- 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, due on October 27, 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. Reports of the Q2 earnings call said management expects gross leverage of 2.7-2.8 times EBITDA by year end. This is 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.
- Balance sheet
- Cash: $4.1B
Debt: $15.2B
Net debt: $11.1B
Interest cover: 24×
Undrawn credit line: $2.0B, to December 2029
Last debt due: 2062
Ratings: Moody's A3 (stable outlook)
S&P Global funds itself with cash from its ratings, index and data businesses, and with unsecured notes that the parent company issues and its ratings subsidiary guarantees. Management plans buybacks of more than $7 billion in 2026 and expects leverage to rise above its target before it falls in 2027. At June 30, 2026, debt was mostly fixed-rate notes due from 2027, plus $825 million of commercial paper. But $2.0 billion of this debt was Mobility Global notes, which left with Mobility at the July 1, 2026 spin-off. Before the spin-off, Mobility paid S&P Global a dividend of about $2 billion, and S&P Global kept it. Interest cover is first half 2026 operating profit plus depreciation and amortization of $4.4 billion over net interest expense of $182 million. The undrawn credit line backs the commercial paper. Moody's last affirmed its rating in 2022, after the IHS Markit merger. The balance sheet also carries $5.0 billion of redeemable noncontrolling interest for CME Group's 27% share of S&P Dow Jones Indices. CME can at any time make S&P Global buy part of that share at fair value. This is a possible cash call that does not show as debt. The buyback plan is about five times the $1.5 billion bought in the first half. Reports of the Q2 earnings call said management expects to borrow about $2 billion more to pay for the buybacks. The same reports said management expects gross leverage of 2.7 to 2.8 times EBITDA at year end, above its 2.0 to 2.5 times target.
As of 2026-06-30.
- Checkpoints
- Oct 27, 2026: Q3 2026 earnings: Ratings growth and AI debt issuance. Pending. Watch: Ratings revenue growth that stays strong with hyperscaler issuance near the $250 to $300 billion forecast pass; a sharp drop in issuance-driven revenue fails.
Feb 2027 (estimate): Full-year 2026 results and 2027 guidance. Pending. Watch: 2027 guidance for Ratings growth above its historical pace and leverage on a path back to 2.0 to 2.5 times pass; guidance that assumes a fall in issuance fails.
Apr 2027 (estimate): Q1 2027 earnings: private credit ratings and Indices flows. Pending. Watch: Growth in private credit ratings and in Indices fees from ETF assets pass; a fall in Ratings revenue as private lenders skip public ratings fails.
- Recent events
- 2026-09-29: Cboe and S&P Dow Jones Indices signed a 25-year extension of their exclusive license for S&P 500 index options, through 2051.
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.