Earnings recap: S&P Global's rebound is plain, post-Mobility mix quality is the new proof

As of 2026-03-28 UTC, the easy S&P Global story is already in the numbers. Ratings recovered, Indices kept compounding, and the company finished 2025 with $15.336 billion of revenue, a 50.4% adjusted operating margin, and adjusted diluted EPS of $17.83.[1]

The newer question sits one layer deeper. Once Mobility leaves in mid-2026, the post-spin company has to prove that mix quality still improves when the cyclical ratings tailwind becomes less dramatic. In other words, the rebound is priced; the new proof is whether Indices and Market Intelligence can carry more of the quality burden without a second straight easy issuance year.[1][2]

Priced vs new

Priced: 2025 already restored the visible parts of the franchise. Ratings revenue rose 8%, Indices revenue rose 14%, Market Intelligence still grew 6%, and the company returned $6.2 billion to shareholders, including $5.0 billion of buybacks.[1]

New: 2026 guidance is solid rather than explosive: organic constant-currency revenue growth of 6.0% to 8.0%, diluted EPS of $19.40 to $19.65, and only 10 to 35 bps of adjusted margin expansion in the formal annual guide.[1] At the same time, management still expects the Mobility spin to complete in mid-2026, and its November Investor Day targets excluded Mobility entirely.[1][2][3]

That combination matters because it changes the quality test. Investors no longer need proof that S&P Global can rebound with issuance and passive flows at its back. They need proof that the remaining company can keep lifting margin and EPS through recurring workflows, private-markets data, and index-linked annuities once the reporting perimeter gets cleaner and the comparisons get harder.

Mechanism: why 2025 looked strong, and why 2026 is a different test

The first engine is still Indices. A 14% growth rate in 2025, driven by asset-linked fees, higher AUM, inflows, and exchange-traded derivatives, is exactly the kind of revenue that improves mix because it scales well and needs relatively little incremental selling effort.[1] This is the cleanest annuity in the portfolio.

The second engine is Ratings, and here the quality is real but more cyclical. Fourth-quarter ratings revenue rose 12%, helped by double-digit transaction and non-transaction growth, while transaction revenue was driven by a 28% increase in billed issuance.[1] That is a good year, but it is also the reason 2026 gets harder to read: billed issuance can stay healthy, yet the comparison base is no longer depressed.

The third engine, and the most important one for the post-spin argument, is Market Intelligence. It grew 6% in 2025 and 7% in the fourth quarter, with management pointing to subscription growth, workflow expansion, and the November 2025 acquisition of With Intelligence, a $1.8 billion deal aimed at private-markets data and analytics.[1][4] If S&P Global wants the remaining company to deserve a premium mix after Mobility leaves, this segment has to do more than hold its line. It has to become a steadier source of growth that is less tied to one favorable issuance or market-beta window.

That is why capital return deserves to be read as a signal rather than a footnote. Returning $6.2 billion to shareholders on $5.1 billion of adjusted free cash flow means the company was willing to distribute about 113% of that free-cash-flow figure while still carrying $13.1 billion of total debt at year-end.[1][2] Management is effectively telling the market that the core franchises are durable enough to support aggressive capital return even as the portfolio changes shape.

Six numeric anchors

Full-year 2025 revenue: $15.336 billion, up 8% year over year.[1]
Adjusted operating margin: 50.4% in 2025, up 140 bps.[1]
Adjusted diluted EPS: $17.83 in 2025; 2026 guidance is $19.40 to $19.65.[1]
Segment growth: Indices +14%, Ratings +8%, Market Intelligence +6% in 2025.[1]
Capital return: $6.2 billion returned in 2025, including $5.0 billion of repurchases, versus $5.1 billion of adjusted free cash flow.[1][2]
Balance-sheet / portfolio change: total debt of $13.1 billion at 2025 year-end, with the Mobility spin still expected mid-2026.[2]

Strongest counterweight

The strongest pushback is that S&P Global has already answered the mix question better than skeptics admit. Investor Day laid out medium-term targets of 7% to 9% average annual organic constant-currency revenue growth, 50 to 75 bps of average annual adjusted margin expansion, and divisional growth targets that still ask Market Intelligence to grow 6% to 8% and Indices to grow 10% to 12%, all excluding Mobility.[3] If management can separate a $1.6 billion Mobility business and still hold those ranges, the remaining company may actually look cleaner rather than weaker.[3][5]

That counterweight is serious. Indices is a high-quality toll road, Ratings remains a formidable franchise even after a rebound year, and the private-markets adjacency is larger after With Intelligence. The bearish version of the story therefore cannot just say "ratings will normalize." It has to show that the remaining businesses fail to pick up the mix baton.

Falsifier

This cautious read is wrong if the first post-spin reporting windows show three things together: Market Intelligence growth accelerating above its 2025 pace, Indices holding close to double-digit growth even without an unusually generous market backdrop, and margin expansion tracking toward the upper end of management's 2026 or medium-term framework without help from another outsized ratings snapback.[1][3]

Watchlist

Mobility separation filings and timing: the SEC path toward the spin matters because it will define what the clean post-Mobility perimeter actually looks like.[2][5]
First-quarter and second-quarter 2026 Market Intelligence growth: this is the clearest near-term test of whether private-markets workflow and With Intelligence integration are doing real work.[1][4]
Ratings transaction cadence: after a quarter with billed issuance up 28%, the next question is whether transaction growth stays healthy once comparisons normalize.[1]
Indices asset-linked fees versus Investor Day assumptions: management's medium-term targets explicitly assume market appreciation and issuance are in line with historical averages, so any deviation there will show up quickly in how "annuity-like" the mix really is.[3]

Takeaway

S&P Global's 2025 earnings release did not leave much mystery about the rebound. The mystery moved forward. After Mobility leaves, this story becomes less about whether Ratings and passive AUM can produce a good year and more about whether the remaining company can keep getting richer in quality. That is a harder, better test.

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