JSE Limited (JSE) Earnings Call Transcript

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us online today. I am delighted to present our half year performance alongside Fawzia and then spend some time on the next chapter of the JSE strategic journey. This is my first set of results as Group CEO. So let me start with the things that matter most. The JSE is a resilient, high-quality business, and it enters this next phase with the financial strength and strategic clarity to deliver on our ambitions. The first half results bear that out. Operating income grew 14.6%. Costs were held well below revenue growth. The EBITDA margin expanded to 43.1% and net profit after tax increased by 16.9%. Growth was diversified across segments. Operating leverage remains positive and earnings continue to convert into cash at a high rate. Market availability reached an all-time high of 99.99% with no market outages during the period. That reliability remains the foundational strength of our business. These results demonstrate that the JSE can deliver growth, maintain discipline and invest for the future from a position of financial strength. Turning to what drove trading income. We benefited from a supportive external environment in the first half and converted those conditions into performance. Published ADV increased by 22.5% to ZAR 32.6 billion with both local and foreign participation stronger than a year ago. Bond inflows reached ZAR 41.9 billion. Nonresident ownership of South African equities rose to just under 32% and South Africa's weighting in the FTSE Emerging Markets Index increased from 3.6% to 3.7% year-on-year, supporting index-related flows. The decline from December reflects a degree of normalization following elevated foreign participation levels at year-end rather than a broad shift away from South African equities. During the first half of 2026, investors also contended with heightened global uncertainty spurred by geopolitical tensions, concerns around global growth and shifting interest rate expectations. This led to more selective positioning across emerging markets with volatility remaining elevated throughout the period. Together, these dynamics lifted trading income and reinforced the JSE's position as the gateway to South African capital markets. Non-trading revenue continues to play a stabilizing role in our earnings profile. And this half, it did so against a shifting backdrop. Primary Markets revenue was supported by steady additional capital raises and listings. Information Services grew despite a materially stronger rand weighing on the translation of dollar-denominated revenue. Margin income remained well supported by JSE Clear balances even as the rate cycle turned. However, lower interest rates weighed on margin -- on JIS margin income. Diversifying revenue remains central to our strategy because it reduces our sensitivity to any single cycle and strengthens long-term value creation. Trading income grew 18.1%, supported by stronger equity market activity, higher post-trade volumes and increased trading and clearing activity across equity and commodity derivatives. Nontrading income rose 8.1%, driven by information services growth and higher margin income at JSE Clear on the back of higher balances. This was partly offset by lower revenue at JSE Investor Services, where margin income declined with the lower rate environment and core production volumes were down on the comparable half. The diversification of revenue streams shows a breadth of performance coming through across the value chain rather than from any one segment. Before I turn to the next strategic cycle, it is worth being clear about the platform we are building from, especially as it contextualizes the path ahead. Vision 2026 changed the shape of this business over the past 6 years. Operating leverage shifted from negative 14.7% to positive 3.1%. Market availability reached 99.99% with no market outages compared with 21 outages at the start of the cycle. We have also seen nontrading income grow from 29% to almost 34%, improving the quality of our earnings and reducing our sensitivity to trading activity. Both numbers are the output of a considerable amount of work that sits underneath them. We have prioritized modernizing critical tech foundations, including BDA and the information services architecture. We expanded our core product set. We strengthened listing requirements, lifting the standard of what comes to market. And we established strategic alliances, for example, with AWS on our BDA program, giving us the reach that we simply did not have in 2019. The result is a more sustainable earnings profile, one that converts a high portion of profit into cash and one that gives us the capacity to invest in the business and to consistently return capital to shareholders. This is ultimately what makes the next phase possible. This is the foundation from which we move forward. Vision 2026 strengthened the quality, the resilience and the earnings profile of the business, and it gives us a platform to progress the next phase of growth from a position of strength. Which brings me to Forge 2031, our next 5-year strategy endorsed by the Board and the road map to turn resilience into growth. The ambition is to strengthen the core, unlock new sources of value and build a more competitive technology-enabled JSE over a 5-year horizon. Put more simply, we want an exchange that is stronger at its center, broader in where value comes from and considerably more dynamic in how it serves clients. The strategy rests on 2 pillars: transformation and growth. Transformation focuses on organizational renewal and operating model modernization. It's about simplifying how we work, improving efficiency and modernizing technology. The strategic intent is to unlock margin, and this is where the early years of the plan are waited. Growth is about new products, new markets and new services expanded to a broader client base. It is about unlocking new pools of revenue. Over the next 5 years, these opportunities will be built and scaled to unlock sustainable long-term value. Underpinning both transformation and growth is a pivotal shift in culture and mindset towards greater commerciality. So what does this translate to? I want to start at the top with the financial ambition because that is what the strategy is ultimately accountable to. We are deliberately shifting the earnings profile of the JSE in 3 directions: lifting revenue growth through higher quality recurring income, embedding structural cost discipline so that the organization scales without equivalent cost growth and sustaining margin accretion through the cycle. These are set out directionally today. We will provide further detail on our medium-term ambitions for our full year results in March and at a Capital Markets Day shortly thereafter. On the transform side, there are 3 work streams. Enhancing the core means doubling down on the businesses that already generate the majority of our revenue. Reimagining operating model means redesigning how work gets done and the organizational redesign we completed in this half is the first substantial step in that journey. Scaling tech and AI means renewing and modernizing the entire technology stack and harnessing advances in AI to improve efficiency and accelerate the pace of execution. On the growth side, we are pursuing 3 ambitious trajectories: a pan-African digital marketplace, positioning the JSE as the premier marketplace on the continent and building on the relationships and infrastructure we already have. In Data & Services, the commercial opportunity is to move beyond traditional pools into higher-margin recurring revenue streams. And monetizing technology, one of the most exciting new areas where the ambition is to build and scale advanced technological assets to serve the broader ecosystem. Underpinning all 6 initiatives is a common objective, building the capabilities that allow us to execute more effectively and at greater scale. As I present our new strategy for the first time as CEO, it is important to distinguish between continuity and change. We are building on strong foundations, but we are also making deliberate choices about where to focus, where to accelerate and what we will do differently to position the JSE for its next phase of growth. What continues is a part of the JSE that is not up for negotiation. We uphold credible regulatory standards. We maintain operational resilience and uptime. We protect and grow the core equity market, and we continue to diversify across asset classes and segments. These are the pillars on which the group rest, and they will continue unabated throughout the next strategic cycle, guided by relentless prioritization. Second, what accelerates. This is where we already have traction and now need to move with greater pace and conviction. We need to accelerate the creation of a unified modern technology environment. We need to step change productivity and deliver compelling margin improvement. It is imperative that we strengthen our commitment to sales excellence and commercial discipline, ensuring sharper client engagement. And finally, we need to accelerate data monetization and product innovation, enhancing revenue quality through stronger nontrading income growth. What is new is a refined but highly ambitious agenda and deliberately so, a renewed operating model designed for greater clarity and accountability, a digital assets marketplace and expanded data and technology ecosystem that creates new opportunities for commercialization with AI and automation embedded and scaled across the organization rather than piloted on the fringes. These are the choices that we believe will position the JSE to compete more effectively, grow more sustainably and create longer-term value for our shareholders. To enable a renewed operating model, the redesign of our business is a key enabler of Forge 2031. We have completed the organizational redesign, aligning the group around clearer accountability, strong commercial focus and more integrated execution, creating a simpler and more agile organization that can deliver faster and support the next phase of growth. The expected benefits are significant, enhanced competitiveness, improved decision-making, greater innovation and increased capacity to deliver on our strategic priorities. Over Forge 2031, this is expected to significantly improve organizational efficiency, support innovation and strengthen our ability to scale growth opportunities. Finally, what does this all mean for the business model itself? The organization you know today is a vertically integrated exchange anchored in listing and trading, post-trade data and technology services. We serve issuers, the buy side, sell side, other intermediaries and market infrastructure clients. That foundation remains exactly where it is because it is trusted, resilient and central to South Africa's financial system. And it will continue to account for a significant portion of our revenue and strategic focus. What changes is what we build around it. The transform agenda strengthens what we do today. The grow agenda expands our products and services and our client base to increase the size of the commercial opportunity. So the JSE of 2031 is not a different organization in identity, but it is a broader and deeper organization and capability, one that retains the trust and systemic importance of the core while building new engines of growth around it. This evolution creates a business with stronger operating leverage, higher quality earnings and multiple new sources of long-term value creation. It is a resilient exchange for the future, stable but not static, disciplined and growth-oriented, trusted and commercially sharper. I will now hand over to Fawzia.

Thanks, Valdene, and good afternoon to everyone. I will start with the headline figures for the half year ended 30 June 2026. Starting with operating income, this increased 14.6% year-on-year, reflecting higher market activity and solid performance across nontrading income segments, in particular, information services. Operating expenditure increased 11.5% on a reported basis, but excluding trade-related and once-off costs, costs increased 3.5%. The combination of revenue growth and cost discipline translated into an EBITDA margin of 43.1%, up 1 percentage point on the comparable half. Net finance income decreased to ZAR 89 million, reflecting a lower average rate environment. Net profit after tax increased 16.9% and headline earnings per share increased 18.8% to ZAR 8.16. Moving to cash and capital allocation. Net cash generated remained strong at ZAR 624.7 million, up 20.6% compared to last year. CapEx increased from ZAR 27.1 million to ZAR 110.3 million, largely reflecting the phasing of our BDA modernization initiatives, and I will unpack this later. Our cash balance rose 3.6% to ZAR 2.59 billion, including bonds of ZAR 679 million and remains healthy, giving us the flexibility to fund growth without compromising shareholder returns. Regulatory capital also increased to ZAR 0.85 billion. Finally, during the period, we repurchased 1.1 million ordinary shares, representing 1.28% of the company's issued share capital. Moving to the review of revenue per segment and starting with our largest segment, Capital Markets. Revenue was up ZAR 108 million or 17.6% to ZAR 719 million with growth across most categories. Primary markets revenue was up ZAR 9 million or 9%, supported by steady additional capital raises and listings with 2 IPOs in the period. Equity market trading was the largest single contributor, up ZAR 60 million or 22%, reflecting a strong quarter 1 performance as elevated volatility drove billable value traded higher. Trading activity moderated in Q2 with average daily value traded for H1 rising to ZAR 34 billion compared to ZAR 27 billion last year. We anticipate value traded to soften further and to normalize in H2. Colocation continued to perform well, increasing 25% with client demand driving that up to 63% from 56%. Colocation now supports 73% of equity market trading activity, up from 70%. Bonds added ZAR 3 million on higher nominal value traded. Financial derivatives was the one area that was down by ZAR 2 million as currency options activity decreased in a period of subdued rand volatility, while interest rate derivatives were broadly stable. Equity derivatives grew 25%, contributing ZAR 15 million, driven by higher trading activity, improved effective rates and a stronger revenue mix as we saw an increasing proportion of index and options activity. Commodity derivatives increased 23% or by ZAR 9 million, reflecting greater client hedging activity with contracts traded up 12%. Physical deliveries were up 38% due to record crop production. Meanwhile, other income contributed ZAR 8 million. One point worth drawing out, of the total ZAR 719 million capital markets revenue, ZAR 162 million or 22% is nontrading income, principally primary market and other revenues. So even within our most trade activity sensitive segment, there is a meaningful recurring component. Post-trade revenue increased 16.5% to ZAR 619 million, in line with the trend we saw in capital markets. Clearing and settlement revenue was up 22%, adding ZAR 57 million on higher billable equity value traded and higher effective rates. DDA fees were up 4% or ZAR 10 million as higher equity market activity lifted average daily trades to ZAR 423,000 from ZAR 394,000. Funds under management revenue was up 44% or ZAR 21 million on higher cash balances within JSE trustees and margin income added a further ZAR 1 million on higher average daily margin balances. Turning to JSE Clear. Revenue increased from ZAR 115 million to ZAR 142 million, up 23.3% with clearing fees contributing ZAR 11 million on increased activity in equity and commodity derivatives and margin income a further ZAR 16 million on higher average daily balances. Moving to our other non-trading revenue lines. Information Services revenue increased 7.3% to ZAR 273 million. The stronger H1 performance was supported by higher nonrecurring revenue in the first half of the year. Dollar-denominated revenues make up 61% of the segment total, which grew 10% in dollar terms, but translated at an average rate of ZAR 16.40 to the dollar compared to ZAR 18.44 last year. So materially stronger rand absorbed a good part of that growth. Meanwhile, Marketplace and Trade Explorer saw steady momentum, delivering solid growth from a low base. As you know, expansion of our Data and Services segment remains a key strategic focus area. On the other hand, AIS revenue decreased from ZAR 108 million to ZAR 102 million with margin income lower in a reduced average rate environment through the period and corporate action volumes down on the comparable half. Moving now to our cost bridge. As mentioned earlier, reported operating expenses increased by 11.5%. Excluding the once-off costs as well as trade-related activity costs, growth was 3.5%. The organizational redesign accounted for 4.2% out of the 11.5% increase, and it was spent on reshaping the organization to execute the strategy that Val has set out. Taking the lines in turn, personnel costs were driven by the one-off items, higher [ ALSI ] and annual salary adjustments. Excluding once-off costs, personnel expenses are up by 7.8%. Project costs declined as key work streams were completed, although the reduction is expected to narrow in H2 as new initiatives related to the information services growth strategy and modernization programs gain momentum. Regulatory compliance and other fees were largely driven by an increase in straight ad valorem fees in line with higher market activity. Technology costs reflect the cloud migration and hosting costs, infrastructure modernization and the ongoing tech support. Depreciation and amortization was down as infrastructure and software assets reached the end of their useful lives. Finally, general OpEx reflects the investment in strategy work streams and future growth opportunities. The takeaway on cost is that we are funding operational delivery and strategic investments at the same time whilst containing underlying cost growth of 3.5% against operating income growth of 14.6%. Let's now look at our cash position as at the end of June. Cash generated from operations was ZAR 625 million over the 6-month period. The cash and bonds balance closed at ZAR 2.6 billion against ZAR 3.2 billion at the start of the year. And the movement is largely explained by the ordinary and special dividends paid, which totaled ZAR 888 million, together with the investing and financing activities. On a year-on-year basis, the balance is up 3.5% on the ZAR 2.5 billion we held at 30th of June last year. Our liquidity position remains strong with no requirements for additional credit lines or external financing, which reflects the quality and consistency of our earnings. Breaking down our ZAR 2.6 billion cash balance, you can see on the right that 50% is reserved for regulatory capital and investor protection funds. This leaves around ZAR 1.3 billion available cash for the business. On CapEx, spend increased significantly from ZAR 27 million to ZAR 110 million, primarily reflecting spend associated to maintaining and protecting the business. This includes the BDA modernization program, infrastructure enhancement and rejuvenation initiatives as well as regulatory enhancements. We anticipate ending within our guidance range in H2. Meanwhile, on the growth initiatives, spend was allocated to the data marketplace as well as the Bond CCP development. Now let's move to the guidance for full year 2026. On operating expenses, we adjusted the range to 6% to 8% to take into account the one-off costs I highlighted earlier. If we remove the once-off costs for H1, we remain within our original guidance. On capital expenditure, we continue to expect ZAR 190 million to ZAR 230 million for the year, which implies a heavier second half and reflects the phases of the modernization programs. And lastly, our approach to shareholder returns remains unchanged with the dividend policy targeting a payout ratio of between 67% and 100%. And with that, I'll hand back to Valdene.

Thank you, Fawzia. Let me bring together the operational progress behind these numbers and the priorities that will shape the next phase. on what we delivered in the first half. We achieved 99.99% market availability, reinforcing our resilience and reliability. We reached important milestones in the BA modernization program. We progressed new product and service initiatives such as the transition to ZARONIA and the introduction of bond ETP spread trading. And we completed the organizational redesign required to support Forge 2031. Together, these achievements demonstrate disciplined execution, delivered at pace while maintaining operational stability. Looking ahead, the next 12 months are about accelerating delivery. We will continue executing the BDA modernization. We will advance market development initiatives, including the bond CCP and expansion of data products -- we will modernize regulatory systems and infrastructure, and we will push harder on nontrading revenue initiatives. These priorities directly support margin quality, operating leverage and long-term revenue diversification. Forge 2031 has been endorsed by the Board and provides a clear framework for transformation and growth. Execution is underway and advancing at pace. Operating model optimization is progressing. Technology harmonization is advancing, and we have already begun deploying AI across the business, improving efficiency and enabling scalable delivery. We are applying disciplined capital allocation to ensure investment is directed towards the initiatives that strengthen the core and unlock future growth. Finally, we are focused on strengthening our performance-driven culture to accelerate execution, sharpen commerciality and ensure delivery against the financial ambition we have set out. Our strategy is clear and well defined. The execution engine is mobilized, and the organization is delivering both operational excellence and strategic progress. To conclude, the JSE remains a resilient, diversified and highly cash-generative business. We continue to deliver strong operational performance, broaden the quality of our earnings, maintain the financial strength to invest for growth while returning shareholder capital. Forge 2031 builds on that foundation. It is a clear and disciplined strategy to strengthen the core, unlock new sources of value and position the JSE for long-term growth. Importantly, the strategic evolution under Forge 2031 provides a self-funded path to acceleration, enabling us to invest in future growth while maintaining financial discipline and shareholder returns. As Group CEO, I lead Forge 2031 with confidence, confidence in the strength of this organization, confidence in the opportunities ahead and confidence in our ability to execute. Our foundation is strong. The strategy is clear and ambitious and the next phase of the JSE's evolution is already underway. Thank you. Fawzia and I will now take your questions.

We have one question in the Q&A chat box. [Operator Instructions] The question is, could you elaborate more on the delivery of Forge 2031?

Good to engage, and we're quite excited to have so many shareholders and investors on the call today. So Forge 2031, as we have articulated, is a very clearly defined strategy based on the 2 elements of transformation and growth. For us, it is imperative that we demonstrate to our shareholders and to potential new investors that the business that we run and operate today is one that we can scale and run more efficiently. So the strategic intent, as I've highlighted for transform is on improving margin. We've already started demonstrating through things like the organizational redesign modernizing our tech and really building scale of that tech and then doubling down on our organic revenue is important. The grower ambition, as we said, is how do we now build on the ambition to diversify the business. There are very ambitious build chapters in the growth vector, but really things that we feel our vectors that the JSE can facilitate that we have a right to win and that will give us more scale and diversification to generate longer-term value and sustained growth for the business. The execution of Forge is the high imperative. And that's where we talk about the culture shift, executing on pace and being very disciplined in managing this business and then making really phased and gated approaches in how we allocate capital for investments that we really accountable for that strategy. So Forge is a combination of what we do today and what we can do better and an ambition to grow the business to diversify further. And I think the high accountability that we're holding ourselves to is the disciplined execution on pace.