- Company name
- S&P Global
- Sector
- Credit ratings & financial data
- About
- S&P Global rates the credit of companies and governments. It also runs S&P Dow Jones Indices, home of the S&P 500. Investment funds pay licensing fees to track these indices. Companies and banks pay S&P Global to rate the bonds and loans they issue.
- Thesis
- Some investors see S&P Global's recent growth as unusually good and unlikely to last. Ratings revenue jumped 17% last quarter, largely on a surge of AI data center debt and merger financing. That is a source of issuance that can slow when AI spending cools. Other investors worry private lenders will skip public credit ratings altogether as private credit keeps growing. S&P Global has answered the second worry by doubling its private credit ratings coverage since 2021. It has also expanded further into new areas. These include a September 2026 deal to buy OpenZeppelin, which rates the security of onchain (blockchain) finance code, and an expanded data alliance with Kaiko. The Indices business, tied to a record $6.35 trillion in ETF assets, gives a second growth engine that moves with fund flows rather than the bond-market cycle. This offsets a slowdown in Ratings. For the discount to close, bond issuance tied to hyperscalers, the largest cloud computing providers, needs to keep coming in near management's $250-300 billion forecast for the year. Private credit deals also need to keep needing public ratings rather than bypassing them. The next quarterly results, expected around late October 2026, will help show this. So will full-year issuance data through year end, which together will show whether 2026's growth was a temporary AI-driven spike or a durable shift. If issuance holds up and private credit keeps needing ratings, the gap can close over the next two to four quarters. If AI-related debt issuance slows sharply, growth could cool back toward its more normal historical pace.
- Risks
- Much of Ratings' recent growth comes from a surge in AI data center debt issuance. Management raised its forecast for hyperscaler-related issuance to $250-300 billion for the year. A slowdown in AI infrastructure spending could sharply reduce this bond issuance and hurt Ratings revenue.
S&P Global plans to raise leverage temporarily to fund a $7 billion share buyback in 2026. Gross leverage is expected to reach 2.7-2.8 times EBITDA by year end, above the company's normal 2.0-2.5 times target range.
Private credit lenders funded nearly $146 billion of below-investment-grade debt in 2025, more than the amount funded through broadly syndicated loans. Many private credit deals do not require a traditional public credit rating, which could limit Ratings' addressable market over time.
S&P Global completed the spin-off of its Mobility division in July 2026. The remaining company now has less revenue diversification and must absorb the standalone costs of operating without that business.
- Recent events
- 2026-09-17: S&P Global agreed to buy OpenZeppelin, a company that secures onchain (blockchain) finance code. Terms were not disclosed, and the deal is not expected to have a material financial impact. OpenZeppelin keeps operating under its own name inside S&P Global Ratings.
2026-09-11: S&P Global expanded its strategic alliance with digital-asset data firm Kaiko.
2026-07-28: S&P Global reported second quarter revenue of $4.15 billion, up 10%. Ratings revenue grew 17%, and Indices revenue grew 20%.
2026-07-01: S&P Global completed the spin-off of Mobility Global Inc., which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker MBGL.
2026-05-20: The board of S&P Global approved a plan to spin off the Mobility division into an independent public company.