15 July 2025

GlobalData Plc

(AIM: DATA, GlobalData, the Group)

Trading Update

·    Momentum building in Contracted Forward Revenue in Q2 following a slow start to FY25

·    Continued investment in Growth Transformation Plan initiatives, two further M&A deals secured

·    Tender offer of up to £60 million to be launched post Interim Results at £1.50 per share

·    Process for move to Main Market listing is underway and expected to complete in Q4 2025

GlobalData Plc, the leading data, insight, and technology company, today provides a Trading Update for the six months ended 30 June 2025, ahead of the announcement of its interim results expected to be published on 5 August 2025.

The Group has delivered a resilient first half performance, with good momentum in our continued transformation as part of our Growth Transformation Plan 2024-26. In particular, during the half, our new sales teams have been embedded together with new ways of working. It has taken time during the period to achieve this and we continue to invest in strengthening our offering.

We are encouraged by the core strengths of our business model and the underlying momentum in our forward order book, despite the continued challenges from an uncertain macro-economic environment experienced across the sector. In particular:

o We are transitioning to a more solutions-based selling and strategic account management approach, and there has been significant change to our sales organisation in order to achieve this, for example, in one of our units we have recruited 23 new sales people in the last twelve months. We have been instilling new ways of working to get even closer to our customers to drive key initiatives as part of our customer obsession and move towards strategic account management. It has taken time during the period to achieve this.

o Active strategic account management is starting to drive a strong pipeline of expanding relationships within our larger clients, as we roll out our new offering of Solutions, including Sales Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence and Strategic Intelligence.

o Expansion of our contracted forward revenue base, which provides improved visibility for H2 2025 and beyond.

Mike Danson, Chief Executive Officer of GlobalData Plc, commented: "GlobalData has shown resilience through a period of transition towards solutions-based selling and an acute focus on strategic account management as we get even closer to our customers. With a tough and uncertain macro- environment we continue to make significant progress in our Growth Transformation Plan.

Following a slow start in Q1 2025, momentum is building as can be seen by the improved Contracted Forward Revenue which provides improved visibility for H2 2025 and active strategic account management is starting to drive a pipeline of stronger expanding relationships. I am pleased that we have maintained momentum in our acquisition strategy, adding two businesses so far in 2025 that enhance our Consumer Innovation Intelligence Solutions, and I wish to extend a warm welcome to the new members of our team.

The offer proposals we received in April clearly caused some distraction in the first half, but we, as a Board, believe that the medium and long-term prospects of the Group offer an excellent opportunity of strong shareholder returns. As we look forward to joining the Main Market in Q4 2025, we are also delighted to be able to announce the launch of a tender offer for our shares, again highlighting our focus on utilising both our cashflows and a balance sheet to drive Total Shareholder Returns.

Trading update

·  Group revenue of c.£157m (H1 2024: £140m), representing growth of approximately 12% for the half. Underlying organic revenue excluding the impact of forex was flat for the period.  Despite a slow start to the financial year, GlobalData has exited the half with improved momentum in underlying Contracted Forward Revenue (CFR) excluding the impact of forex, which accelerated growth to 3%, representing a strong second quarter in CFR.

·   Renewal rates have remained consistent throughout the period.

·   USD weakness has impacted the H1 result and is expected to have more of an impact on the full year results, with c.50% of Group revenues derived in USD. This is expected to have an approximate effect of reducing revenue for the full year by around c.£10m.

·  Ongoing investment in key Growth Transformation Plan initiatives, such as transforming the Group's sales organisation, has meant that organic Adjusted EBITDA margin has declined by 3ppts for H1, with recent M&A diluting the margin further. We expect to regain this margin through the second half:

o The benefits from our transition to a more solutions-based selling and strategic account management approach, as described above, are starting to come through.

o In FY24, GlobalData strengthened its One Platform with four value-creating acquisitions. As expected, these acquisitions did not make a positive contribution to Adjusted EBITDA in the first half, but we are now further down the integration processes, and are generating the associated cost synergies as planned. We expect EBITDA contribution from these acquisitions of £8m of EBITDA through the second half.

·   Continued investment in product enhancing AI and solutions focus:

o Deepened our demonstrable impact with customers, with AI Hub usage increasing 2.1x in H1 across over 100k users.

o Launched "Sam", our first digital worker to transform the future of work, by using agentic AI to deliver personalized insights, automate workflows, and increase productivity for sales professionals.

Investment in M&A in H1 with two further deals secured

·   Continued focus on executing M&A with the completion of the acquisitions of Ai Palette, a leading AI powered platform for predictive consumer insights and product innovation, on 7 March 2025 and of the consumer trends intelligence business, Stylus, on 7 July 2025.

·   The addition of Stylus represents a strengthening of our Consumer innovation intelligence solution, which will combine the strength of the Group's proprietary data and AI platform with Stylus' leading insights on consumer trends and the technology capability of our recent AI Palette acquisition.

Capital allocation - initiating a Tender Offer

The Group continues to maintain a disciplined approach to capital allocation, with the objective of achieving long-term compounding growth to enhance shareholder value. Our capital allocation priorities therefore remain building the business through organic growth, selected M&A, investment in AI and the platform, and sales excellence.

On 6 February 2025, we announced a share buyback of £50 million, which was suspended on 2 May 2025 following the announcement of the possible offer proposals on 30 April 2025. At the time it was suspended, approximately £39 million of shares had been purchased under the share buyback programme. The Group will not be recommencing this share buyback programme, instead the Group will look to return surplus capital to shareholders by way of a tender offer of shares.

Accordingly, the Board intends to launch a tender offer of up to £60 million at a tender offer price of £1.50 per share following the half year's results announcement. Further details of the tender offer will be included in a separate announcement when the tender offer is launched to the market. It is expected that the tender offer will conclude prior to admission on the Main Market.

Process for move to Main Market listing is underway and expected to complete in Q4 2025

On 6 February 2025, the Group announced its proposed move to the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. Following this announcement, the Group received preliminary, conditional proposals regarding possible cash and partial share alternative offers from two parties, as announced on 30 April 2025.

The Board carefully reviewed these proposals, but ultimately could not agree terms that represented an attractive value for all shareholders, having regard for the medium and long-term prospects of the Group and the discussions were terminated.

Following this, the Board now reconfirms its intention to proceed with its plans to move to a Main Market listing and expects to complete this process in Q4 2025. The Board believes that the Group's continued investment in the business and platform, its strong balance sheet, cash flows and significant M&A firepower offers shareholders a compelling long-term opportunity for strong returns.

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