we have then the ESTR and Euribor liquidity, that we have the repo liquidity.
So far, we are really focused on getting all the, obviously, the interest rate swap overall. Making a good offer to our clients that the netting efficiency across all of these four products will really be a strong benefit for our clients. When they have to move from London to Europe, that they do not lose too much of the efficiency. I think we can compensate that when we build up these four liquidity pools and offering the right netting efficiencies.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Ian White, Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple of follow-ups from me, please. First of all, just on Software Solutions, would you be prepared to call out for us the level of point-in-time revenue that you recognized in Q1 2025 and also what it was in one Q1 2024? I feel like that would just put into numbers and make very clear for us what you're telling us sort of qualitatively in terms of what's happened and the clients that have been booked in the two periods. I think that would be really helpful.
Just secondly, to follow up on the treasury result in Trading & Clearing, just looking at some of the balance sheet disclosures, it looks like the cash deposits by market participants are down about 10% year-over-year at the end of the Q1 . The financial instruments held by central counterparties, that line is down by about one-third year-over-year. How much of those declines is being driven by sort of secular changes that you've made to the margin models, for example? How much of it is just reflective of market conditions and might unwind if we see volatility persist, as you mentioned? Thank you.
Maybe I'll start with the second question on around the balance sheet. From a balance sheet perspective, the key dominating factor is our repo business, right? That's roughly two-thirds of our balance sheet, roughly. Therefore, if I told you earlier that the repo revenues declined by 25%, you basically see the same decline in our balance sheet for the repo business. The second big element in our balance sheet is obviously the cash balances, right? The cash balances we have on Clearstream, that is obviously increased, right, compared to Q1 last year. Compared to Q4, it should be even a little bit less. It really depends on that. For the cash balances on the Eurex clearing business, I already mentioned that there's now a slight decline due to that compression runs and to this risk methodology.
That is the principal explanation for the key elements on our balance sheet.
In terms of your first question, we do not have those numbers here with us when it comes to the prior year. I think it is a third for this year, roughly in Q1. That is what we estimate, but we do not have the same breakdown for last year.
That is a principal number. This is roughly one-third or 35%. That we provided in our deep dive session with Christian Kromann, but it can definitely deviate now from quarter- to- quarter. That is just roughly some pool that roughly 35% is triggered by one point-in-time revenue.
Okay. That is helpful.
Q1 last year was higher than Q1 this year. That is the main reason why you see the on-premise where you usually have that point-in-time revenue has declined by 32%, right?
That's the main reason that we have a double-digit million EUR a month more point-in-time revenue in Q1 last year.
Indeed. Got it. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Ben Bathurst, RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
My question's also on software solutions. I understand that ARR growth has been driven more proportionately from the US in recent periods. And it sounds like that will be the case again in Q2. I just wondered how the macro developments in recent weeks changed your thinking about the US market opportunity. Could a more challenged economic growth outlook in the US actually stimulate more demand, do you think? Or could that be thinking about things too optimistically? Thank you.
Indeed, sort of the US remains a key growth market in Q2. Definitely, by the wind that we alluded to, it will be a very relevant number. Underlyingly, we think, however, that our idiosyncratic momentum is clearly, clearly, clearly isolating us materially from what is, if there is any macro development. I mean, the underlying trend and change of business model to look for a front-to-back platform, we do not see that having changed. Besides that, as I say, our idiosyncratic, those two big wins alone in terms of client reference and buzz that they create is very strong.
Today, as we speak, there is the annual conference of SimCorp in Barcelona, more than 1,200 participants. I know this does not feel like the Salesforce 50,000 or 500,000 conference, but in the financial sector, that has an enormous buzz. Yesterday afternoon for a brief period, totally in the dark, but not because of the product, but by the environment in Barcelona.
Again, on a serious note, I think the points of reference is that we have created the type of client names which in the industry are very well known and visible, even if we partly only describe them in more generic terms. They strongly drive what we see in the US.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Tobias Lukesch, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot. Good afternoon. Quickly touching on the capital allocation, is there anything we should consider over the next quarters in terms of bigger projects or potential M&A, maybe the discussion about your US business? Maybe you can give us an update there what the current situation is. Thank you.
There's nothing. I mean, clearly, the dividend payment is coming shortly. Outside of that, there is nothing special that we would highlight. We have said we remain from a big-scale transaction situations focused on the integration efforts, but we continue to do smaller M&A. I do not think it is anything that affects the aggregate sort of cash planning that would be relevant on a group level.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Oliver Carruthers, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs. I have got one question on software solutions. Sorry to add another one here, but it is on the ARR rather than the point-in-time revenue. The year-over-year growth in your software solutions ARR is 15%, which is strong. If I look at the quarterly progression in your ARR, which has gone from EUR 608 million to EUR 618 million, it has only risen 1.5%. It looks like 2025 has slowed down quite a bit so far. If I annualize that Q1, it's 67% ARR growth in the Q1 . I appreciate there might be some effects in this quarterly progression, but any comment as to what's driving this, especially as you're calling out a big ARR win in the Q1 , which presumably is reflected in the 618. Thank you.
Thanks, Oliver. It's a good question in the sense that it allows us to reiterate and explain the context, obviously, that in absolute euros, that progression is very, how to say, seasonalized and affected by the seasonal pattern. The big numbers in Q4 in euros or in absolute euros progress is very much driven by the sheer size of individual sign-ups that we see in line with what is on a revenue item also a disproportionate absolute number. The same dynamic applies basically when we look at the ARR from a currency perspective, what we report on the ARR side is on a like-for-like basis there.
Sorry, do you mind just elaborating a little bit on the seasonality in an ARR number? Thank you.
I think the seasonality in the ARR is structurally from a dynamics of clients signing contracts to go back. That is the important component. I mean, the software business, the one element of seasonality that it has brought to us that is a bit different from what we had before is that clients buying software have a habit of waiting to the last day in the quarter, but even more so to the last day in the year. That is why the Q4 dynamics is simply projects that have been discussed often for many, many months, kept by clients to the very end.
It's no different from the dynamics from a seasonal, just during the year dynamics that you will see with SAP, with software on Microsoft and other any bigger contracts. I don't know why the IT responsibles have developed the habit of doing that in the last few days of the year, but it seems an inherent component of how software purchasing is happening.
Okay. Thank you.
Right. There are no further questions in the pipeline. Thank you very much for your participation today. If there are further questions, then please do feel free to reach out to us bilaterally. Thanks again and have a good day.