Clarivate Plc (CLVT) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Clarivate Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Mark Donohue, Vice President, Investor Relations. Mark, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the Clarivate Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and webcast -- and is copyrighted property of Clarivate. Any rebroadcast of this information in whole or in part without prior written consent of Clarivate is prohibited. The accompanying earnings call presentation is available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. During our call, we may make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the business or developments in Clarivate's business to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance, achievements or developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Information about the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results or performance can be found in Clarivate's filings with the SEC and on the company's website. Our discussion will include non-GAAP measures or adjusted numbers. Clarivate believes non-GAAP results are useful in order to enhance the understanding of our ongoing operating performance, but they are a supplement to and should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to GAAP measures are available in our earnings release and supplemental presentation on our website. With me today are Matti Shem Tov, Chief Executive Officer; and Michael Easton, Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we'll open up the call to your questions. And with that, it's a pleasure to turn the call over to Matti.

Thank you, Mark, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. The third quarter marks a major milestone in Clarivate's continued transformation. We completed the strategic sale of the Life Sciences & Healthcare segment ahead of schedule. This positions Clarivate as a more focused, higher-quality recurring business, centered on 2 scaled market-leading segments, Academia & Government and IP. Both segments are driving commercial traction and customer validation from our AI-led innovation. Web of Science Research Intelligence and IPOne are strong examples of that innovation in practice. I will discuss this in more detail later. In Q2, we said that we had the building blocks in place to accelerate organic growth. The progress we made this quarter is a proof that we delivered on our commitments. Today's message is straightforward. We have a clear path to accelerating sustained organic growth, expanding free cash flow and reducing leverage, all of which will continue to create long-term value for shareholders. Q3 results reflect improving recurring revenue, strong profitability and cash generation, continued debt reduction and meaningful customer validation of our technology and AI capabilities. Organic ACV growth was 1.8%, up 30 basis points year-over-year. As a reminder, this KPI is our leading indicator for future organic revenue growth. Recurring organic revenue improved to 1.3%, an increase of 110 basis points year-over-year. Within A&G, organic ACV and subscription revenue growth was approximately 2%. We are excited that in France, ABES selected Clarivate to modernize its national academic library system. This multiyear agreement will replace a legacy system with the unified Alma cloud-based platform that combines AI-powered discovery and library services across thousands of academic libraries and institutions. This is a powerful validation of both the scale of our platform and the critical role Clarivate plays in the global research ecosystem. In IP, recurring organic revenue grew nearly 1% and ACV returned to positive growth for the first time in over 3 years. In terms of IP wins, the USPTO selected Clarivate to power image search across the U.S. trademark register, placing our image recognition capabilities within a core trademark workflow. This reinforces the value of combining trusted proprietary data, deeply embedded workflow solutions and AI to solve the mission-critical needs of our customers. Clarivate is now a scaled, focused and highly recurring business with $2 billion of revenue and a 93% recurring organic revenue mix. Our solutions span 3 complementary models: Intelligent Solutions, representing 50% of revenue; Workflow Solutions, representing 25%; and Technology-Enabled Services, representing 25%. This combination provides trusted decision support, embedded software and expert-led services that customers rely on to execute critical work globally. AI is enhancing the value across these offerings. We now have more than 80 in-market AI agents, assistants and capabilities supporting our customers at an increasing pace. Our platform has handled more than 465 million AI API calls, which is more than 2.5x the volume compared to this time last year. This demonstrates the scale at which AI is already deployed across Clarivate, but scale of deployment is only part of the story. Clarivate's ability to apply AI to trusted content and established workflows while still maintaining trust, governance and quality is what matters to customers. This is further evidence of why we believe AI is strongly positive for our business. Let me turn to our 2 segments, starting with Academia & Government and the strength of our position across the global research ecosystem. A&G is approximately a $1.2 billion franchise with 95% recurring organic revenue and a deeply embedded position across the global research ecosystem. Our reach is significant. 99% of the world's top 400 universities use our solutions. More than 120 million students and researchers rely on our products to enhance their outcomes, and our data powers 75% of national and regional research assessments. Our solutions are deeply embedded across research, teaching and learning, funding decisions and library operations. Our advantage comes from bringing together scholarly content and institutional workflows as well as research intelligence in a proprietary ecosystem. This asset supports a resilient recurring revenue stream and creates the opportunity to build new AI-enabled products. Web of Science Research Intelligence is a good example of what I just outlined. Following its launch in May, the platform has now secured more than 100 institutional wins across 25 countries. Importantly, we have developed an active sales pipeline for 2026 to 2027 of approximately $20 million, which we expect to continue to grow. The platform uses agentic AI to help institutions address complex questions around research strategy, impact and funding, with output grounded in Clarivate-curated authoritative data. This matters because the decisions being made using our platform require the highest level of provenance, explainability and trust. Early global customer traction supports our confidence in market adoption. So the next step is clear: Convert that customer interest and pipeline into recurring revenue at scale. We believe these revenue opportunities are both incremental and support even stronger retention for Web of Science. Turning to Intellectual Property. IP is our other scaled segment with $800 million of revenue and 90% recurring organic revenue, supporting the global IP ecosystem. 90% of the top 100 R&D investors use our solutions. More than 15,000 IP customers rely on Clarivate to manage and protect their portfolios, and 40 patent and trademark offices, including the 5 largest in the world, use our solutions. The work we support is nondiscretionary and nondeferrable. Customers depend on Clarivate to create, protect, manage and commercialize intellectual property globally and to safeguard billions of dollars of intangible value with certainty and continuity. Importantly, the fundamentals of this business are improving. Recurring organic revenue grew nearly 1% in Q3, and ACV returned to positive growth. This represents continued progress and proves that we are delivering on our commitments. Our competitive advantage comes from the combination of our IP management software, curated patents and trademark data, lifecycle services and one of the largest teams of IP specialists in the industry. It also gives us a stronger foundation to introduce the next generation of AI agentic platform. IPOne brings that strategy to life. IPOne is becoming an AI-native intelligence layer across the IP lifecycle, combining specialized agents, cloud, proprietary data and trusted intelligence. It is grounded in customers' proprietary IP data held within Clarivate software and inaccessible to general-purpose AI. We believe that IPOne can become the intelligence and agentic foundation across the IP lifecycle. Ahead of the November early adopter launch, we are working with more than 40 development partners across 25 countries, including more than 15 Fortune Global 500 companies. We have established an active sales pipeline of 151 customers, which we expect to increase in the coming months. The initial release is expected to include 5 purpose-built AI agents and a growing library of agentic workflow skills. They are grounded in more than 1 billion interconnected data points that Clarivate has developed and enriched over decades, supported by our IP domain experts. Through the IPOne introduction, we expect to create new revenue streams and improve subscription retention. Let me bring this together. We have taken deliberate actions to improve the quality and performance of Clarivate. Our strategy is working. We have increased the recurring revenue mix of the business, improved our commercial execution, accelerated product innovation, simplified the portfolio and reduced debt. And increasingly, we are seeing these actions reflected in our KPIs. Recurring revenue growth is improving. IP ACV has returned to growth, and our new AI-led platforms are attracting customers and building commercial pipelines. Given the sale of Life Sciences & Healthcare, we wanted to provide an early look at 2027. The current target is to achieve higher organic ACV and recurring revenue growth alongside increasing free cash flow and lowering net leverage. We look forward to providing full 2027 guidance in February. I want to leave you with one point. Clarivate today is a different company from the one that began this transformation when I joined as CEO 2 years ago. With that, Michael will review our financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Matti. We continue to drive progress toward growth while focusing our portfolio on scaled recurring revenue products. We are excited that IP has returned to positive recurring organic revenue growth in the quarter, and we continue to see organic subscription revenue growth in A&G. Slide 14 is an overview of our third quarter and year-to-date results compared with the same period last year. As a reminder, the third quarter and year-to-date financial results were impacted by the sale of the LS&H segment in October 2026 and the resulting presentation of the LS&H results as discontinued operations for all periods presented. On the waterfall schedules in the earnings presentation, we have shown the discontinued operations separately to provide visibility of our continuing operations performance and comparability to previously reported numbers. Q3 revenue from continuing operations was $482 million, bringing year-to-date to nearly $1.5 billion. The change in the quarter over the prior year was due to inorganic disposals, and the year-to-date over prior year decline of 5% was due entirely to inorganic disposals, specifically the A&G books business. As a reminder, this wind down was completed in the second quarter this year, so we will anniversary this impact in the back half of 2027. The third quarter loss from continuing operations was $26 million, essentially flat year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was flat for the year-to-date and nearly flat for the quarter despite impact from disposals. Adjusted diluted EPS in the third quarter was up $0.03 over the prior year to $0.21, bringing the year-to-date to $0.59, which is a 20% increase over the same period last year. Operating cash flow was $166 million in the quarter. The change compared to last year was driven by lower adjusted EBITDA from the disposals, higher taxes and working capital requirements due to timing of receipts and disbursements, partially offset by lower interest expense. Please turn with me now to Page 15 for a closer look at the drivers of the third quarter top and bottom-line changes from the prior year. The continuing operations changes over the prior year were driven by 3 primary factors. First, recurring organic revenues grew by $6 million or 1.3%, offset by decline in transactional revenues, resulting in total organic revenue growth of $2 million or 0.4%. This is our highest recurring revenue growth in over a year and keeps us on track to improve this metric by 100 basis points from H1 to H2. The revenue growth, along with cost efficiencies, resulted in organic flow-through to profit of $13 million. Second, the businesses we are disposing decreased revenue by $48 million with a 25% impact on profit, almost entirely from the wind down of the A&G books business. In Q3, we also decided to wind down a couple of smaller, low-margin transactional products, mostly in the IP segment, approximating 1% of total revenue with a negligible amount of profit, which winds down will occur over the next 1 to 2 years. And finally, while the top line was only nominally impacted due to foreign exchange, we experienced more profit impact due to the weakening of the U.S. dollar against the basket of foreign currencies and realized transaction losses. In summary, a return to organic revenue growth, strategic disposals and disciplined cost management allowed us to expand our adjusted EBITDA margin over 300 basis points versus the same period last year. Please turn with me now to Page 16 for the same analysis for the first 3 quarters of the year. While year-to-date recurring organic revenue growth of $12 million or nearly 1% has been mostly offset by transactional revenue performance, cost discipline has completely mitigated this impact, resulting in an organic contribution of $22 million to adjusted EBITDA. The disposals have lowered revenue by $85 million, but due to their low margin result in only a $13 million reduction in adjusted EBITDA. For the comparable period in the prior year, the U.S. dollar was weaker against the basket of foreign currencies, which caused a foreign exchange benefit to revenue but resulted in a profit headwind from foreign currency fluctuations on costs and transaction gains last year that did not recur this year. Overall, the recurring revenue growth, strategic disposals and disciplined cost management drove margin expansion of 200 basis points in the first 3 quarters of the year, an improving trend we expect to continue in the fourth quarter of the year. Please turn with me now to Page 17 to see how our adjusted EBITDA converted to free cash flow and how we continue to allocate our capital in a disciplined manner to further strengthen the balance sheet. Free cash flow was $110 million in the third quarter, which was $5 million lower than the same period last year. The change is due to higher taxes and working capital, largely due to the timing of collections and payments, partially offset by lower interest and capital spending. We used the free cash flow to repurchase another $75 million of notes due in 2028 at a discount of about 2%, bringing the debt reduction year-to-date to $293 million. Please turn with me now to Page 18 for a look at our full year financial guidance ranges. As discussed in the second quarter, with the closing of the divestiture, we are updating guidance to account for LS&H no longer being included in our financial results. Our updated guidance ranges for revenue and adjusted EBITDA and related indicators no longer include LS&H results for any periods this year as they are now treated as discontinued operations. As a reminder, when we announced the agreement to sell LS&H in early July 2026, we provided full year 2026 estimates for the segment of $370 million of revenue and $120 million of adjusted EBITDA, which, similar to prior years, was seasonally weighted to the fourth quarter. We are also narrowing the full year guidance ranges as 3 quarters of the year are now complete. Additionally, to more clearly present the ongoing business, we have provided guidance ranges for the fourth quarter of the year in the earnings release. We expect our organic ACV to range from 1.75% to 2.25% and note that in Q3, our IP segment ACV has now returned to positive organic growth. We expect recurring organic revenue growth to range from 1% to 1.5% for the full year and, importantly, for Q4 to exceed 2%. Our revenue range is now expected to be $1.965 billion to $1.985 billion, down from the prior year due entirely to the strategic wind down of the A&G books business. With that wind down completed in the second quarter of 2026, entering 2027, we anticipate favorable year-over-year comparisons in the back half of the year on total revenue. Importantly, our recurring revenue mix will now be in the range of 92% to 94%. We now expect that adjusted EBITDA will show positive growth for the full year in the range of $865 million to $885 million. This profit growth will all come in the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be about 44% at the midpoint of the range. We still expect adjusted EPS will grow about 9% at the midpoint of the range to $0.75. Finally, free cash flow guidance is updated to a range of $320 million to $340 million as we have now incurred all transaction costs, approximately $30 million, to close the divestiture and will not have the seasonally stronger LS&H free cash flow in the fourth quarter. Our 2027 perspective on free cash flow anticipates growth of 10% to 15%. Please turn with me now to Page 19 for a review of the full year top and bottom line changes we are expecting compared to last year. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin will expand over 250 basis points, driven by a return to organic growth, continued cost discipline and completion of the strategic disposals. We anticipate total organic revenue growth of about 50 basis points, led by subscription revenue growth from continued ACV acceleration. We have executed on plan to achieve cost efficiencies resulting in $40 million of organic growth. This will account for a majority of the margin expansion. The inorganic disposals are expected to lower revenue this year by approximately $110 million, and we are reducing operating expenses by about $90 million, which yields a profit impact of about $20 million, with the remainder of the full year revenue and profit impact being driven by changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Please turn with me now to Page 20 to step through the expected improvement in our revenue, KPIs and margin this year, which we have updated based on our year-to-date results. Our quarterly performance continues to build momentum. And as discussed in our second quarter earnings, we still expect recurring organic revenue growth in H2 to see an improvement from H1 of 100 basis points. Our expectation for recurring organic growth is above 2% in Q4. This will be the highest quarterly performance in over 3 years and positions us well into 2027. The organic growth, implemented cost efficiencies and the benefit of the strategic disposals should maintain profit margins above 45% in Q4. And total revenue will be higher in Q4 due to the normal cadence of patent and trademark renewals and improving organic ACV and recurring revenue growth. Please turn with me now to Page 21 to review how we expect the adjusted EBITDA will convert to free cash flow and how we plan to allocate this capital, along with the proceeds from the divestiture, to reduce our debt this year by about $875 million. We now expect free cash flow to approximate $330 million this year as we have now incurred all transaction costs to close the divestiture, and we will not have the seasonally stronger LS&H free cash flow for the fourth quarter. The vast majority of the onetime cost of about $70 million will not recur next year. We now expect cash interest will be lower by about $25 million compared to last year due to the debt repaid last year and this year. We anticipate the change in working capital this year will be a use of approximately $35 million, primarily due to incentive compensation payments. And while we remain committed to investing in product innovation, the divestiture of LS&H in October 2026, the disposals and cost efficiencies will improve capital spending by about $35 million. From a capital allocation perspective, we plan to use the proceeds from the LS&H divestiture to repurchase at a discount a portion of the notes due in 2028 and 2029. Q3 was a significant quarter for us as we completed an important step to focus on our 2 scaled segments and continue to make progress on our VCP plan, driving growth, improving cash flow, strengthening our capital structure and creating value for our shareholders. Operator, we will now move to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Manav Patnaik with Barclays.

This is Brandon Cohen on for Manav Patnaik. On ACV, you've called out pricing as a primary driver of the 1.8% growth this quarter. Would you be able to please unpack the price versus volume dynamic a bit? And what exactly needs to happen for retention and new subscription sales to become a bigger driver of the acceleration into Q4 and into 2027?

Michael, go ahead.

Yes. Thanks, Brandon, for the question. We're pleased with the performance in the ACV this quarter, reaching 1.8%. As we said, one of the primary drivers of that is our pricing. We've talked about that in the past, that we strive to get above or around 3% pricing. The pricing has been consistent and strong this year. And volumes are continuing to see improvement there on an overall basis. We are now targeting to exit the year at 2% ACV growth, so another improvement from Q3 into Q4 and then further improvement as we move into 2027, as Matti said.

Your next question comes from the line of George Tong with Goldman Sachs.

This is Alex Later on for George Tong. ACV returned to positive growth for the first time in more than 3 years, while total segment organic revenue declined 0.4%. Can you discuss what's driving the ACV improvement and how you see that translating into organic revenue growth from here?

So first of all, just remind ourselves about the strength of the IP business. We are supporting nondiscretionary, nondeferrable work. This is -- we are part of this larger IP ecosystem. We've gone through a lot in IP. We now have stabilized the management. We have a much more focused sales organization team, recurring revenue growth of 1%, return to ACV positive growth. We have Simon, who is now running the business in a tighter way, and we are very, very pleased also with our positioning around IPOne. Very confident that IPOne is the right layer that will help us not only with new ACV, but also helping us on the retention side for the recurring revenue side. So we're very -- we learned a lot in IP to go with transition of the management, we are introducing new products and the type of sales organization, very positive to believe IP is coming by.

[Operator Instructions] We have now reached the end of the Q&A session. I will turn the call back to Matti Shem Tov, CEO, for closing remarks. We do have one more question from Abe Landa with Bank of America. I will take this question now.

You kind of mentioned that you were going to use the LS&H proceeds to repay the '28s and '29s at a discount. Could you maybe describe how you're going to go about doing that?

Yes. Thanks for the question. Over the course of this year, as we disclosed, we bought back about $290 million of debt so far year-to-date. That has been at a range of 2% to 3% discount in the second quarter and the third quarter. And our plan for the fourth quarter would be to approach it the same we've done the buybacks in the third quarter and the second quarter. So really no change from that, and we'll look for the right opportunity to start the process and look to complete that in relatively short order here in the fourth quarter.

I guess how do you weigh buying back the '28s versus the '29s, just given the timing difference of when they come due? And maybe how do you think about longer term your capital structure?

Yes. No, you're right. I mean there's good delineation between the 2. Those are the 2 near-term notes. And so we really just balance the opportunity there with when those notes are coming due, what we think is the right approach from a capital allocation between the 2 and obviously, look to our cash proceeds and the free cash flow to be able to pay those off in due course before they arrive or become current.

We have now reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Matti Shem Tov, CEO, for closing remarks.

Let me just close by saying that we are proud of the progress and confident in the future. Our focus is now execution, translating that foundation into accelerating sustained organic growth, expanding free cash flow and reducing our leverage, and thank you for joining us today.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.