Intercontinental Exchange Inc.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's ICE First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. My name is Drew, and I'll be the operator on the call today. After the prepared remarks, we will have a Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. And so we'll draw your question. It's star followed by two. With that, it's my pleasure to hand over to Steve Eagleton to begin, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead when you're ready.

Good morning. ICE's first quarter 2026 earnings release and presentation can be found in the investor section of ice.com. These items will be archived and our call will be available for replay. Today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements, which we undertake no obligation to update, represent our current judgment and are subject to risks, assumptions, and uncertainties. For description of the risks that could cause our results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2025 Form 10-K, 2026 First Quarter 10-Q, and other filings with the SEC. In our earnings supplement, we refer to certain non-GAAP measures. We believe our non-GAAP measures are more reflective of our cash operations and core business performance. You will find a reconciliation to the equivalent GAAP term in the earnings materials. When used on this call, net revenue refers to revenue net of transaction-based expenses. In adjusted earnings, refers to adjusted diluted earnings per share. Throughout this presentation, unless otherwise indicated, references to revenue growth are on a constant currency basis. Please see explanatory notes on the second page of the earnings supplement for additional details regarding the definition of certain items. With us on the call today are Jeff Sprecher, Chair and CEO, Warren Gardner, Chief Financial Officer, Ben Jackson, President, and Chris Edmonds, President of Fixed Income and Data Services. I'll now turn over the call to Warren. Thanks, Steve.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll begin on slide four with our first quarter results, which represent the strongest quarter in ICE's history. First quarter adjusted earnings per share were $2.35, up 37% year-over-year. Net revenues reached a record $3 billion, up 18%. Adjusted operating income totaled a record $1.9 billion, up 26%, with meaningful contributions from all three of our operating segments. This is the product of a deliberate strategy, discipline execution, and a platform built for precisely this environment. These results build on an already strong base. In the first quarter of 2025, we delivered 8% revenue growth and 16% adjusted EPS growth, which were both records at the time. That compounding dynamic is what distinguishes ICE. Our business deepens with use, our recurring revenues compound over time, and our expense discipline creates the capacity to invest in future organic growth by simultaneously delivering strong operating leverage and free cash flow. On the topic of expenses, adjusted operating expenses total $1,035,000,000 in line with the midpoint of our updated guidance range. The update reflected performance-related items such as license fees and compensation directly tied to the strength of our results, with these costs more than offset by revenues. Looking to the second quarter, expect adjusted operating expenses to remain consistent with the first quarter and be in the range of 1 billion 30 million to 1 billion and 40 million dollars adjusted free cash flow generation was a first quarter record 1.2 billion a figure that speaks to the quality of our earnings and the capital efficiency of our model in the first quarter we purchased approximately 550 million of our own stock including an incremental 200 million executed during mid-february when the market price of our shares further disconnected from the fundamentals of our business. And in total, including dividends, we returned nearly $850 million to shareholders during the quarter. Let me now turn to exchange segment on slide five. First quarter exchange net revenues reached a record $1.8 billion, up 27% year over year. Critically, these results compound on top of 12% growth in 2025, 11% growth in 2024. Transaction revenues grew 33%. Our interest rate complex grew nearly 70% versus the year-ago period, as investors and institutions increasingly seek to manage duration risk. In energy, our global oil complex increased 47% year-over-year, reflecting the continued primacy of ICE's energy benchmarks as a reference point for global capital flows. Natural gas and environmental products, which represent half of our energy revenues, grew 37%, testament to the structural reality that the multi-decade evolution of the global energy mix is increasing the need for sophisticated risk management tools. I want to offer some important context on our volume composition for those who may be wondering about sustainability. March was exceptional for energy business, but the underlying momentum was well established before those events. In addition, energy open interest through April remains up 6%, and that persistence is what matters. customers are not simply reacting to headlines. They're building long-term exposure. Meanwhile, interest rate open interest stands 63% above year-ago levels, signaling structural expansion in the breadth of how our customers are managing rate risk. In fact, total futures and options open interest reached a new record just this week of 23% year-over-year, further underscoring that the activity we saw in the first quarter is carrying forward. Our recurring revenue streams, exchange data services, and our NYSE listings franchise reach a record $405 million, up 10% year-over-year, with exchange data and connectivity services growing 13%. These revenues grow as more participants embed ICES data into their workflows, creating network effects that make us more valuable the more widely they are used. At the NYSE, we continue to set the standard for quality listings globally. In the first quarter, we welcomed 25 new operating companies, facilitated the largest transfer in our history with AstraZeneca, and maintained a retention rate above 99%. Turning to slide six and our fixed income and data services segment, we delivered another quarter of strong fraud-based execution. First quarter revenues totaled a record $657 million, up 9% year-over-year. Transaction revenues grew 14% to a record $143 million. Performance was led by our CDS clearing business, where revenues increased 18%, driven by elevated global macroeconomic volatility, while recurring revenues reached a record $514 million, growing 8%. Within fixed income data and analytics, we achieved record revenues of $322 million, up 7%, aided by strong net new business trends in our pricing and reference data offering and continued momentum in our index business, which ended the quarter with a record $829 billion in ETF AUMs. of 21% year-over-year. In total, there is now approximately $2 trillion in assets benchmarked to ICE indices, roughly double the amount tracking this franchise when we acquired the B of A Merrill indices less than nine years ago, a trajectory that reflects the power of our data platform. Data and network technology revenues increased 11% in the first quarter, reflecting strong demand for our ICE global networks, consolidated feeds, and desktop solutions. Private global data center network connecting over 750 data sources and 150 trading venues across 24 countries is a physical infrastructure asset that cannot be replicated quickly or cheaply. And it continues to benefit from secular demand trends, including higher messaging activity and AI-driven demand for capacity. Please turn to slide seven for our Mortgage Technology segment. First quarter revenues totaled $539 million, up 6% year-over-year. On a pro forma basis, inclusive of Black Knight, this represents our strongest quarterly performance since Q4 2022. The broader mortgage origination market remains well below its long-run normalized potential, and yet we are growing. It speaks to the strategic value of what we have built. Recurring revenues totaled $4.1 million, reflecting continued product adoption and the beginning of normalization and encompassed contract renewals. Recurring revenues also benefited from roughly $4 million of one-time items. Accordingly, we anticipate second quarter recurring revenues will remain around current levels. Transaction revenues totaled $138 million, up an impressive 22% year-over-year, driven by a significant increase in encompassed closed loan revenues, which materially outpaced industry volumes as customers increasingly exceeded their contractual minimums, and by the double-digit growth in closing solutions, supported by strong refinancing activities. The strategic logic of the mortgage technology segment is increasingly evident. The integration of our encompassed origination system with MSP has transformed what was once a collection of standalone products into a true end-to-end mortgage platform. Processing a loan from initial contact through origination, servicing, and secondary market execution, a unique offering in the industry. We have the cost structure, the customer base, and the network in place for when the market normalizes. And we are investing through the cycle to ensure that opportunity is captured. In closing, we operate at the intersection of markets that respond to different forces. By connecting those forces through our exchange infrastructure, our data network, and our mortgage platform, we have built a model that is designed to perform through cycles, not around them. This quarter demonstrates what this platform can deliver when all three segments are executing well simultaneously. But even when they are not all in sync, as has been the case in prior quarters, the model still compounds. The forces that are driving our results are structural. The irreversible digitization of financial markets, the global expansion of risk management needs, the growing reliance on proprietary and institutional grade data by AI systems and human decision makers alike, and the analog to digital conversion underway in the US mortgage market. We're confident in our trajectory for the balance of 2026 and beyond, as the forward opportunity set remains as large as it has ever been. I'll be happy to take your questions during Q&A. But for now, hand the call over to Ben.