We are going to get started. This is Craig Siegenthaler from Bank of America. I'm joined on stage by Eli Abboud, who covers the exchanges with me, and I'm very pleased to introduce Billy Hult. Billy is CEO and a board member of Tradeweb Markets. He was promoted to CEO in 2023 with Lee Olesky's retirement after serving as president. Billy joined Tradeweb 24 years ago, led its push into mortgage trading, and built the leading electronic marketplace for TBA mortgages. Tradeweb is one of the largest fixed-income e-trading platforms globally, with its large rates and credit business. Its business has also expanded to other asset classes, including ETFs, and Tradeweb has a data business, too. The business is also diverse across geography and channel, with services spanning the dealer, institutional buy side, and retail channels.
As its revenues have doubled over the last five years, and it also has never had a negative growth year either. So pretty impressive. With that, Billy, thank you for joining us. How you doing- how are you doing today?
I'm great. Thank you for having me.
Oh, great. So, let's start with a history question. Tradeweb started as a rates business, providing its clients a platform to trade government bonds. However, now the business is big and diverse, including a big credit business, and your revenues now rank number one in the industry. How did you unseat the leader?
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Craig. Great conference. I didn't quite realize, like, right away that this was being taped. I might not have worn, like, a, like, a light blue jacket and, like, my face is red, so my wife, if she ever looked at this, is gonna wonder-
Well-
how I've been spending my time at this conference.
I have a secret for you, though. There's no video, only audio.
Thank God.
So now they know.
Phew! Now I'm, now I'm relaxed. We were, you know, from the very beginning, as the company made its mark in government bonds, which was the liquid, sort of, biggest, most vibrant market, so it made sense for us to start there. It was always really a story of expansion for Tradeweb. So we never were settled in on being in one marketplace ever, ever. So from the very beginning, it was: how do we apply what we do, I think, really well into, you know, other markets, other geographies, and other pieces of the market structure? So it was government bonds, TBA mortgages. Let's open an office in London. Let's get into European government bonds. There was a big move, you know, early on to sort of recognize that interest rate derivatives globally was a big market, traditionally a voice market.
So let's do the right things and make the right investments to kind of position us well there. Around the same time, we had a view that the company could compete not just in the institutional space with firms like Bloomberg, but in the wholesale space with firms like... You know, I know Howard was here yesterday with firms like BGC and with ICAP. We knew we could compete there, but we also, I think, had a pretty strong view that market structure, you know, tends to shift, and so we wanted to be able to be in the anonymous order book business. Because of the great client network we had, we felt like there would be behavior that went back and forth. That's played out very well in credit.
And then the big move for us, and you kind of said this, was ultimately, you know, the expansion into credit, which happened, you know, just before the company went public. But from my perspective, I would say probably the most important thing that we've done. You know, when we were going through the public process, and you, and you kind of remember this well, like we were-- "It's the Tradeweb guys. They're, like, the rates platform, you know, and, and so, you know, maybe they're talking about credit, but can they really compete?" And so, you know, I made this point to you last night, you know, you quoted the stats. So, like, we've-- you know, we have doubled our revenue as a company in the last five years. You know, more than half of that revenue has come from non-rates businesses.
I think that's a pretty strong testament to the way that we've been able to succeed in credit as a public company. By the way, not always easy. You know, where do you place investments? How do you worry about margins? How do you see opportunities and obviously continue to do the things that it takes to pick up market share, innovate for clients, and ultimately win? And so that's what we've been trying to do. And we try to do that, you know, humbly and with a sense of fun, because I think this is a fun business to be in.
So let's pivot onto the macro side. This is an interesting year, a lot of inflections.
Yeah.
Rates were going up. Now we have a pause, likely go down. Hopefully, markets go up, but this should have the impact of expanding financial market liquidity. Last time we saw something similar to this in the COVID period, market share of e-trading platforms, like, went vertical. So I wanted your perspective on how you think this macro backdrop will impact the Tradeweb business.
Yeah. I think it's, I think it's been a really good environment for us, you know, specifically, specifically on the rates side. You mentioned, you know... So, so when I became CEO, January 1, 2023, you know, 2022 was pretty unprecedented when you think about sort of the way that the Fed hiked rates and the pace that they hiked rates. That's like, hadn't really seen a marketplace like that, you know, since, like, almost like the mid-1990s. So I was looking forward to what I would describe as almost like a sort of natural cadence of activity in the marketplace. About a year ago, that kind of, that sentiment kind of went out the window.
If we remember kind of everything that happened with the regional crisis, and then really what I would describe, you know, to the audience as a sort of fracturing liquidity, a stress in the system, you know, particularly in, you know, the government bond market, the mortgage market, and the high-yield market. So liquidity became a very challenging moment. You know, we obviously, as a leading global marketplace, you know, we felt the effects of that. And so, you know, it was a risk-off market. We understood kind of how volumes were transacting in the market through sort of May and June.
And then my instinct is, as we got into kind of July, and there became sort of, a different outlook in terms of the role that the Fed was going to play in the marketplaces, and this feeling, obviously, that, you know, at some point in time, rates would go lower, the marketplace became much more significantly a sort of risk-on market, and our business has obviously, you know, really accelerated from that kind of July standpoint to, as we sit here today, kind of in the third week of February, we've done exceptionally well. It's a really, really good sort of moment in time to be a leading platform, you know, in the rates business.
I do think we're getting to a moment, we can talk about this, where, you know, the concept of, you know, electronic trading and just trading are becoming kind of one and the same. You know, we've, we've gone from being sleepy to, to mainstream, and I think that's part of the story of Tradeweb and also the story of electronification in the markets.
So in parallel with the rebound of financial markets liquidity, we may also get duration extensions in retail and institutional investor portfolios.
You know, some of that may move out of cash where you've done well.
Yeah.
If fund flows get much stronger for bond ETFs, for bond mutual funds, if PIMCO, BlackRock get bigger, if they hire people, what does this mean for your business?
I mean, that's like, you know, more of that, please.
Yeah.
You know, at the end of the day, I kind of, I kind of think about it as almost like, sort of like the best real estate you could have. We kind of sit in, in the middle between, you know, PIMCO, BlackRock, the largest macro hedge funds, the central banks, and, like, the biggest, most important kind of banks, you know, market makers in the space: the Bank of America, the Goldmans, the Morgan Stanleys, the J.P Morgans. Like, that's, like, a pretty amazing kind of place to be in when you are the sort of, like, electronic, middleman between all of these transactions, you know, globally. So that's a great-- It's a great... It's a great way that you described it.
You know, my instinct is, and I kind of described credit as probably the best thing that we've done over the last kind of five years, showing how we would really sort of be able to compete in the credit business because that market's so important. Second to that, and probably not too distant of a second, I would say, you know, we built an ETF business, you know? And so getting into the block ETF business and getting into the fixed income ETF business, that's been sort of a really important thing that we've done, as so much innovation has obviously happened on the ETF side of the marketplace. I made a joke, which I know you remember at the last earnings call; it's like, not that we couldn't spell ETF.
Obviously, we could spell ETF once in a while, but we had no, like, home court advantage around ETF. Like, you know, we were the rates platform that wound up moving into derivatives. Like, that was a pretty natural move. MarketAxess was, and is, you know, a credit platform that moved into EM. That was a pretty natural move. They're, they're kind of neighbor markets. ETFs kind of just kind of sits there sort of a bit independently and a bit in the middle. I do think that the sort of, if not the secret sauce of Tradeweb, but for sure, one of the things that we've hopefully done pretty well is be that sort of trusted industry partner, along the way. And so from my perspective, the ETFs was really about the relationship we had built with BlackRock.
You know, they, they didn't send us a book on, like, how ETFs work back in, like, 2011 or 2012, but they definitely worked with us on building out the protocols and, and figuring out how we would work with them on building out a very strong ETF platform, which has been great for us.
Now you're on their Aladdin, too, which is great.
We're doing a lot of work with them on, you know, the integration of their Aladdin platform. I think that's been a key sort of moment of success for us in credit. You know, particularly on the high-yield side, as we kind of continue to build out, like, the responders in that high-yield network. It's not slow-moving, but it takes, you know, a lot of joint cooperation. So we'll spend, you know, a ton of time with BlackRock and the Aladdin folks inside of BlackRock on making sure that we're kind of all marching together to get this done.
But it was a key moment for us when Aladdin came to us and said: "We really want to invest in integration with you in credit." Because at a minimum, Craig, what it meant was, I think that we had gotten our business to a point where, like, they cared. You know, I made the joke before, but the truth is, when we were going public, it was... I think it was, you know, there was a lot of second-guessing as to whether or not we really understood credit and had what it took to ultimately compete with an incumbent in the space. It's not easy to do. So we had to kind of prove ourselves, I think, over a bunch of years, and I think we have done that.
Great. Um-
Trying to.
We wanted to turn the conversation to automation. So we wanted to get an update on how banks are moving from high touch to low touch. And that's kind of occurring in parallel with rising AIX volume. So how are banks expanding their use of automation, and then what are you seeing on the electronic protocol front?
Yeah. So it's kind of, you know, think about it, Craig, as a combination of like, it all kind of winds up kind of working together, and there's a balance in this whole thing. So it's definitely a combination of, like, the banks who are getting more and more sophisticated. Firms like Citadel are pushing, Citadel Securities are, like, pushing the automation button a ton and looking to compete, quite frankly, and I love Jim DeMare, looking to compete with, like, Bank of America and Goldman and Morgan Stanley and trying to become a top-tier market maker. You know, starting, obviously, they started with government bonds globally, then they moved into derivatives, and now they're making a lot of, you know, headway in credit. So that's a pretty big deal. That's gonna up everyone's kind of game around efficiency and automation.
The buy side, I think, very importantly, is becoming, like, way more sophisticated in terms of how they engage with liquidity in the market. So we were talking about, you know, PIMCO. You know, back in the day, how it would work is, you know, you'd go to PIMCO and try to make sure that they got onboarded into Tradeweb. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn't work. But when it worked, you know, and you would watch them kind of use Tradeweb, you would see, like, okay, I'm gonna buy $25 million five-year notes, and I'm gonna click, you know, four dealers to send an inquiry to, and maybe it would be like Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, you know, Morgan Stanley. And you, you would wonder, like, okay, like, just out of curiosity, like, why are you picking those four dealers?
Sounds great, but, like, what's your thought process? And they would sort of be like: "Well, my tickets are, like, alphabetical. You know, or just, 'I never thought of it. Like, actually, like, Bank of America, good news, like, first.'" But the sort of thought process was, like, super, super basic, right? Now, what's really happening is the biggest and most important buy side clients are integrating all different pieces of data into what I describe as, as both dealer selection, but more importantly, I think it's like the search for liquidity in all of these different markets in a way where they're not guessing, right? So it's like, I want to buy now, like, $150 million two-year notes, and I know Bank of America has been an axe seller, so I'm going to make sure to ping them on this trade.
That's the sort of, like, behavior learning thing, and we call it AIX, and it cuts across kind of all of our businesses. That's been a huge, huge jump in efficiency, automation, and it's, like, super, super sticky. Once they're kind of going in that direction, they're not coming back from it, and I say that in, like, obviously, like, a really good way. So over the last few years, I think the investments that companies like, you know, Tradeweb and MarketAxess has done this well, also worth me mentioning, you know, around almost like...
If the first movement was like phone to the mouse, the next movement is like off of the mouse, onto algorithms and a much more sophisticated approach for not just the PIMCOs and the WAMCOs and the BlackRocks, but the macro hedge funds are, like, living in the space that way. And so that's been a big turn in terms of, like, the speed of the electronification of these businesses.
Okay, maybe it's talking to AI at some point.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's definitely a component of all of that to it. But it's been, from my perspective, to see the level of sophistication kind of change the way it has, goes back to what I was describing before, which is like the mainstream-ness of this now. The sort of haphazard, like, let me kind of try it this way, but that's kind of it. That thought process has kind of gone out the window, and I think it's about this balance thing, right? If you were under-resourced around technology as kind of COVID hit the world and hit the financial markets, you paid a price. You know, and I think if you paid that price, you pay that price once.
So I think the light has gone off around making sure that I am front and center, you know, investing in technology at a moment in time where the markets have become obviously, like, more and more important.
Okay.
Let's maybe talk a bit about your r8fin
Yeah.
- acquisition.
Yes.
How is this going to help the platform and help you grow your share in treasuries?
So we did. Yeah, it's a good question, Eli. So, you know, we did two acquisitions in, you know, in 2023. One was Yieldbroker, and the other is a company called r8fin. I was certainly conscious, I think in a way that is human, certainly conscious of both wanting to show the market that the company could do a couple of interesting deals. I also wanted to make sure, obviously, like, we did it really well. And so my sort of instinct was, let's do something not like it doesn't have to be like a comfort zone, comfort zone, but let's do something a little bit around a business that we're, like, pretty good at, right? And so, you know, we've had this, like, leading, kind of leading role in government bonds, like, forever and ever.
What we were seeing was a lot of innovation that was happening, particularly around, you know, macro hedge funds and how they would engage in the marketplace around basis trades. We weren't going to build, to make an obvious point, I know Howard was yesterday. We're not going to build, like, a futures exchange... right? But we wanted access to that kind of flow, right? And, you know, r8fin is kinda industry-leading technology with a great bunch of kinda algorithmic programmers. We felt like it was, like, a natural fit for us. And from my standpoint, at a minimum, it does a couple of things. I think it captures a type of flow that we had been missing. Hate missing flow, so how do we get that flow?
And then I think it gives us this sort of like the obvious kind of like cross-selling ability, because it's not just gonna be like treasuries and futures. We're obviously gonna be able to add in other marketplaces, European government bonds, potentially at some point in time, I think, TBA mortgages. So now we're kinda in a game that we weren't in before. So feeling really good, early stages around r8fin, but it's the type of acquisition that feels good to us, and I think it's gonna be a really good deal.
Got it. So sticking on rates, you guided toward 40% revenue growth in swaps in January. What are the cyclical and secular drivers here, and, and where are we going from here in swaps?
So swaps, like, you know, the history on swaps is it was sort of the back alley of all marketplaces in the rates complex, right? And so after government bonds, you know, European governments, TBA mortgages, after these different types of businesses in the rates world had gone electronic to some extent, swaps were kind of like, "Mm, not us." Right? We're gonna just keep doing things the way we do things. There's no clearing. You do a trade with me, you take it off with me, all of that very profitable business for the banks. My instinct is like, sort of minus regulation, the truth of the matter is, I think that market still kind of goes on like it's 1994, you know, not 2024. Regulation kind of changed everything, you know, around swaps.
We were positioned, you know, really, really well, and we've been this, like, super beneficiary of that market going electronic globally, right? So it's, it's been like year after year after year of steady performance. One of the reasons why, and this came up a bit last night, I think it's important to kind of mention this, it wasn't like when the regulation hit and SEFs got created, it wasn't like, okay, like, it's all happening at once. Regulation got implemented over time. And so it's been a gradual acceleration of electronic volumes in the space. It's our... Sameer and Ashley might kick me if this. I believe it's our most profitable global business, which is a big deal.
I make the point, and I think this is really important, I think, that as the market went electronic and as it's been like a company like Tradeweb's most, in a profitable business, sort of like, who cares? The banks have stayed like super profitable business, super profitable in that business themselves, and that's a really good thing, right? So what we're doing is we're continuing to create kind of like more and more, I think, like, really good innovations in that space. We launched a protocol in Europe that we call Request for Market, which is the ability for one buy-side client to go to one specific dealer, Bank of America, and say: "Show me a two-sided market." If it's in the bandwidth of a certain bid-ask threshold, that client will execute on one side of the trade or the other.
That's like how, like, real risk gets transacted. I'm very, very oriented around the concept of, like, risk transfer. I think that's probably the most important thing for us to keep in mind as we think about the evolution of these businesses, and it's been a really good environment to be in, in interest rate derivatives. And I think, you know, my instinct is, if you think about just the very basic concept of, of global debt growing, you know, the Fed playing a lesser role in a bunch of the marketplaces that we are in, you know, private sector intermediation is back, and that's good for, you know, rates, volumes, it's good for Bank of America. It's an important way to kind of think about and describe the arc of where these kind of global trading businesses are going.
So it's a big business for us.
Gotcha.
We've done well with it. Yeah.
Gotcha. Now, on credit, All traded adoption has also gone very well. Could you maybe give us an update there, and where does the competitive landscape stand-
Yeah
... in all-to-all credit relative-
Yeah
-to your peer?
So that kind of picks up a couple of thoughts, one of which is this thought, Eli, around, you know, risk transfer. So, you know, we decided that there was a sort of competitive opening for us in credit. I mean, it's one thing for us to decide that. It's, like, another thing for the marketplace to, like, accept us and for us to really make progress. So, you know, not to make you laugh, but, like, to make the most obvious points, like, well, how are we actually going to, like, compete in this space? We knew, I think, that if we just, like, did exactly what the incumbent did in the space and just like, you know, charged PIMCO less, it wasn't gonna work. You know, so we had to figure out a way to do something better.
So the first thing we did was we recognized, you know, what, what the incumbent did really well, which was the table stakes of kind of open trading, all-to-all trading, the ability for the buy side to, to connect, you know, with other buy side participants, and that's, like, a fundamental piece of the credit market. So we had to like, you know, service that side of the business the right way, and onboard all of these clients and have them, you know, respond and be competitive that way. Then we were like, "Okay, like, that's the minimum," right? What do we do that's different, and how do we create sort of a higher level value to clients?
And so from my perspective, the first sort of like thing that we did around that, the first kind of door opener, was everything we've done around net spotting and net hedging, bringing the treasury market into credit trades and allowing for, I think, added efficiency around spotting and hedging, which is actually a very, very important thing. And then the next thing was like, okay, like, we're starting to get there. What's, like, the real big thing next? And that has become everything that we've built around, I think, a mainstream trading protocol that we call portfolio trading, which is the ability for a buy-side client to trade on an all-in level. A bunch of line items that would have gotten priced randomly or separately now get traded on one price. It kinda like does two things.
It fits the sort of like forward, sort of algorithmic technology aspect of where the market is and where it's going. Most important thing is that it brings the banks, like, back into the equation. It's back to this concept of balance. In the all-to-all trading world, in the open trading network thing, the banks are the kinda losers in that evolution. And so we, you know, distinctly and decidedly wanted to bring Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Goldman, like, back into the mix with us. We needed them. Bring them back into the mix with us on these kinds of protocols, portfolio trading being, like, the big one. And now you're seeing risk trades really get done, which is, from my perspective, probably, without question, the most important aspect of that evolution.
You know, open trading, all-to-all trading, you know, I'm State Street, and I have like, you know, a zillion line items, and those zillion line items are, like, tough to price. So I need to send this zillion line item thing out to, like, 150 sets of eyes out there in the marketplace. That's, like, good, and that's, like, important, but State Street's never gonna put, like, a risk trade on that line item, right? Because they're not gonna want 150 set of eyes on that, you know, on that trade. And so portfolio trading, in some ways, it almost, like, restores a little bit of, like, the natural order of things. I'm PIMCO. I'm a client. I wanna deal with Bank of America.
I just want liquidity, and I wanna transact as a client, and I want Bank of America to transact as my dealer. It's like, okay, the world has gotten reset. It's just gotten reset around efficiency and automation in a way that didn't exist five years ago.
Billy, let's stick with credit here. I wanted to see what your penetration looked like today with smaller and mid-size buy-side firms.
Do you think there's any low-hanging fruit to add bodies on the sales team and deepen your penetration there, especially relative to the incumbent?
On Tradeweb sales team?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think you become CEO of a company, and you have an opportunity to sort of put your personality a little bit in terms of how the company is perceived. I've always been, I think, like, client-oriented. So from my perspective, like, the way to move these things, these markets forward, and the way for a company like Tradeweb to succeed was to sort of, like, live and breathe with your clients and really understand them well. So I want that - 'cause that's, like, kinda like who I am. You want that to sort of, like, reflect out into the organization the right way. We do have a, you know, a really good sales force.
I think the respect level around how we operate with our clients, I think, is pretty high. But yeah, where we see opportunity, we can bring, you know, more talented people in and continue to sort of hire salespeople and run that playbook because we think it's an important playbook. You know, you know, how you really partner with clients, it's one thing for me to say that, it's another thing to really have the credibility, you know, where you can partner. That's a pretty big deal. PIMCO doesn't just have, like, wide-open doors, you know, "Come on in every day, guys, and let's just, like, talk." You know, you gotta really be able to add value when you're kinda in those meetings, and so I've tried to put, like, a pretty good premium on that for a long time. The other piece of it, and I...
My instinct is this is maybe as important, you know, firms that are trying to build a business and pick up market share are more and more kinda coming to us and asking us to be their kinda partners in this next step of evolution, right? So it's not, it's not quite like we become their almost, like, de facto sales force, but there's a version of that because it's aligned interests, right? When Citadel says, like, "We wanna be in credit," they're gonna lead with technology. Now, they're gonna hire their own salespeople, but they're not gonna, like, hire, you know, a million salespeople, right?
They're gonna, they're gonna lead with technology, and they are going to look to partner with, you know, electronic marketplaces that they feel comfortable with to onboard clients and to create the client penetration that they need. And we're gonna be sort of massively open to that, obviously. And so it becomes a little bit of a sort of, like, interesting kind of two-way street around partnership. And that's how we kind of think about. That's how we think about, you know, trying to, you know, to, to partner. I've been, from my perspective, very conscious of the fact that there's a balance in this thing, right? These are. It's easy for me to say, like, PIMCO is. We keep talking about PIMCO. PIMCO is like Tradeweb's relationship. They're Bank of America's relationship.
Like, let's be honest, like who, you know. Like, it was nice to see, like, the BlackRock guys, like, yesterday, but they're, they're, they're, they're waving to me, and they're going to go meet with someone else kind of, right? So we don't, like, inflate our own view of the world, but we're the trusted, trusted partner, I think, that's able to kind of handle issues and create efficiencies that wind up working for sort of both sides of the world. Can be actually hard to do. And I think to your point, Eli, and I say this in a very nice way, I think the story of all-to-all trading, the story of open trading, whether or not we're talking about it in credit or even aspects of the government bond market, become a story of imbalance.
You know, and when you, when you go down that path of, like, imbalance, there are moments where you might slightly suffer some consequences of that. It's one thing to run an all-to-all trading environment platform and to be very clear about it, "And this is what we're doing, and this is why we're doing it, and we want BlackRock to connect with Putnam, and we want, you know, State Street to connect with, you know, GSAM." It's a little bit tougher to walk into Bank of America's office and become their partner on the next venture. It's the way it kind of works a little bit. So that's been our philosophy.
Well, Billy, at this moment, let's see if there's any questions in the audience. Please raise your hand, we can get you a mic. Okay.
Billy, you made a comment at the beginning about how there had been an evolution in the market, and I'm just curious, in your perspective, when you reflect on 2023, do you think we're past the point where, during risk-off, people go back to the phones and stay electric or electronic? Or, or, or do you think we- that's still-
Yeah
... something we should expect?
So that's a really good question. Good to see you. You know, innovations like AIX push things way more in the direction of staying on the electronic platforms. So I would 100% kinda answer the question that way. But I think underlying your question is a separate point, which I think is maybe equally important, which is like, when these sort of exogenous events happen, are the markets still fragile? And can there become these kind of liquidity concerns which have something to do with Tradeweb, and maybe has something to do with market access, but really, at the end of the day, it's about the health and the ecosystem of how these markets are operating, that liquidity stays at the level that we expect it to and that we need it to.
That might be, in some ways, the more challenging situation. So, you know, a year ago or sort of over 10 months ago, we didn't necessarily see, like, all of this behavior switch from kind of Tradeweb to, like, phones and all that. Some of that happened, and you're right about that, but what we really saw was in certain markets, at certain moments in time, what I would describe as a breakdown in liquidity.
You know, and so some of the stuff that's happening, like, for example, like even government bond markets around clearing, and some of the noise that's happening through the SEC on that, I think at the end of the day, the consciousness around, like, liquidity in these markets, whether or not it's high yield or parts of the off-the-run bond market, that has to be, like, the massive focus. You know, eleven months ago was not those first couple of months of COVID, but if we go back in time and we really think about, you know, how, like, the government bond market operated in this first month of COVID, a little scary in terms of, like, the breakdown of really, like, what I describe as, like, market function. Yeah.
Any other questions in the crowd? If not, I have a margin one up here. All right, let me, let me ask my margin question here.
Yeah.
So, you've grown your margin by 1,300 basis points since 2016, so it's pretty impressive. How should we think about margin expansion in 2024 and 2025?
Yeah. It's good that I'm here kind of answering that and not Sarah, 'cause I, I'm sort of wondering if Sara and I would answer it slightly differently. I made a point that I think is interesting, which is like... I think everyone here agrees with me: It's like, it's one thing to build a business, like we built in credit. It's pretty hard to build a business as a new public company in the way that we did because, like, the tension around investment versus margins, and you guys all know that, like, you know, you see an opportunity, you invest, but you still have to produce margins for your investors, right?
I think that was a good testament to the scale that we have and also just the willingness that we had to be able to invest and also produce results that everybody here kind of expects us to. I am, like, super strong on not deviating kind of from that formula. So when I made the joke about Sarah, you know, she's sort of like very oriented, and she's done a great job as CEO, but very, very oriented around being very focused on the company making the right kind of investments. And that's been. She's an amazing partner.
I believe sort of strongly that we have the scale, we have the leverage, that when that door opens for us and we see an opportunity, and maybe that opportunity is in EM, maybe we're able to replicate a lot of things that we've done in credit, and make the investments in EM that we need to, to keep growing this kinda long, long story of growth that you guys have heard about. We can do it and produce margins that you expect us to. So I like. I do think we're at a point in time where, you know, the leverage inside of the organization is pretty formidable.
And so I like the concept of, like, yeah, we can invest, we are gonna grow, and we're gonna be, you know, very, very fine-tuned on the, on the margin side. It's a pretty decent place to be in. I mentioned ETFs, and the kind of jumpiness around ETFs that was kinda sitting in the middle. It's basically the same technology that we used for, like, government bonds. It's just, like, pretty standard, straightforward, kinda RFQ technology. I mention that because it's sort of like a window into the scale that I think the company has around... You know, we've got a lot of this technology built, so when we see that opportunity, it's not like we're starting from scratch and having to build, like, versions of technology that don't exist inside of the hood of the company.
So that's how I kinda think about it. That's how we think about it.
Great. Well, Billy, with that, we will finish there. So on behalf of all of us at Bank of America, we want to thank you. So,
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for joining us.
I'm so glad this wasn't on video.
Thanks.
Thank you, guys.