TMX Group Ltd

TSX:X

Earnings Call Transcript 2018-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is Leandra, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the TMX Group third quarter results conference call. [Operator Instructions] Mr. Paul Malcolmson, Managing Director of Investor Relations and Strategy, you may begin your conference.

[Paul Malcolmson, Director of Investor Relations]

Thank you, Leandra, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the third quarter 2018 conference call for TMX Group. As you all know, we announced our third quarter results last night. A copy of our press release is available on our website, tmx.com under Investor Relations. And this morning, we have with us Lou Eccleston, our Chief Executive Officer; and John McKenzie, our Chief Financial Officer. Following opening remarks from Lou and John, we will have a question-and-answer session. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that certain statements that we make on the call today may be considered forward-looking and refer you to the risk factors outlined in today's press release and reports filed by TMX with regulatory authorities. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Lou.

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for dialing in. As Paul mentioned, last night we announced TMX Group financial results for the third quarter of 2018. On a quarterly basis, we reported solid year-over-year growth in revenue, earnings per share and cash flows generated. In the third quarter, and throughout the first 9 months of this year in fact, TMX has delivered balanced revenue growth in all key business areas. Overall revenue growth for the first 3 quarters was up 22% with a 7% increase in organic revenue. Each quarter of 2018, we have achieved earnings growth when compared to last year. John will take you deeper into the numbers in a few minutes, but as I stated in the earnings release, TMX' positive Q3 results were driven by strong performances across our business, led by Trayport and our equities, derivatives, fixed income trading and clearing services. We are seeing how our portfolio of solutions, which includes capital formation, trading, clearing, data and analytics, combined with a global revenue base, has positioned us to achieve long-term growth. Our results demonstrate how the TMX business model is diversified in 2 important ways. First, our transaction-based businesses span multiple platforms and multiple asset classes. And secondly, we have substantially grown a portion of our revenue derived from recurring sources. With the Trayport acquisition, more than half of our 2017 revenue on a pro forma basis was from recurring sources. This diversification and shift to a greater balance has strengthened the ability of TMX to deliver significant value through all market cycles. I want to focus my comments this morning around the progress TMX has made in preparing for the future, the steps we're taking to fortify our main growth areas, and how we are deploying the resources necessary to maintain -- to sustain TMX' success in the long term.At Trayport, we again saw strong revenue growth in the core subscriber business in the first 9 months of the year, up 9% over the same period last year, driven by growth in key drivers, including an 8% increase year-over-year in the number of trader subscribers and an increase of 7% in the average revenue per user over the first 9 months of 2017. We also had a leadership change at Trayport towards the end of the quarter. And on behalf of all of us at TMX, I'd like to thank Kevin Heffron for his contributions to building the Trayport business, and we wish him well. We are excited to have Peter Conroy taking on the leadership of the Trayport business. As many of you know, Peter is the former President of Shorcan Brokers, TMX Group's fixed income interdealer broker, a position he held over the past 10 years. Peter's now President of Trayport reporting directly to me. Peter's laser focus on clients and his team-building acumen coupled with his experience with strategic investments in technology were instrumental in Shorcan's success in winning market share over the years he led that business. His entrepreneurial spirit, proven track record in growing businesses and Peter's extensive knowledge of both TMX and the broker and trading community are all key assets to help us drive continued future growth at Trayport. Peter and members of his Trayport team will be here in person at our Toronto headquarters alongside TMX senior executives and business leaders to present at TMX' Investor Day on Thursday, November 29 from 11:30 to 4:30. Turning now to our capital formation business on TSX and TSX Venture Exchange, macro conditions have had a negative impact on financing activity not just here in Canada but around the world. But as I said, our business is now built to deliver value through all market cycles. So despite an industry backdrop of slowed public listings activity, our markets have continued to diversify, expand and grow, particularly at the TSX Venture Exchange level where we are far and above the world leader. Overall new listings on TSXV were up 59% compared to the first 3 quarters of 2017. This is a significant increase and it was driven by an increase in corporate listings. There were 89 new issuers as well as 64 capital pool companies or CPCs, which are a unique vehicle for private companies to pursue a public listing that also included the first ever CPC from Israel. Last month, the World Federation of Exchanges did a study that looked at public funding for small and medium-sized enterprises, or commonly known as SMEs. We view that SME marketplace as the global growth capital marketplace. Growth capital is the lifeblood of building a business and is supporting economic prosperity. It fuels expansion, creates jobs and drives investment. And one of the foundational characteristics a business must have is a sustainable value proposition that meets the needs of a market and clients, and TSX Venture Exchange is the #1 growth capital marketplace in the world. Again according to that World Financial -- World Federation of Exchanges study, listed companies on TSX Venture Exchange account for 24% of the growth capital or SME marketplace in the world and 91% of the entire marketplace for the Americas. 44% of all graduates, meaning companies that move from junior to a senior exchange in this global growth capital marketplace, were from TSXV to TSX. And third, TSXV ranked #3 in the world in the global growth capital marketplace for total equity capital raised in 2017. The unique features of the TSXV model developed over decades by the resource sector, including our CPC program, represent a dynamic vehicle for companies of any type to generate growth capital and to define entirely new industries.If you remember back to just 2013, there were no publicly traded marijuana companies, there were no publicly traded blockchain companies. And today 5 sure years later, these companies are flourishing on TSX and TSXV. As of September 30, our exchanges had 43 issuers in the legal cannabis sector and a total market value of $47 billion. We had 15 blockchain-related issuers with a combined market capital of $781 million. And TMX equity markets continue to flourish as a breeding ground for innovation companies where we recently hit a significant milestone. In Q3, we surpassed our record year for new listings in the innovation sector and reached 45 by September 30, which beats our record of 41 for the year set in 2016, and we still have a full quarter to go.Shifting now to derivatives, sustained momentum in activity on MX through the first 9 months of the year drove revenue 9% higher compared with the same period last year. Last month, MX launched extended trading hours, opening for trading at 2 a.m., or 7 a.m. in London, to make our benchmark products available for trading during peak times for global markets. The early returns have been very positive. With approximately 40% of volumes in key interest rate products already coming from outside of the country, there is a sizable and increasing demand for Canadian derivatives around the world and an opportunity for long-term international growth.Along with improving the overall debt to liquidity for all participants over time, Luc Fortin and his team are excited about the prospects of working together with MX' domestic and global clients to find additional ways to strengthen MX' stature among the world's leading derivatives markets.And as we position TMX for future success, it's important that we have the strongest and most innovative leaders. So along with the appointment of Peter Conroy at Trayport, we're excited to have 3 new leaders join TMX in Q3, each with significant mandates and impressive credentials. Early in September, Claire Johnson joined as President of TSX Trust, our transfer agency and corporate trust services provider. Claire is an industry expert and respected leader with a 20-year track record in securities custody and corporate trust services, most recently at CIBC Mellon. Her mandate is to enhance the quality of service TSX Trust provides and bring new client-centric solutions to market that drive growth. Claire reports to Loui Anastasopoulos, Head of Capital Formation. Also in September, we announced a new leader in our data division as Sarah Ryerson joined as President TMX Datalinx. Sarah comes to TMX from Google where she held leadership roles in sales and business strategy in Canada and also in the U.S., serving most recently as Head of Industry, Financial Services, which is a role in which she was responsible for driving revenue growth and innovation in the Canadian banking and insurance sector. Sarah is responsible for leading the growth of TMX Datalinx with a focus on product development, implementation of enhanced commercial models and expanding into new markets. Sarah reports to Shaun McIver, our Chief Client Officer.Replacing Peter as leader of Shorcan is Michael Gibbens, a seasoned entrepreneurial and forward-thinking leader with a long-standing relationship in the financial industry in Canada and abroad. Michael comes to us most recently from TD Securities where he was Managing Director, Global Head of FX running TSX' global wholesale FX trading and sales business. Prior to TD, Michael held leadership roles in foreign exchange trading at Bank of America and CIBC World Markets. Michael has taken over the executive and operational responsibilities for Shorcan, reporting to Luc Fortin, Montréal Exchange CEO and TMX Global Head of Trading. So in closing my remarks I just want to put these new leadership appointments into the context of TMX' growth. People run businesses, they drive growth, they want to make investments and technology decisions. People are TMX' greatest resource. And as you can see we continue to make key growth investments in our business and in our people. Peter Conroy at Trayport, Claire Johnson at TSX take over leadership roles at our 2 fastest-growing businesses. Sarah Ryerson joins the business in the midst of a reinvention. And with Mike Gibbens joining our team, we gained another experienced, innovative and successful leader. We continue to perform and execute today, but always with a keen eye on building for the future.So at this point, I thank you for your attention. We look forward to your questions. And with that, I'm going to turn the call over to John.

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Thank you, Lou, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are very pleased with the third quarter results that we reported, as Lou's talked about. We reported last evening with revenue growth of 27%, reflecting strength across all segments of our business. Organic revenue growth was up 8% in the third quarter, excluding Trayport. And we reported strong earnings performance with $1.02 in diluted earnings per share, up 10% over last year, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.19, up 12% over Q3 '17. In fact, this was our best third quarter on record from both a revenue, EPS and adjusted EPS perspective. Earnings growth was also driven by a continued disciplined approach through expense management and again demonstrating the leverage in our business model. Now looking at revenue, we experienced growth across the board. The 5% increase in capital formation revenue was largely driven by TSX Trust, which was up 23% reflecting higher transfer agent services and margin income. Revenue from initial listing fees was up 27%, while revenue from both sustaining and additional listing fees was relatively flat year-over-year. With strong volumes in Q3, all of our trading and clearing businesses performed well. Equity and fixed income trading revenue was up 10%, and CDS revenue was up 9%. On the derivatives side of the business, revenue from trading and clearing was up 9% as well. The revenue increase was driven by strong volumes across our businesses, though the impact was partially offset by the impact from lower fees on the TSX market on close facility, as well as by a less favorable product mix in our derivatives business.Revenue in our global solutions, insights and analytics sector, or GSIA business, was up 73% over last year, largely driven by the revenue from Trayport of almost $28 million in Q3. And the core data business including Trayport was up 6%. This higher revenue was from subscriptions, enterprise agreements and data feeds and a onetime increase in revenue from benchmark and indices related to prior periods. Increased colocation worked up revenue as well. In addition, there was a favorable FX impact in Q3 2018 compared to Q3 of 2017. You will see that we provided an update on Trayport subscribers including those related to traders since they drive over 50% of Trayport's revenue. Revenue in Q3 from the core subscriber business grew about 10% over last year. And trader subscribers grew almost by 8%. The average revenue per subscriber excluding Contigo, a nonsubscriber-based risk application business, was up 7% compared with Q3 '17. As you know, we have many initiatives underway and which we believe will continue to drive further success at Trayport, and you will hear more about these initiatives at our Investor Day on November 29.Now turning to operating expenses. Operating expenses in Q3 '18 were up $21.9 million or 26% compared with last year. Now this largely relates to Trayport costs of $18.7 million as well as higher employee performance incentive plan costs of $3.6 million or $0.05 per share, per basic and diluted share, as compared to Q3 '17. And this is really as we true up our accrual for short-term incentives based on the strong fundamental performance in the business this year.Looking at our results on a sequential basis, revenue decreased by $16.7 million from Q2 '18, reflecting seasonal decreases in capital formation and derivatives and clearing revenue as well as declines in equity and fixed income trading and CDS revenues. The decreases were partially offset by an increase in global solutions, insight and analytics revenue, while Trayport revenue was essentially unchanged from Q2 to Q3.Operating expenses were down $13.4 million in Q3 '18 compared to Q2. And as you will recall, in Q2 '18 we recorded a commodity tax provision of $7.6 million and a lease termination payment of $4.5 million. Income from operations decreased from Q2 '18 to Q3 '18 due to the lower revenue and partially offset by the lower operating expenses.Turning to the balance sheet. On a pro forma basis, including Trayport's adjusted EBITDA for the last 12 months ended September 30, our leverage, as defined by our debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio, was about 2.6x. We held almost $262 million in cash and marketable securities at September 30, over $90 million in excess of $170 million that we hold and retain for regulatory and credit facility requirements.In early October, our Series A debentures of $400 million matured and were repaid through the issuance of commercial paper. In October, we also reduced our shareholding in CanDeal from 47% to 14%, and as a result received proceeds of $12.8 million, including cash consideration of $7.8 million and an unsecured promissory note of $5 million. As of the end of October, we have paid down a further $55 million of commercial paper, bringing our current debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio to under 2.5x.On capital allocation, our board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.58 per common share to be paid on December 7, 2018, to shareholders of record on November 23, 2018. At 49%, this payout ratio was within the range of our domestic and international peers. And we remain committed to moderating that range and maintaining a payout ratio consistent with our peers over the long term. At this point, I will turn the call back to Paul for the question-and-answer period.

[Paul Malcolmson, Director of Investor Relations]

Thanks, John. And just a quick clarification on the data business, the core data business was up 6%. That's excluding that Trayport business. Now Leandra, I'd like to turn it back to you for instructions on the Q&A process.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Nik Priebe with BMO Capital Markets.

[Nikolaus Priebe, Analyst]

I thought I'd start with a question on the derivatives side. With the introduction of extended trading hours on MX in early October, are you able to give us a bit of a sense regarding initial market response from international participants? Recognizing that it's still early days and volumes probably also benefited from volatility in the months, but I just wondered if there's anything you can share with respect to incremental volumes from Europe or subscriber growth subsequent to quarter end or anything like that.

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Yes, you're absolutely right that it is early days, but despite being early days, we've seen contract volumes in that business exceed our earlier expectation. So you are seeing thousands of contracts trade in the early period. We're not at the point of being able to disclose specific information, but we will be able in the short term. And as that continues, we would expect to see impacts on the MX subscribers later on. But the early volume indications in the open period were ahead of expectations.

[Nikolaus Priebe, Analyst]

Okay, that's good. And then staying on derivatives, it just kind of looks to me like the average RPC might have been a bit lower than the prior periods in Q3. Could you just give us a bit of color on how the product mix might affect that?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Yes, I will always guide you when you're looking at the MX business to look at the mix of actual products because they are priced differently. Specifically with a product like the CGB, or Canada government bond products, which tends to be a very large volume product, a lot of the incremental growth but it's priced on average lower than some of the other futures. So that is the product mix issue we were talking about in the commentary. So very strong growth overall, but some of that growth was in some the lower-priced products relative to the average.

[Nikolaus Priebe, Analyst]

Okay, that's good. And then one last one for me before I requeue. Recognizing that you're probably not yet prepared to update us on the clearinghouse integration initiative, but just wondering if you could speak kind of generally to what sort of complexities you've encountered there with respect to the time line and budget.

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Yes. So the complexities, and we're actually -- we're very close, Nik, by the end of this year, we're going to have a good sense of the core set of requirements and the discussions with the clients on the street in terms of how we really, what I'll call bridge the gap between what you get in terms of a product out of the box and what kind of intricacies and complexities there are in the Canadian market that may be unique versus other marketplaces around the world. And that's what's taking the time to really nail down requirements and get to a consensus with the participant community as to what we're going to deliver in a solution and what's going to change. So the expectation I'll give you is that we'll be able to come and talk to you in the first quarter of next year with much better direction around actual go-live dates and impacts on budget and CapEx. Now with respect to go-live, I will give you the follow-on that the components of the project -- if you remember there's a number of phases to this initiative. The components that relate to replacing our risk platform actually will go live in the first quarter of next year, as planned. And the expectation is even as we rebaseline timing for the larger clearing system replacement for CDS and CDCC, that is still anticipated to be live in the back half of 2020. So no change from the earlier guidance we gave you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Jaeme Gloyn with National Bank Financial.

[Jaeme Gloyn, Analyst]

First sort of questions is around leverage. I was just hoping you can update on the plans with the commercial paper, and what rate you're currently paying on that paper?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

So with the commercial paper, and I don't have it exactly on me, but you're seeing rates that are around 2x on that. The disclosure of the rates is in the financial statements, the notes. So given that we took on $400 million of commercial paper to do the maturity and we've already paid back $55 million of it, you should expect, all else being equal, we would use excess cash as it comes in to continue to reduce that commercial paper, Jaeme. With the refinance that we did in June, aside from the commercial paper, all of our debt is now long term in terms of 5 years or more. So it's really the CP that we'll be paying down over the next little while. And as you have noted, so the commentary where we are in terms of our leverage ratio today at -- just under 2.5, we are largely back to where we were from a leverage standpoint prior to acquiring Trayport. So just basically coming up on the year anniversary of that closing, we brought the leverage back down to where we were predeal.

[Jaeme Gloyn, Analyst]

Great. I'm sorry, did you say it was 2% on the commercial paper? Or what was that number?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

I don't have the exact number on me, but we will follow up for you and will give you the actual number.

[Jaeme Gloyn, Analyst]

And then so following up on the leverage now back at pre-Trayport levels, can you update us on your capital plans maybe for 2019, 2020, and what you're thinking for your target leverage, which we're at 2.5 or kind of right in the midpoint I believe.

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

So from a capital allocation and priority standpoint, the priority remains driving shareholder value. So if there's going to be -- if there are additional opportunities that we can identify to invest in the business with things like Trayport or other growth initiatives that will drive the growth components of our strategy as in capital formation, analytics or derivatives, we're certainly continuing to look for those opportunities. But you can imagine, Jaeme, given market valuations, we're being quite prudent in that regard. So in the case of -- if there are no -- if we're not identifying those types of opportunities, we're going to continue to use that excess cash flow to reduce the debt structure. Once we get down closer to what I'll call 2x, I'd say that is kind of the floor of the optimal capital structure for this. And we would consider other ways of returning value and creating value for shareholders at that point.

[Jaeme Gloyn, Analyst]

Okay, great, and just one more for me then around the -- just around the MX subscriptions. There seems to be a little bit of volatility around those subscription numbers. I was hoping you could maybe just shed some light on how that evolves from quarter to quarter, and what you're seeing on that front.

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Only in the sense that it's reflecting demand from quarter to quarter. It's something that we are looking to see how we drive going forward. If you look at the history, the spike you'll see is in Q1 where you had just generally a lot of market volatility, so incremental demand for subscriptions across the board. If you normalize all that out, you'll see what we've seen is actually some steady growth in MX subscriptions from quarter to quarter, and in Q3 of this year again up versus a year ago. So with that, I think you're just seeing is reflective of the incremental demand for the products when we're growing that business at 9%, 10% a year. And the demand that we're doing in terms of bringing in more European traders on it, we would anticipate you would see further increases in demand.

[Jaeme Gloyn, Analyst]

Okay. And I'm just going to sneak one more in actually just around the MOU with the Chinese exchanges and clearing houses and the conversations we've had previously around growing international listings. If you can just sort of talk to how that MOU, how other strategies are helping, and where we sit in terms of growing international listings?

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

Yes, I'll take that one, Jaeme. I mean there's 2 different pieces there, right? So the MOU that we just signed, or actually 2 of them, were really around serving as the North American gateway to help open up the Chinese bond market. And they're making really a lot of moves, a lot of initiatives. I was over there personally a few weeks ago and spent time talking to market participants, government officials, the people's bank. And they're very serious about trying to develop a bond market with global participation. So the great thing for us is that we take something like a CDS which has already got relationships in North America with DTCC, with all the participants who would want to be in that bond market. And we can make it much easier. Remember we've already been the RMB hub for North America now for a couple of years, so we leverage that as well. So this is about leveraging an asset like a CDS as well as our North American presence to help open up the bond market. Separately when it comes to listings, I've gone through some of the numbers with you in terms of the progress we've made in innovation and in international listings. And also you've seen some moves by the Chinese to help open up the listings market as well, both inside of Canada but also to help raise capital from foreign investors. They just very recently, last couple of weeks, waived the requirement to have to be below 50% if you're a foreign investor. So there's a lot of moves being made. We're very much engaged in all over the world, not just in China. But for us, the one part of the MOU which is very interesting is around the bond market being the gateway. So participants can come through CDS without having to have direct relationships one on one in the Chinese market. And then separately from the listings market, we continue to talk about how we can grow that global platform whether it's in China or whether it's in Israel as I mentioned, or in California. But clearly, there's a move right now when you look at what's going on inside China for the government to try to open up and try to bring in more foreign investment, and not just inside of China, but actually have securities like the bonds be held outside of China.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Paul Holden with CIBC.

[Paul David Holden]

Just wanted to follow up on that MOU with the Shanghai clearinghouse, because, Lou, you kept emphasizing North America, not Canada. So I just want to be clear on that. This opens up an opportunity for that business with U.S. institutional investors as well.

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

Correct. And in particular U.S. and Canadian buy-side institutions, because the first phase of that, there really isn't yet a robust secondary market in China. So it's really going to start as a new issue market, which means it's going to be an attractive holding for buy-side long investors in particular and diversified investors. So it is a North American link, it's not just for Canada, it's for both Canada and the U.S.

[Paul David Holden]

Okay, that's obviously important, given the size of the U.S. market.

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

Yes.

[Paul David Holden]

So as a person that spends a lot of time -- has to spend a lot of time modeling in Excel, how do I think about this opportunity? Is there any kind of -- I know you don't like giving guidance. But are there any kind of parameters you can help give us to think about the potential sizing of this?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

To be candid, Paul, not at this stage. This type of relationship with this type of market is very much an investment in the long term. And I use the word investment lightly because it's not a large investment in terms of dollars. It's an investment in terms of people, relationships and effort. The way that we'll think about it as we go forward and we get more color and granularity in terms of the scope of the bonds that we can support there is it will start to look like the business that we have in CDS with respect to custody and trading of fixed income securities. So we get -- as we get a little further along, we'll be able to give you more guidance, but it's too early stage at this point.

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

That's exactly right. I mean it's really -- a part of it will obviously depend on how quickly the Chinese bond market does develop. But the one thing we can say as we think about this long term, we are thinking of us as more of the recurring revenue stream or a subscriber than we are a transaction based. So we've already got that thought through in terms of how we're going to approach it. But right now we're testing, we're already testing the link, so it's moving. And we're hopeful that sometime next year, we could actually start doing transactions, which will give us a better feel. But it's definitely as John said, a longer-term focus.

[Paul David Holden]

Okay, fair enough. In terms of Trayport and the 4 strategies you outlined, can you help us think about, one, which ones may have an impact to 2019 revenue, and two, what you think the biggest opportunity is long term in terms of revenue potential?

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

Yes, as we said last time, I'm not sure there is one in particular. I think when you look at for example though how it might phase, the build-out or the digitization of the broker capabilities, it's probably going to be built through '19 and start to have more impact in '20. On the other hand, if the globalization of liquid natural gas moves fast, there's going to be a greater demand in the shorter term for more desktops. So it's really about the market, but we think that all of these -- and in particular for looking out into next year, I think how fast the globalization goes and how quickly, which is moving very well for us, is the development of analytics on top of that data. So those will probably -- be the 2 most immediate ones. And then the other ones are more dependent on the build-out and then what happens with the global markets.

[Paul David Holden]

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then finally, maybe you can provide us with an update on sort of the growth you're seeing in the trust business?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Yes, I'm happy to. So trust, 23% up in the quarter, it's largely an expansion in the client base. So it's the same dialogue we've been having with you quarter-after-quarter. The only difference in Q3 with respect to Q2, which was even higher, is that Q2 had some more seasonal type revenues in it because there is elements of the trust business that can be done around corporate year-ends or corporate action activity and things like that. So about 23% in terms of total growth in the quarter year-over-year, largely driven by an expansion in the client base.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Graham Ryding with TD Securities.

[Graham Ryding, Research Analyst of Financial Services]

Just to follow up on the TSX trust, so Q2 and Q4, should we expect those to be seasonally strong quarters if there are sort of year-end transactional activity?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Certainly Q2, Q4, we'll see more this year because we're now just kind of 2 years into this actually being the trust mandate as opposed to just the transfer agent activity. We tend to have more of the clients that would have Q2 annual meetings as opposed to the large bank clients that would be at the end of the year. So it will be more tilted to that. But as we build the business out and we're getting more of those larger chip, blue-chip clients, you'll see that change over time.

[Graham Ryding, Research Analyst of Financial Services]

Okay, got it. And how do you -- I assume there's a certain amount of issuers that are already using a competitor for transfer agencies. So what is the strategy approach to sort of win existing business as opposed to going after the new issuance business, which I think you're well positioned to capture?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Yes. I mean, you're absolutely right. On the new issue side, we're getting 40% to 50% of that business already. Certainly on the existing issuers standpoint, we've got a sales team that is treating it like a pipeline approach, as you would expect them to, targeting the clients that we think are the best ones to move over in terms of the service offering. There are certain types of clients that because of their size or complexity, that we may not be the best service provider earlier on. And we look at those clients and we look at the book of what their programs are and the ease of us being able to bring them over and really to provide them with a superior service model than they would get from the incumbent. That's for the corporate side. On the other side and if you look at the ETF market, if you remember we talked about it last year and through the last couple of quarters is we actually put in place a preferred pricing program around ETFs where ETF issuers who use us as a transfer agent receive a break on their listing fees. With that change, we've been able to move over, secure over 50% of the ETF market now. We're going to continue pursuing those engagements.

[Graham Ryding, Research Analyst of Financial Services]

Okay, that's good color. Canadian market data feed, you gave a little bit of commentary around that. Can you -- but I'm not sure I captured it all. What drove the increase quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, I guess?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

The large driver of the increase was demand for the derivative products. The other core kind of equity feeds are relatively flat year-over-year, and it's the derivatives piece that drove the bulk of the demand.

[Graham Ryding, Research Analyst of Financial Services]

Okay, and is that sort of ongoing, recurring demand as opposed to anything sort of onetime? Or I'm thinking about...

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Ongoing, recurring demand.

[Graham Ryding, Research Analyst of Financial Services]

Yes, okay. And my last question, just you've talked in the past about a mid-single-digit revenue growth target, sort of I guess through the cycle. What does that imply when you sort of look at your different business lines? What are my -- how should we be thinking about the organic growth potential of your individual business lines?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

So I'm going to ask you to come and see us at the end of the month for that one. One of the things that we are intending to do, and it's not just advertising for Investor Day with a teaser campaign, when we do the Investor Day and we do the deeper dive in terms of the different business areas and the growth rates, what we're going to try to do -- give you is exactly that kind of direction in terms of not just the broad average of where we see the enterprise going in terms of top line and bottom line, but what businesses we see as being the upside drivers, what kind of ranges of growth you can expect over the long term, which ones we think are more market perform. And we're going to give that to you in a breakdown of detail. So I'd rather not do it today on the call, given that we will be doing it to a broader audience in a couple of weeks.

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

The other thing I would just add, Graham, on it, too, is that as you get deeper dives into each of the businesses, the comment I made at the beginning in my comments that we really try to build a portfolio that can perform regardless of market cycle. And so there is growth -- there are growth in businesses obviously underlying growth rates, and what are the pipelines, what are the runways, how are these businesses all going to grow. But I think also really importantly is to get a good sense of how different businesses will perform given different cycles. And you've seen that virtually every quarter based on where the cycle is, one business doing really well, another business had a different part in a cycle. So it's understanding the business, but also understanding the portfolio.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Geoff Kwan with RBC Capital Markets.

[Geoffrey Kwan, Analyst]

Just wanted to follow up just on the MX subs. Is it similar to what I think is on the equity side, where if you've got people that are getting a bunch of quotes and if it hits a certain level, then they will get counted as a subscriber and vice versa if they were one quarter but didn't use it as much the next quarter, they would drop out. And that's why there's maybe a little bit of quarter-over-quarter volatility? Or is it people that are really being dynamic, becoming an actual subscriber, and then dropping off in another quarter?

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Yes, it's more of the latter, Geoff, because it's more of a professional market as opposed to a retail market. So when you're seeing that, you're seeing professional subscribers and not that impact of non-pros that accumulate up to a cap and then get counted.

[Geoffrey Kwan, Analyst]

Okay. And just the other question I had was I know it was small, but you mentioned reducing the stake in CanDeal. Just wondering what the rationale or kind of the origination or explanation around that.

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

Yes. The rationale is actually quite simple. Given the historical model we've had around ownership of CanDeal with TMX having 40% and 6 primary dealers that use it sharing the rest, there was a bit of a barrier to finding ways to expand the business. So what we've done is we've reset the ownership models so that each of the 7 shareholders are holding an equivalent ownership so that equally they're all equally incented to drive and grow the business going forward. So that was the objective. It's to get more strategic growth out of the business and not have our shareholder be a barrier to having banks but more business into it.

[Operator]

We have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Paul Malcolmson for closing remarks.

[John McKenzie, Senior VP & CFO]

And just before we do that, before we turn it back to Paul, I want to come back and answer a question that came in through Jaeme. I realized that the guidance we gave you around CP, you will not find it in the financial disclosures this quarter, because the actual CP purchases happened in October as opposed to September. But the direction that we gave for the commercial paper of kind of just over 2% is the right guidance for you to use in your models. Paul?

[Paul Malcolmson, Director of Investor Relations]

Thanks, John. And just one final ad for Investor Day, November 29 at our new headquarters in Toronto, we really do encourage people to come in person. There's going to be product demonstrations. I really find that -- feel that people find that more useful than participating over the web. So please register for that. And the contact information for media as well as investor relations is in today's press release. We'd be happy to take further questions throughout the day. Thank you again for joining us and have a great weekend.

[Lou Eccleston, CEO & Director]

Thanks, everybody.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.