S&P Global sells information that financial markets cannot easily do without. Its five businesses cover credit ratings (S&P Global Ratings), financial data and analytics (Market Intelligence), energy and commodity price benchmarks (Energy), automotive market data (Mobility, which is being spun off in 2026), and index benchmarks like the S&P 500 (Indices). Most of the money comes in through subscriptions, meaning customers pay a fixed fee each year to keep accessing the data. The rest comes from fees tied to bond issuance volumes, assets tracking S&P indexes, and trading activity on commodity exchanges. Because so many customers are locked into multi-year contracts, revenue does not swing wildly from quarter to quarter. The diagram below traces where the money goes.
How S&P Global Makes Money
flowchart LR
A["Five Business Units
44,500 employees"] --> B["Data, Analytics,
Ratings Products"]
A --> C["Price Assessments
Benchmarks"]
A --> D["Index & ETF
Benchmarks"]
B --> E["Subscription Revenue
7.9B per year"]
B --> F["Transaction & Advisory
3.1B per year"]
C --> E
C --> F
D --> G["Asset-Linked Fees
1.2B per year"]
D --> H["Usage-Based Royalties
0.6B per year"]
E --> I["Total Revenue
15.3B, 70% margin"]
F --> I
G --> I
H --> I
I --> J["Operating Profit
42% margin"]
J --> K["Cash Flow Investment
5.7B free cash"]
K --> L["R&D & Product
Development"]
L --> B
L --> C
L --> D
K --> M["Mobility Spinoff
Mid-2026"]
M --> A
Five years of financial data tell a clear story of acceleration. Revenue climbed from $8.3 billion in 2021 to $15.3 billion in 2025, nearly doubling in four years. That growth was not purely organic. The IHS Markit merger, which closed in 2022, added scale across Market Intelligence and Energy and is the main reason revenue jumped sharply between 2021 and 2022. The merger also brought debt onto the balance sheet: net debt swung from a net cash position of $2.4 billion in 2021 to net debt of $9.7 billion in 2022.
Revenue 2021 to 2025 ($ billions)
Revenue nearly doubled over four years, with the sharpest single-year jump coming after the IHS Markit merger closed in 2022.
What happened after the merger matters just as much. Free cash flow, which is the cash actually left over after running the business and paying for equipment, dropped to $2.6 billion in 2022 as the company absorbed merger costs. By 2024 and 2025 it had recovered to $5.7 billion. Operating margins followed the same arc: 32% in 2023, 39% in 2024, and 42% in 2025. The business absorbed a large acquisition and came out generating more cash than before. Net debt has stayed elevated, at $11.3 billion as of 2025, but the free cash flow engine is now large enough to service it comfortably.
$5.7B
Free cash flow in 2025, up from $2.6B in 2022 at the depth of merger integration
Subscription revenue made up 51% of total revenue in 2025, providing a stable floor. The remaining revenue comes from sources tied to market activity: bond issuance volumes at Ratings, assets under management flowing into index-linked funds at Indices, and commodity exchange trading volumes at Energy. When markets are busy, these lines grow fast. When markets slow down, they can shrink. This mix means the business has a reliable base but is not entirely immune to market cycles.
What is a credit rating?
A credit rating is an opinion about how likely a borrower is to repay its debts. When a company or government wants to raise money by issuing bonds, it typically pays S&P Ratings to assess its creditworthiness. Investors then use that rating to decide whether to lend money and at what interest rate. S&P Ratings charges a fee for each new bond it rates, plus an ongoing annual fee to keep monitoring it.
The Ratings business is the profit engine of the group. It generated $3.0 billion of operating profit in 2025 out of $6.6 billion total across all segments. That concentration is both a strength and a source of risk. Ratings revenue depends heavily on how many new bonds are issued each year. When interest rates are high and companies are reluctant to borrow, fewer bonds are issued and transaction revenue falls. When refinancing activity picks up, as it did in 2024 when transaction revenue surged 43%, Ratings thrives.
$3.0B
Ratings segment operating profit in 2025, nearly half of total segment operating profit
2025
milestone
Mobility Spin-Off Announced
On April 29, 2025, S&P Global's board decided to separate the Mobility segment into a new, independently listed company. The transaction is structured as a spin-off to existing shareholders and is expected to be tax-free for U.S. shareholders. Completion is targeted for mid-2026. After the split, S&P Global will consist of four segments: Market Intelligence, Ratings, Energy, and Indices.
Several specific threats are documented in the company's own filings. First, the credit ratings business is regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the European Commission, and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority. New rules could raise compliance costs or reduce demand for ratings. Second, more free or low-cost data is becoming available online and through cloud computing. If large customers decide that free public sources are good enough, they may cancel subscriptions. Third, the company is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, but its own filings acknowledge there is no guarantee these investments will succeed. AI also creates legal risk: systems that reproduce copyrighted material could generate expensive lawsuits. Fourth, the company handles sensitive financial data for thousands of customers. A successful cyberattack could destroy trust and drive customers away. Fifth, the company must comply with privacy laws in many countries, including Europe's GDPR, which allows fines of up to 4% of global revenue for violations.
What is GDPR?
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation, a European Union law that governs how companies collect, store, and transfer personal data. Companies that break the rules can be fined up to 4% of their total global revenue. For S&P Global, with $15.3 billion in 2025 revenue, a maximum fine could approach $612 million.
The Indices business carries a different kind of concentration risk. Its revenue is linked to the total value of assets sitting in funds that track S&P indexes. When stock markets fall sharply and fund values drop, the fees tied to those assets shrink automatically, even if no customer cancels a contract. The company does not control this lever.
During the three years ended December 31, 2025, S&P Global returned approximately $15.1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases of $11.6 billion and dividends of $3.5 billion. That is a substantial cash return relative to a business generating $5.7 billion of annual free cash flow.
The IHS Markit merger compressed gross margins by more than 7 percentage points in a single year. By 2025, margins had partially recovered to 70.2%, but have not yet returned to pre-merger levels.
The margin recovery from 66.4% in 2022 to 70.2% in 2025 shows the company is extracting integration benefits, but the gap to the pre-merger 73.7% remains. Whether that gap closes further depends on how efficiently the company can run a much larger organisation built from two historically separate businesses.
51%
Share of 2025 revenue from subscriptions, providing a recurring base that does not depend on market activity in any given year
The Bet
S&P Global's financial logic holds together only if the data and benchmarks it produces remain genuinely difficult to replace. Subscription pricing power, the margin recovery story, and the Ratings business all rest on the assumption that customers cannot easily switch to free or cheaper alternatives. The company's own filings acknowledge that more free information is becoming available online and through cloud computing. If a meaningful share of customers, even just large institutional ones, conclude that publicly available data or AI-generated analysis is good enough for their needs, the subscription revenue base erodes and the pricing power that drives margin expansion disappears. The bet is that S&P Global's proprietary data, long-established benchmarks, and regulatory standing create a level of stickiness that free alternatives cannot match.
Open question
S&P Global is spinning off Mobility in 2026, leaving four businesses that are all deeply tied to financial markets. The remaining company will be more focused, but also more exposed to a single broad risk: a prolonged slowdown in capital market activity that hits both Ratings transaction revenue and Indices asset-linked fees at the same time. If bond issuance slows and equity markets fall simultaneously, two of the four remaining segments compress together. Can the stable subscription base at Market Intelligence and Energy hold the business together long enough for markets to recover, or does the concentration in financial market activity make the post-spin company more fragile than it appears today?
Compiled · 10-K · FY2025
Cyber Attacks and Data Breaches
The company handles secret information about customers and markets that could affect trading. If hackers steal this information through cyber attacks, customers could lose trust and stop doing business with the company. The company has not had a major breach yet, but says one could seriously harm their business.
Artificial Intelligence Risks
The company is investing heavily in AI technology, but there is no guarantee these investments will succeed or make money. AI brings new legal and ethical problems, including risks that AI systems could reproduce others' copyrighted work, which could lead to expensive lawsuits. If the company's AI approach fails or competitors build better AI products, demand for the company's services could drop significantly.
Free Information Competition
More free or cheap information sources are becoming available online and through cloud computing. If large customers switch to using free public information instead of paying for the company's products and services, it could seriously reduce the company's revenue.
Credit Ratings Regulation
The company's Ratings business is heavily regulated by the U.S. SEC, European Commission, and U.K. Financial Conduct Authority. New rules could require the company to spend much more money on compliance, reduce demand for ratings, or make it harder to do business. These regulatory changes could significantly decrease profits and competitiveness.
Data Protection and Privacy Laws
The company must follow privacy laws in many countries including the EU's GDPR, which can result in fines up to 4% of global revenue if violated. The company moves customer data across borders, and privacy laws keep changing and getting stricter. Compliance costs are high and breaking these rules could result in massive fines, lost customers, and damage to reputation.
10-K Item 1A · Risk Factors
