text:
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) Q2 2016 Earnings Call August 3, 2016 8:30 AM ET
Kelly Loeffler - Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Marketing & Investor Relations
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Kenneth B. Worthington - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP
Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC
Kenneth Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.
Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC
Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP
Good morning, and welcome to the ICE Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Kelly Loeffler. Ms. Loeffler, please go ahead.
Kelly Loeffler - Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Marketing & Investor Relations
Good morning. ICE's second quarter 2016 earnings release and presentation can be found on the Investors section at theice.com. These items will be archived, and our call will be available for replay.
Today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements, which we undertake no obligation to update, represent our current judgment and are subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties. For a description of the risks that could cause our results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, please refer to our Form 10-K for 2015.
In our earnings supplement, we refer to certain non-GAAP measures, including adjusted income, operating margin, expenses, EPS, EBITDA, and tax rate. We believe our non-GAAP measures are more reflective of our cash operations and core business performance.
In the appendix of our presentation and earnings press release, you'll find a summary of our GAAP results, a reconciliation to the equivalent GAAP terms, and an explanation of why we deem this information to be meaningful, as well as how management uses these measures. When used on this call, net revenue refers to revenue net of transaction-based expenses, and adjusted earnings refer to adjusted diluted earnings per share.
As a reminder, unless otherwise noted, the year-over-year figures we will discuss reflect comparisons against adjusted pro forma 2015 results.
With us on the call are Jeff Sprecher, Chairman and CEO; Scott Hill, Chief Financial Officer; and Chuck Vice, President and Chief Operating Officer.
I'll now turn the call over to Scott.
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Kelly. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll begin on slide four and highlight that the second quarter was our seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth. Our performance was driven by revenues that grew 7% and adjusted operating expenses that declined 1% year-over-year.
We generated adjusted operating income growth of 15% and expanded adjusted operating margins by 3 points to 56%. Adjusted earnings per share grew 13% versus the prior year to $3.43 and with continued momentum in our transaction business in July, growing data revenues and lower expenses, we're well positioned in 2016 to extend our decade-long track record of double-digit earnings growth.
As you'll see, as I move to slide five, our second quarter performance contributed to strong results for the first half of 2016. We generated consolidated net revenues of $2.3 billion during the first half of the year. Both our trading and clearing segments and our data and listings segment grew 6% versus the first half of 2015. This solid top-line growth combined with disciplined expense management allowed us to expand operating margins by 5 points to 58% and to grow earnings per share 16% to $7.12.
Additionally, we generated record operating cash flow of $1.1 billion in the first half of 2016 which enabled us to pay over $200 million in dividend even as we reduced our leverage to 2.4 times just six months post the closing of our Interactive Data acquisition.
These strong financial results, enabled by our globally diverse business model, supported our board's authorization of $1 billion share repurchase program and our $0.85 per share dividend for the third quarter. We also announced plans to pursue a 5-for-1 stock split to ensure that our stock trades as efficiently as possible in a fragmented market and that it is more accessible to a broad range of shareholders.
Let's move to slide six where I'll provide some more details in our first half revenue performance. 52% of the $2.3 billion in revenue came from our data and listings segment, and 48% came from our trading and clearing segment. Each segment grew 6% year-over-year. You'll find further detail on each segment's revenue on the right side of this slide.
In the trading and clearing segment, commodities revenues grew 10% with strong contributions from both our energy and ag markets. Financials revenues grew 2% with continued strength in our equity index markets partially offset by muted European interest rate volume. Notably, volume in ICE bread, sugar, other ags, MSCI, and U.S. cash equities each grew double digits during the first half of the year.
Within our data and listings segment, pricing and analytics revenues grew 6% and exchange data revenues increased by 13% year-to-year. This strong performance was enabled by a high retention rate of existing customers, the acquisition of new customers, and the development of new and enhanced products designed to efficiently deliver more value to all of our customers.
Each of our data offerings are benefiting from customers' recognition of the increasing value of readily-available easy-to-consume information. This nascent trend reflects our customers' need to deal with the challenges of the volatile markets and uncertain political and economic environments in which they operate.
We continue to expect our full-year 2016 data revenues to grow between 6% and 7% on a pro forma basis despite the recent significant decline in the pound sterling, in which roughly 9% of our total data revenues are billed.
Further, though we expected currency impact to cause a sequential decline in revenues of $6 million in third quarter, we believe fourth quarter data revenues could approach $500 million even at current spot rates.
Finally, listings revenues grew 3% over the prior first half and we hosted some notable IPOs as activity picked up late in the second quarter.
Going forward, we're confident that our unique market model and strong issuer services will continue to support the capital raising needs of the world's most innovate companies and exchange traded product issuers.
Please turn to slide seven where I'll discuss our disciplined expense management and provide updated and improved guidance. First half adjusted operating expenses declined 4% year-over-year to $970 million and pro forma operating margin expanded by 5 points. As we continue to integrate our acquisitions and streamline our operations, we are realizing Interactive Data synergies sooner than expected. The majority of our corporate functions are well along the path to integration. Our technology and operations teams have built clear integration roadmaps. And perhaps most importantly, the ICE Data sales team is now fully integrated and well-positioned to better serve our customers with a complete range of data solutions.
Given our solid execution, we now expect to realize roughly $50 million in synergies from Interactive Data this year and approximately $100 million in combined expense synergies during 2016. Accordingly, we now expect our full-year adjusted expenses to be in a range between $1.94 billion and $1.97 billion including adjusted expenses in the range of $485 million to $495 million in the third quarter. This updated and improved full-year guidance reflects the $60 million improvement from our guidance at the beginning of the year. This improvement consists of an additional $25 million in synergies and roughly $35 million largely related to the currency impact of the lower pound.
We run a diverse global business that is subject to currency fluctuations. Given the size of the change in the pound related to the Brexit vote, I want to take a brief moment to give you some color on how you should think about this in the context of our second half financial performance.
With roughly 11% of our total revenues and 15% of our consolidated expenses denominated in pounds, we have a natural hedge that mitigates a meaningful portion of the impact to profit. Therefore, even though the currency driven decline in revenue exceeds the expense reduction on a dollar basis, we expect the net impact to earnings to be immaterial and it will not impede our ability to extend our track record of delivering double-digit earnings growth to 11 years.
I'll conclude my prepared remarks on slide eight with a review of our cash generation, leverage and capital return. We generated record operating cash flows of $1.1 billion in the first half of the year and deployed that cash to invest around $150 million in CapEx to reduce our debt by nearly $800 million and to return over $200 million to shareholders through dividends.
We reduced our leverage from 2.8 times at the end of 2015 to 2.4 times at the end of June. We believe that by the end of this year or early next, we can reduce our leverage to a level that will continue to support our strong investment-grade rating even as we increase our capital return and consider other strategic investments. This solid cash generation and rapid deleveraging supports our board's authorization of a new $1 billion stock buyback program and our ability to grow our cash dividend as we grow.
Our record first-half results reflect our commitment to serving customers and generating strong returns for our investors. We are expanding and improving the products we offer in the markets we serve. We are growing revenues, earnings and cash flows. We are reducing expenses, debt and leverage, and we have invested strategically to build a diverse business model that we believe will allow us to continue to deliver consistent earnings growth, solid cash generation and leading returns on investments.
I'll be happy to take your questions during Q&A, but for now, I'll turn the call over to Jeff.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Scott, and good morning to everyone on the call. I'll provide an update on our strategy that's delivering the strong growth that we've detailed this morning, and then we'll conduct a question-and-answer session.
On slide nine of the results of our strategic approach to transforming our company into a global financial services leader, since our IPO in November of 2005, we've grown EPS five-fold, and we've grown our share price ten-fold by building on the changing needs of our customers.
Rather than simply retracing the past to seek growth, we've been future-focused on the intersection of financial services and technology to offer more services to our expanding base of customers. We began as an energy trading platform and strategically transformed the company to become a global operator of exchanges and clearing houses, and become a top-tier provider of proprietary data solutions.
This successful evolution of our business occurred despite the financial crisis, evolving regulations, tumultuous global markets and economic cycles. We stayed focus amid these dynamic times on innovating to solve our customers' challenges, bringing solutions long before they were widely appreciated by the market.
This very point is highlighted on slide 10, where you could see the virtuous cycle created by our global ecosystem of exchanges, clearing houses, information and connectivity, which is an unparalleled model relative to more specialized data providers and market operators.
Data and trading are symbiotic and serve as integral inputs into our customers' workflow. For many customers, access to our data drives more trading, which in turn creates the information used for investing, for settlement, compliance, collateral management, reporting and numerous other functions, all of which drive the rising consumption of data.
The services listed on this slide represent solutions across a vast range of our clients' workflow. And because these services are part of an integrated offering, they create a strong value proposition. For example, our markets are widely accessible via the ICE Desktop, Mobile and Messenger applications, which we offer integrated solutions for our customers' trading, information and risk management needs on a common technology platform.
We also offer vast sets of proprietary data for non-exchange-traded fixed income markets, which represent some of the world's largest addressable markets. Today, we're pricing millions of bonds for thousands of customers each day, and within the fixed income markets, invested assets under management continue to rise. For example, exchange traded fixed income funds have quickly risen to over $585 billion, now accounting for 20% of total U.S. ETP assets under management. ICE also has an expanding set of solution to serve active fixed income managers, such as pricing and reference data, continuous evaluated prices, liquidity indicators and best execution identification.
The role of these new services is highlighted around the times of market volatility and the Brexit vote was an example of an event that has reinforced the importance of real-time information tools. In addition, ongoing demand is being driven by regulation, by market fragmentation, volatility and the uncertainty around global Central Bank actions.
You can see on slide 11 that our approach to driving change has produced consistent top-line growth with record annual earnings for the last decade regardless of the economy or the market cycle or commodity prices or the level of interest rates or increasing regulation or the many other headlines and headwinds that have occurred over the last 10 years.
It is such market and economic disruptions that make our risk management services valuable and ICE's performance relative to the broader sector over the same time validates the model that we built to benefit from change.
In that context, I'll say a few words about Brexit, which we view as another opportunity to drive our set of differentiated solutions. We've dedicated meaningful resources to our London operations and for good reasons. The United Kingdom has tremendous location and time zone advantages in global markets. It has a strong set of regulatory and legal frameworks that have promoted confidence. And ICE has a highly qualified team of colleagues that has, time and time again, contributed to our successful navigation of change.
Since the Brexit vote, we've had an active dialogue with senior officials in the UK government to discuss the types of policies that will facilitate our continued investment. We're looking forward to this ongoing dialogue, and we're very optimistic about the government's focus on preserving a competitive climate for business.
ICE also operates exchanges and clearing houses in the U.S., Canada, Singapore and in Continental Europe. Our decision to be globally diverse is a result of customer demand to have choices for important markets in local jurisdictions. We've been open and transparent about our views, that there will be continued fragmentation and balkanization of markets as they've become more electronic and more locally regulated. These trends and unpredictable events, like the Brexit referendum and Central Bank moves, remind the market of the value of having different data sets readily available. And we believe that these factors increase the need for our proprietary data and the relevance for our globally distributed model.
Moving now to slide 12, I'll review the solid performance in our global markets. The strength of our markets is demonstrated by the fact that trading and clearing revenues for 12 of our 13 key markets grew year-to-year in the second quarter. As you can see on the slide, volume in open interest in our crude, agriculture, sterling, and MSCI products is strong and growing.
Another benefit of operating diverse global markets is the ability to gain both exposure and diversification. For example, while European interest rates, which made up 4% of our total revenues, was the one asset class where transaction revenues declined year-to-year in the second quarter, we earned market data revenues from that business. And, importantly, trading and clearing volumes, again, grew by double digits in June and July.
Moving to slide 13, I'll note the 14% revenue growth in our cash equities markets year-to-date, which produced strong U.S. cash flow and enables us to serve one of the largest global securities markets with data and listings. We've continued to improve and enhance this market over the last two and a half years since our acquisition, while growing revenues and expanding market share at the same time.
On the right side of the slide, you can see the ongoing contribution of credit derivatives clearing in both Europe and the U.S. We've seen greater regulatory certainty in the U.S. draw more CDS clearing to the U.S. and away from Europe, with record-level participation from the buy side. I'll note that we're approaching the milestone of $100 trillion in notional value cleared by ICE. Through a great deal of innovation, we now clear nearly 600 credit derivative instruments driving $53 million in revenue in the first half.
Last week, we announced our agreement to sell the U.S. voice brokerage asset of Creditex to Tullett Prebon, which represents approximately 10% of our global CDS revenues. ICE is not selling the valuable electronic post-trade assets of Creditex that helped us support the launch and are a continuing contributor to our ongoing operations in CDS clearing. We're also retaining Creditex's electronic trading assets, as we continue to build on our solutions for the credit markets.
As we announced yesterday, we've seen early traction in our new single-name CDS electronic trading platform called ICE Swap that we launched in June. This is an all-to-all platform for single-name CDS, which has gotten the attention of major dealers and buy-side clients, who are asking for more liquidity and transparency in these markets. So, we've been very strategic with the acquisition of Creditex by leveraging it to create a group of assets that have generated a positive return on that original investment and which continue to contribute to our earnings.
Turning to slide 14. I'm pleased to say that not only is the integration of Interactive Data running ahead of schedule, but more importantly we're well on track to achieve our 2016 revenue growth targets. In June, we announced the reorganization of all of our data businesses into ICE Data Services, which brings together our analytics, desktops, mobile apps, indices, exchange data, and connectivity solutions under a global data brand to serve our customers comprehensively.
While there remains much integration work yet to be done, the early feedback from our customers is that we're on the right track. Our ICE U.S. Treasury Index family has grown with new indices and new customers. They've been selected as the new benchmarks for a range of ETPs now offered by BlackRock iShares, the leading provider of fixed income ETPs; Direxion, a provider of ETPs with over $10 billion in assets under management; and Yuanta Securities Investment Trust Company, a comprehensive financial services firm serving the Asia Pacific region and Invesco PowerShares recently filed to begin using ICE indices in ETP products.
Our revenue mix from transactions-based revenues towards more recurring subscription-based revenues continues to grow as the evolution of the market continues to transfer value to these mission-critical offerings. With a high revenue renewal rate in our pricing and analytics business, we become a key source for consistent reliable pricing and reference data.
We're often asked if the growth of our data business is levered to the head count at the banks. It is not. First and most evidently, our data revenues have grown during and since the financial crisis. While head count in parts of the financial services industry may have declined since that time, the need for information, connectivity and risk management from ICE has risen, consistent with our data revenues. The consumption of data is rising due to secular trends such as the move to indexation, the rise of ETPs, market fragmentation, independent valuation demand, regulatory reporting, real-time distribution needs and automated trading. The sheer breadth of our services and our positioning at the value-added end of the data spectrum gives us confidence in our growth projections.
Turning to our listings business. The market for initial public offerings improved once the volatility of the first quarter abated. The New York Stock Exchange continues to lead in global proceeds rate, including hosting the five largest IPOs by market cap to-date in 2016. Those are LINE Corporation, China Online Education, U.S. Foods, MGM Growth and Patheon. NYSE also was the home for the two largest technology IPOs year-to-date, LINE and Twilio. NYSE Arca continues to lead in new ETP listings and hosts 92% of assets under management. We're working closely with issuers to develop more solutions and value-added services in addition to enhance the market quality.
Importantly, the listings business also drives growth across our trading and data lines. You can see that even as we deliver on our synergies, the NYSE is a growth-oriented business for us, and we're proud of the work that our team has done to strengthen and grow this valuable business.
I'll conclude my remarks on slide 15, where you can see we are very well positioned to build on our decade-long track record. Our strong start for the year was driven by revenue growth, faster synergy realization, margin expansion, and 19% as-reported adjusted earnings growth in the first half of this year. We also generated over $1 billion in cash flow, repaid nearly $800 million in debt, demonstrated our commitment to capital return with a $1 billion share repurchase authorization, and announced a planned stock split.
So, I'd like to thank our customers for their business, and I want to thank our team for their continued hard work.
And with that, I'll now turn the call over to our operator, Keith, who'll be glad to take your questions.
Question-and-Answer Session
Yes. Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. And the first question comes from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.
Kenneth B. Worthington - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First, you had really quite good growth on the exchange data side. Can you talk about why this growth is occurring now? If you look at the numbers sort of last year at this time was essentially flat for all four quarters, but you've seen really huge growth for each of the last two quarters. What's going on?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Ken. This is Jeff. Well, it's interesting because I've tried to make the point on multiple calls now that we believe that the markets are going to become more fragmented, now that they're more electronic and more – regulation is being put on markets at the local level. And in some of our core markets, what you've seen is some people come in and pay for order flow. And so, what we've done is readjusted essentially our data offering and the way we disseminated and charge for it so that we can benefit from those payments into the market.
So, when somebody pays for order flow, you attract a new kind of trader; and you, actually in our mind, grow the market by bringing people in that want to receive those payments. And those people tend to hang on the primary market in order to receive those payments. And so, what we do is basically have a compact with them that they will receive those payments and pass some of them back to us in the form of increased data revenues. When a company goes in and wants to get paid for order flow, it tends to do one of two things. It either uses algorithms or its own trading style to basically churn so that it is constantly buying and selling but accepting no risk, or they come up with strategies where you can put on positions that actually show up in open interest but they carry no risk.
And so, there have been a lot of talk in our industry about market share. People like to talk about market share. And we like to talk about earnings. And that's why I always start my recent presentations showing you our earnings growth because we have decided that the way to maximize our earnings growth is to participate in that trend with our customers who want to receive payments from others. And so, there's been a big spike-up in that area, and I expect honestly that this is a macro trend that we're going to see more fragmentation due to a number of factors and that you'll continue to see growth in our core data offering.
Kenneth B. Worthington - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Great. That's awesome. Just maybe on a completely separate note, I just had sort of a long-term aspiration of building a swaps-clearing operation for interest rate products. I guess, do you still have those hopes or expectations of getting into that business? Could Brexit actually help you crack that market? And I guess maybe it's been a couple of years since New York, is it still possible to build this operation or if you still want to get in there, is acquisition the only realistic way to do it?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
It's a good question and a difficult nut to crack in the sense that we do continue to build out continued capabilities in risk management to serve fixed income and interest rate markets, and that is – that has been a constant source of investment for us, as you've indicated, over a number of years. Whether or not we actually would enter that space on our own is yet to be determined. There is some M&A going on right now, the LSE-DB deal. It's hard to understand what kind of offering that deal will have, given the fact that they're now in two different regulatory jurisdictions. It's hard to understand what the complexities of regulation may be between the UK and the EU. So, that may open an opportunity or it may foreclose an opportunity. It depends on how things play out.
I would also mention to you that the interest rate swaps business in our mind is largely people doing fix-for-floating swaps. In other words, commercial borrowers, like ICE and Scott Hill, who is sitting across from me, may choose to lock in floating interest rates for a period generally five years or so. But in this low interest rate environment, it's hard to imagine that locking in low interest rates is a growth market.
And so, one of the things that we promise is earnings growth and we tend to look for trends where we can position ourselves early to be part of the growth, and it's very unclear whether the interest rate swaps market is one of those markets. So, I say all of that in the sense that we've not made a decision yet on what to do and when to do it, but we do continue to build out capabilities so that we have optionality around that decision.
Kenneth B. Worthington - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Awesome. Thank you very much.
Thank you. And the next question comes from Rich Repetto with Sandler O'Neill.
Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP
Yeah. Good morning, Jeff. Good morning, Scott. Congrats on a very strong quarter. I guess I want to follow up on the first question, the exchange – the increase in the exchange market bid. I don't think I understand the answer. And I guess, to clarify, are there any offsetting expenses to the increase in exchange data? Or, I guess, could we try another run at it, because I'm not sure what you're talking about when – is it the rebate that you're paying or someone else is paying?
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. So, Rich, let me comment – put a couple of metrics around what Jeff said. I mean, effectively, what he said is there are more people who are more active in the markets that we provide and we've seen that in user growth. We've seen it in the products that we've been able to package up in our data. So, the interest levels have continued to grow. And as we sign up more users, as we're able to offer more information in various forms or various packages of information, we've seen fee increases related to that. And so, that's really help drive the revenue.
To some extent, when you look at our commodities growth in the first half at 10%, that's across the energy and ags, and there's a lot of volatility in those markets, a lot of drivers that are – and there are different drivers. It's weather in Brazil, its Middle East and U.S. oil issues that are driving oil. And as you're trying to figure out what's going on and evolve (31:15) the world, you need data and you need information. And so, as people see that need, as Jeff was describing it, we see user growth, and we see existing users wanting more information, and all of that's contributed to very strong growth in that business. And the thing that excites me about it is not just the data revenue growth in and of itself, but that data growth coupled with very strong open interest in our commodities business is a good leading indicator, not necessarily for any given month or quarter, but as we look forward, it says the interest in the markets we're serving remains very high with importantly the commercial customers who are actually taking a view on price and actively managing the risk.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
And, Rich, let me just be more obvious. If you stand on a corner and hand out $5 bills, a long line will form. If in order to get into that line, you have to pay the primary market $1 so that you can get 4 of those dollars; that is a good trade. And so, what we do is set up to make sure that our shareholders get the transfer of that $1 from the other person's shareholder.
And much of what we've been doing over the last few years and the way we've been building out this data offering and distribution vehicle is set up for that. We firmly believe that markets are going to become more fragmented. It's very different today when there used to be open outcry floors in regional jurisdictions with the name of the city on them, it was very hard to compete. Today, there are a lot of very sophisticated electronic platform operators that can simply pay for order flows and start a market. And so, we believe that there will be fragmentation. We've seen it in the most fragmented markets that we operated in, in the U.S. cash equities market. But what changes there is that as those payments are made, there's an opportunity to participate in them and that's really what we've been doing.
So, we laugh a little bit around here when people put notes out talking about market share and fail to realize that behind that the market has actually grown, and there's more wealth transfer going on and our goal is to maximize the value of this company for our shareholders.
Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP
Just one follow-up on this, like take for example, the fragmentation in the energy markets with a new entrant, is that somewhere – where you're not necessarily paying the rebate, but you are benefiting potentially because on exchange energy market data because you are still the significant player that has all the data. Is that a fair representation?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I think as you go away and look at the numbers that we just put out, you're going to see that we beat on revenue and on earnings, largely because we have been able to monetize our historical data to new entrants that want to participate in those payment floor closed (34:25) schemes. What we have not done is actually go into that market and expand the market further again by paying more people for order flow. We've kept our basic core operation, and then decided to work with these new entrants. And we know who they are. We have sales people, there's constant conversation. There are people that approach us that want those payments. And so our strategy has been we can't stop what others do, but let's make sure that we participate and maximize our own footprint.
Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP
Got it, got it. And one quick follow-up, I think there's going to be a very short answer here. With Brexit, has it changed your view of the Deutsche Boerse-LSE merger? How do you think about that? At least the view we're getting is the probability of a deal has gone down directionally. I don't know what the actual numbers are, but directionally. Has that changed your view on potentially looking at that transaction?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
That's a short question, but it's probably a long answer.
Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP
I could pass it.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
No, no, I'll answer it. When we looked at that transaction and decided that we were not going to go forward, we were very open to say that we had some concerns that we didn't have enough information to put a credible bid on the table. What I didn't say at the time that I can say now is that at the time, we did not want to talk about Brexit, and we had been urged by others not to talk about Brexit.
But the way that deal was lining up, it was orchestrated so that we were going to, if we entered the deal, have to put a number on the table, right ahead of the Brexit vote. We happened to have at the time, three UK directors who sat on our board, who are incredibly knowledgeable people that are very engaged with us. And they were cautioning management and the rest of the board that the Brexit vote was going to be close, and they cautioned us back in February and March. And really said, you guys need to know exactly what you're doing and you need to run scenarios on what's going to happen in either eventuality.
So, we went out and we started talking to our UK colleagues to try to gauge where we thought the vote was going to come out. And honestly, we came to the opinion that the UK was probably going to leave. And so, we decided – given that we didn't have good information and given that we thought the landscape was going to change, that it was not an appropriate time for us to do a transaction.
And I think we were fortunate in making that decision. I don't know what the European landscape is going to be. We have been building our company to have a lot of options, and we've been very open about that. We've been very transparent that we, long ago, decided to build a footprint on the Continental Europe with an exchange and clearing house because we felt that there could be some fragmentation and balkanization that our customers would have demands. So, we're set up for change, but I don't know what the change is going to be. And, so it's hard, for anyone in any position in financial services to discuss what the outcome of Europe is going to look like.
Richard Henry Repetto - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP
Understood. That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. And the next question comes from Michael Carrier with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thanks, guys. Scott, maybe just on the capital front, just given the pace that you've been moving on paying down debt and then the buyback authorization, just wanted to get maybe an update on where the target is that you want to get to, to be comfortable, particularly with rating agencies. And then just timing, particularly, when we're thinking about 2017 pursuing the buybacks versus obviously just other opportunities that you guys have been busy on in terms of acquisitions and investing in the business?
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
Yes. Michael, I'll give you a shot at the answer, and if I miss anything, you just have to follow up. So, I said on the last call that our objective is to operate with leverage somewhere in the 1.75 times to 2.0 times range and that's still the case. We've had very open dialogue with the ratings agencies, and they've indicated a comfort level with our current rating in that range.
I don't think that means we have to necessarily be in that range to start the repurchases, but we certainly need to have a path to get to that range quickly as we introduce the repurchases. And so, in terms of timing, the other thing I'd say, there's always a number of variables. You asked about M&A in 2017. I have no idea what that could look like. We've got the S&P deal that we expect will close later this year. You've got the Cetip BM&F deal that is working its way through the process. So, there's any number of factors that could impact the timing and the size of the repurchases. I think what the authorization tells you is we are deleveraging at a faster rate than we anticipated. We had originally said we wouldn't be there until the end of next year. Now, we're saying possibly by the end of this year.
And so, look, I don't think it's out of the question that we're back in the market in the fourth quarter, but there'll be a number of variables that impact that. And, I wouldn't expect this to go from zero to 100 miles an hour in the first quarter that we start to buy back shares.
Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Got it. Makes sense. And then, just as a follow-up, just on the data business, you guys spend a decent amount of time on the exchange new data, I guess just looking at the pricing analytics and the desktop connectivity, you both mentioned some of the drivers of the overall 6% to 7% growth in terms of the retention of clients, the new clients signing up, some of the new products out there. I don't know if you have any stats, but just trying to get a sense on when you look at kind of the momentum that you're seeing in that business based on the growth rate that you put out for 2016, what's the longer term growth potential? And, again, mostly focus on the other two segments, just given that you gave a lot of color on the exchange side.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Well, we've only owned the business, the Interactive Data business, for six months and we've only really been reorganized for a few weeks in terms of how our sales force is starting to take our combined product offering to market. But the early returns are really good. We see a lot of interest by large buy-side firms, for example, who want to have vendors that they can trust, who have a breadth of data, who meet their cyber security demands and give them sort of a single point to go to.
Right now, honestly, if you just step back and think about the world and your own behavior, the amount of data that we're all consuming just goes up. I mean, I have no doubt that the data plan that I have on my smartphone is going to consume more data in five years than it does today. And in every aspect of our lives and certainly here at ICE, the way we run our business, there is just more data available. And we have better and better tools to use that data and analyze that data.
When it comes to trading and risk management, there's no question that we're going to have more passive investment vehicles. Those are doing well and growing and growing quickly. There's no question that decisions are going to be made increasingly by algorithms or they're going to contribute to the decision-making process. And in my mind – and there's no question that regulators are going to demand – and, frankly, board of directors and the audit committee and auditors are going to demand better information faster than they've gotten it before.
And so, all those trends just suggest to us that there is an incredible future demand for information. And what we are trying to do is figure out areas where we really generate some unique proprietary content that will be of high value to our customers. And so, that's been our focus. And so far, the early returns have been really good. And frankly, on some of the sales meetings that I've been in, we've gotten a lot of positive feedback that it's nice to have a large-scale vendor of information to people that is very technology-focused and cyber security focused like we are to fit into their current demands for information.
Michael Roger Carrier - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. And the next question comes from Dan Fannon with Jefferies.
Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC
Thanks. I guess, just following up on kind of the IDC outlook, just curious if there's been any implementation of price increases thus far and kind of the outlook for that in terms of your guidance for this year and maybe into next with regards to just the pricing side?
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Dan, I'd go back to what Jeff said. We only own the business six or seven months. I think the success we're seeing right now is really, again, around the continued high retention of existing customers. Jeff's point about – as we talk to customers, their interest in having a data provider. And so, it's – the post that's showing up as SuperD or as ICE or as IDC, we're showing up as ICE Data Services. And I think we're seeing benefit from that in terms of securing new customers.
And again, as I said on the exchange data side, similarly, in the pricing and valuation side, I think it's customers who are purchasing more. It's beginning to gain traction in new products, continuous value of the pricing product that allows you during the day to get a view on the price of bonds that you may be interested in trading or that you hold in your portfolio, that's execution services.
So, it's really more, right now, new customers, retention of existing customers, building on new product development that actually started before we purchased IDC. I think to Jeff point, we've only really reorganized the sales team and the go-to-market in the past few weeks. So, I think that's why I'm confident about our ability to grow the rest of this year. And in the next year, as we do look at are we capturing the right value in our pricings, are there different ways we can package up across the various businesses that we've owned, are there better ways that we can deliver the information more efficiently across a single desktop versus multiple, et cetera. So, that's really the benefit I think that's in front of us, not that's reflected in the strong performance we've had in the first half.
Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC
That's helpful. I guess, in response to most of these questions, the phrase new customers has come up a lot. I guess, can you give us some a little bit more context as to the segmentation of that or geography commercial versus financial, high frequency verse sell-side, buy-side? A little bit of context there would be helpful I think.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
I think one of the things that IDC has done for us is that it brought to us a dedicated sales force that had, to use an old term, a Rolodex, and really is very much centered on buy-side and as well as asset managers and intermediaries to asset managers. We're providing execution or regulatory services or custodial services. But that area was not an area that traditionally ICE had direct relationships with. And so, the reason that we're excited about some of the bundling and packaging and the reorganization of our sales force is that it opens a whole new customer base to us.
And what we have found, as I mentioned before, is that customer base who often times deals with lots of data vendors, appreciates having another large comprehensive offering so that it can be kind of a one-stop shop when it comes to purchasing and security issues.
Some of these things that we're providing are mission-critical services to companies that use them for regulatory purposes or reporting purposes, and so they need primaries, backups and others. They want as much information as they can. And having another large vendor enter the space has been very well received.
Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. And the next question comes from Kenneth Hill with Barclays.
Kenneth Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.
Hey. Good morning, guys.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
Good morning.
Kenneth Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about maybe the deal appetite in the data space. I mean, you've talked a little bit on this call about how you're reorganizing the sales team and the packaging, but are there still issues you're hearing from customers or maybe perceived gaps in your data offering where you think maybe an acquisition might fit nicely. I know you guys have been rumored out there with the Citi Yield Book and then also had done something with Mortgage Electronic Registration System? So, just wanted to get your broader thoughts there?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
I think if you step back and look at what is ICE's position in the market, we're not a reseller of other people's data. We're really – people are creating proprietary content. And so, areas that are of interest to us is where are things, where there is some content that we could help monetize through our channel. That being said, as you probably know, we operate here and in M&As -we buy versus build on every decision we make as a buy versus build decision. And many of the valuations in the data space are quite high and they certainly wouldn't operate on our return on invested capital thresholds that we operate under. So, it's not as easy as saying, yeah, we're just going to go hoover up everything that's out there because there are some great companies but they are fully valued by the market right now.
So, we have to be somewhat creative. I'll just quickly mention MERS. I got – years and years ago, many people on this call would ask us what is our strategy in the interest rate space. And, we knew that there were some dominant and important people in that space, and it would be hard to compete. And so we started breaking down the interest rate market and trying to think of where are the opportunities that we could enter the market and we started to focus on the mortgage space and this was before the financial crisis. And a very gracious gentleman, Bill Krueger (50:15), who was a banker at JPMorgan said, well, I can introduce you to the people at MERS. MERS is an industry consortium of 5,000 members in the mortgage community including everybody that matters in the mortgage community. And we started to talk to MERS prior to the financial crisis about whether or not there would be an opportunity to privatize it.
The financial crisis intervened. MERS was involved in effectively robo-signing mortgages on behalf of lenders and got very embroiled and was put into conservatorship along with Fannie and Freddie. It has now made its way through that and it's ready to have continued investment. A new look – a new outlook and we were able to convince the members that that consortium should privatize with ICE and that we will help bring them together.
About five years ago, we never announced, but we did buy a mortgage platform and a team in Silicon Valley that was working on some advanced techniques around mortgages. We've continued to quietly build that out and obviously worked with MERS over the last few years on how we could put these systems together and are thrilled to announce that we're going to work with the MERS team, that Fannie and Freddie and some of the bank interests are going to stay on the board of the company to help us. And that we think there's a really interesting opportunity to bring some evolution to the broad market for residential mortgages in the United States.
Small deal in terms of how it exists today, but it could have large repercussions if we all get together and work on this successfully. So, it's great to see a long, long cycle actually close. And they feel it's been a long, long cycle as well.
Kenneth Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.
Great. Appreciate the background there. Just wanted to change topics and talk a little bit globally. I mean, we've talked a lot about Europe and you guys also have a presence in Asia. I'm wondering if you can give update on Singapore Merc and may be how that's progressing? And if the outlook shifted there at all given what's going on in Europe from a customer perspective?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
It's interesting. So, the footprint that we have in Asia, what we're really trying to do out of that operation is to attract a customer that we would not have seen before. We benefited, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, from being in London, in that many Asian interests were happy to come meet us in London and do business in London. And I really do believe based on conversations we've had with the UK government that the government has incredibly strong interest in adopting policies that will continue to attract Asian business to come to London.
But that being said, there are a lot of smaller players, niche players that existed in the region that were not going to come to London. And the real key that we've had in Singapore is getting to those new customers, getting them to join the exchange, getting them to set up in the clearing house. These are brokers, these are commodity merchants and others across the broad region of Asia, and we've had good success there.
And really, if you look at our focus, it's not on day-to-day volume. It's on chipping away at a targeted customer list and getting them through the process that the MAS, the regulator in Singapore, requires to be passported into a Singapore exchange and clearing house. And that work is ongoing and it's going well, and every day – it is a network effect. So every day that somebody new joins or takes interest, it spills over to the next person. And so, we feel like we're making very good progress there.
Kenneth Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.
Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. And the next question comes from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.
Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Question around the fixed income ETF business, it seems like it's been a pretty robust growth in the market space this year. And I think we would argue there's a lot of secular opportunities for that market space to grow further. Can you talk to us a little bit about the opportunity for ICE to monetize this trend? It seems like you could really come on a couple of – across a couple of different areas on the listing side, trading side, and maybe the data side. So, help us understand, I guess, how meaningful a trend that could be for you, guys? And then, secondly, maybe we can hit on the competitive landscape for ETF listings as well?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Sure. Well, first of all, when we talk to sponsors of ETFs in that community, they are incredibly bullish on the demand for fixed income ETFs. It is a real growth area. And so, there's tremendous interest by sponsors in that arena to talk to us about what we can do.
We have a unique ability in that we had an ETP listings team of very good and well-known ETP listings team at the NYSE, which we were able to combine with our index and data people and put together essentially packages that we can take to these ETP providers where we can develop an index or replace an index. We can provide the data. We have the systems internally to do real-time calculation and NAV calculations. We can list it. We can help them market it. We can use the ICE brand. We can use the NYSE brand. So, we bring a lot of assets to the table with these providers, and we're aggressive and we're interested in this space. And so, we're able to move quickly. So, I think it's going to be a growth area for us.
In terms of how it's monetized, we don't really care in a package whether it's monetizing the data or monetizing the index or monetizing the infrastructure. All of that can go together in a cauldron that can be very value-enhancing for these ETP providers.
There's no question that it is a competitive space, and that people there are interested in speed-to-market and they're interested in low administrative costs. And so, once we get those ETPs up, then we continue to market the fact that we have continuous evaluated pricing, that we have these liquidity indicators that – and honestly, we – then we go to the active fund managers and talk to them about how are they going to respond to this passive trend and what can we do for them.
So, it's a really unique moment in time, and we're kind of hitting a sweet spot in the space in our mind with an opportunity set and capabilities set that we have. So – I'm sorry, what was the second...?
Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Got it.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
...second part of your question was...
Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
I think the second part was really around the competitive environment. I think the point there is, if you look at assets under management in that space, we've got 92% that are listed at the New York Stock Exchange. And so, as Jeff alluded to, we've got the experience, we've got a highly qualified team and we've got a history of being the place where ETPs come to list.
And so, from a competitive standpoint, it's a good place to build from. We certainly don't take it for granted, and that's why, as Jeff said, we're constantly developing additional capabilities to bring to customers. But we like the competitive position we have today. It's a good starting point and a good place to build from.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. None of what I just suggested there that we can offer those ETP provider says, hey, we're going to pay for order flow or some other economic deal. This is really about how can we partner and create value together with each other. We – NYSE Arca is where 92% of the AUM exists. That is a single exchange. It has very deep liquidity on a single exchange. We have other competitors that like to add together three or four exchanges and then show a number, but the ETP sponsors don't really care about the volume across a bunch of fragmented markets. They want to know is there depth of liquidity in the market where this thing is primarily going to trade. That is a real competitive advantage that we have. And then, when we couple that with all the other services that we can provide that are value-added, we've seen that we continue to do very well.
I would mention there's something like four new ETP listings per day. So, the vast majority, unfortunately, like any new business, are probably not going to grow very big or amount to much. They become highly differentiated and specialized, in many cases. But this broad area that you started your questioning of bond ETF is one where there is tremendous demand, it seems, by wealth managers and investors who see the convenience of not having to deal with individual bond securities (01:00:05).
Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Got it. Thanks. Thanks for the detailed answer.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. And the next question comes from Alex Kramm with UBS.
Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC
Hey. Good morning.
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Alex.
Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC
I guess, for Scott. You talked about the synergies obviously in 2016 and nice update there. Can you give us some early thoughts, how that, what you said today, impact 2017 and 2018? Is this just a pull forward? Do you think maybe you get everything done in 2017 and nothing bleeds to 2018 or do you actually feel confident that you could actually upsize synergies down the line after what you've seen or done so far this year?
Scott A. Hill - Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Look, Alex, I think what you're seeing as we go through this year is that, as opposed to the NYSE, where we announced that deal in 2012 and then had a year before it closed and a year to work on the integration plans and the synergies and so, when we came out with a number on that at close, we were like this is the number. And we subsequently executed on it really well.
The IDC deal was a completely different deal. It was an auction. It closed the day we signed it, and that's really when the integration work began in earnest. And, so, we're continuing to dig through, and we are seeing early success and greater success than we had counted on in things like corporate integration, where we've been able to identify and eliminate corporate redundancies faster.
We're seeing things like 7ticks network and the safety network, where we knew there might be some overlap, come together and we're realizing benefits from that sooner. And, so, that's really the acceleration of the $25 million to $50 million in this year. I don't think our view on the overall synergies related to that business really have changed. The timing hasn't changed. There is a heavy piece of technology integration that has to occur. And, as you know, with the NYSE acquisition, that's kind of the last chunk of synergies that we're going to realize there. I suspect that will be the case at IDC as well. We will certainly get the synergies, the timing of them. I'll give you an update on 2017 as we move later into this year and I'll give you an update on 2018 as we move into the later of 2017. But, we said at the beginning of the year, $220 million to go. We've now got a $100 million of that that will get done this year. I'm very confident over the course of 2017 and 2018 and maybe a little bit into early 2019, that we will get that last $120 million out of what's roughly now a $2 billion expense base.
Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC
All right, very good. And, then, just secondly, coming back to the data side, just for a minute here, I think one of the things you don't talk about a lot is that you actually have a pretty big desktop presence now. I believe, like you have WebICE in the past, and I think IDC got you I think two different desktop brands and, obviously, trade for it. (63:04) So, any bigger plans for that? How should we think about – I mean, you talk about proprietary data really being your focus, but now you've got a lot of desktop space. So, can you lever that into anything more interesting or is it just a side business for you?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
When we started the company, Chuck Vice and I designed version 1.0 of what we call WebICE, which was a screen that you could log on to via the Internet. And that screen still exists today in versions that go way beyond my expertise, for sure, and has been an important part of our ecosystem.
Really, for us, the focus is talking to an end user customer, saying how do you want to consume the services that we provide? We can give you an API if you want to build your own infrastructure, or we can give you certain tools that we can put on your desktop or on your phone. And because we really have upped our game after acquiring the New York Stock Exchange, when it comes to cyber security and thoughtfulness about connectivity, we're very, very good counterparty to many financial institutions that care deeply about these things. So, it is a means to an end in our mind. But we are bringing all of that together, again, as part of the sales reorganization, and the way we're going to offer and package things. And we think every day becomes a more and more powerful offering, and that's how we think about it.
Alex Kramm - UBS Securities LLC
All right. Fair enough. Thank you.
Thank you. And the next question comes from Chris Allen with Buckingham. Please go ahead, Buckingham. You are live. All right. Very good. Then the next question comes from Vincent Hung with Autonomous.
Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP
Hi. So, when we think about the tailwind in data from the shift independent pricing sources and regulatory requirements, how much more runway is there here?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Well, I mean, it's hard to have a crystal ball to predict the future, but I will tell you that in markets that we see that become fragmentated, the data becomes the currency. Data is king. Information is king in fragmented markets. And we think that there's just no choice but for markets that used to be pretty global and contained to become more fragmentated due to algorithmic trading, payment for order flow, new competitors that are building digital systems and the fact that there's going to be more local regulations.
So, we think that on the same time that those markets are changing and evolving, the customers are getting more sophisticated about the ability to consume data and make decisions on risk management going forward. So, I just think it's a long-term trend and I think – I've said before, I think the data package that you have on your mobile phone will be bigger in five years than it is today and the same for me and everybody that's listening. I just think that it is the unique opportunity of our times to really be connected and have vast amounts of information at your fingertips.
Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP
Yeah. And just lastly, do you have any insight into the sales cycle in the IDC north of (01:07:04) the exchange data businesses?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Well, interesting. So, we have a high renewal rate. So, there's a vast audience of people that have agreements that have expiration dates and we have a team that goes in well before that. And those renewals happen as you can see a very high rate of renewal. And that sale cycle is an obvious one that is driven by the contracts.
But for new acquisitions, we've seen some of the, as I've mentioned, some of the aggressive market participants particularly people that are doing exchange traded products and new innovative things want to have speed to market. So, those sale cycles have tended to be short.
We're also seeing, I think some longer sale cycles where we're in conversations with people about wholesale changes to the way we deliver and the technology that underlies our data and the way we deliver it and the way the two of us would technologically connect and work together. Those are probably multiyear cycles because we both are committing to build kind of new infrastructure that will better scale for future demand.
And then, there's everything in between. We are pleasantly surprised, I would tell you that we predicted that we could grow this business quickly and we have definitely done that. So, there is a part of the sales cycle that is moving very, very quickly to the point that you can see it in the increased growth of the businesses that we own. And so, that's the good news. But there is – we will tell you, there is a back end to it based on some of these other trends that we think will pay dividends into the future.
When Scott is guiding that already can tell you what the fourth quarter number is going to be, it gives you some indication that we have visibility into the next few quarters that is pretty accurate.
Vincent Hung - Autonomous Research US LP
Thank you. And that does conclude the question-and-answer session. So at this time, I would like to return the call to Jeffrey Sprecher for any closing comments?
Jeffrey Craig Sprecher - Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Well, thank you, Keith, our operator, and I want to thank all of you who joined us today. We'll continue to update you on our progress over the balance of the year and look forward to talking to you on our next earnings call.
Thank you. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited.
If you have any additional questions about our online transcripts, please contact us at: firstname.lastname@example.com. Thank you!


text:
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
it's official: I was meant to be fat and lazy.
And tonight? Was awful. I do the kind of yoga where you are in a room heated to about 105 degrees. It's an hour and a half class, and I usually don't have much trouble with doing at least most of the postures.
Well, tonight, during only the THIRD pose (so aptly named "awkward pose") I started to feel lightheaded and woosy. I did what I usually do when that happens; I stood there and breathed and took a sip of water. It got worse. I started to black out -- I couldn't see much, and my ears were ringing.
I grabbed my water bottle and ran out of the classroom, and sat on a bench in the cool lobby area. It was then I felt the need to run to the bathroom...and while I was in there, I totally threw up. BLAH. I hate, hate, hate vomiting. It is the most nasty feeling ever.
(I told this to my mom on my way home. I bet you can guess the first words out of her mouth, and no, mom, I'm not pregnant.)
I think it was because I hadn't eaten much all day, and went in without many nutrients in my body. I was able to go back in the room and stay for the remaining hour or so of the class. I even did maybe half of the postures, so I'm pretty proud I didn't wimp out and go home like I initially wanted to after the whole incident in the bathroom.
I'd like to think that I am really good at yoga, or that I'm athletic, or that I'm the type of person who uses phrases like, "On my way home from the gym..." or "While I was running last week..." or things like that. Or, when the yoga instructor says, "Your forehead should be touching your knees right now, and you should be locking your knees out and feeling that stretch all the way down your back," I could, oh, I don't know, actually GET my head ONTO my knees, let alone lock them out and feel the damn stretch. I am always the one who looks all funky and twisty in the mirror next to perfect yoga girl who comes and does double sessions (back-to-back! Can you imagine?) and does every pose as though she's some weird cousin of Gumby, which is to say perfectly and beautifully.
And then there's me: the flabby girl in the back row, whose face is beet red and arms and legs and elbows won't even begin to become a straight line, contrary to what the perky yoga instructor seems to believe.
So as I was lying there on my yoga mat after the puking, I thought that maybe trying to be one of those people is too much for me. Trying to be the beautiful, flexible yoga girl, trying to be the type of person who exercises and actually (gasp!!) enjoys it...that's so not me.
I suppose that I'm just going to have to come to terms with feeling fat and flabby and gross, and accept the fact that maybe I'm not cut out for being athletic.
I don't know whether I'll go back to yoga. I feel really weird about the puking thing and do NOT want it to happen again. But I guess I should just do it and not think about it, and just pray that I don't lose my lunch while trying to do Awkward Pose.
4 comments:
- Bree said...
Hey Leen! Sorry you tossed your cookies. But as I was reading your entry I thought that perhaps you are just trying the wrong form of exersice. Perhaps trying some different things till you find something you really enjoy is a good start. And then once you are back in Seattle we can start working out together. I know I always have a good time if I am working out with someone else!
- Tiffany said...
Oh gosh! lmao Hey, at least you go! I think it's great and keep up the good work. If it takes a little puking then so be it. Who cares that you aren't Gumby girl?!
Hey if your little mommy can workout 3 times a week with 5 guys during her lunch hour then I think you can do a little yoga once in awhile. Bedsides I am sure you are really the "cutest, smartest one in the yoga class" Keep it up and if you keep pucking then when you are Pregnant throwing up won't be anything new
Plain and simple, that class is for the devil!! You just described exactly how i felt on my one and only trip to that class - I can totally relate. Maybe the two of us need to find a new routine (one that does not take place in a torture chamber.) :)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
|The cabin can sleep 8.
We have rented both yurts and the cabin in the past! It is the perfect way to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, yet is is right down the road. We find them especially fun in the winter when the river is frozen, providing us with another wide open trail to walk along. Part of the rental fee for these shelters includes firewood. This is a luxury that doesn't necessarily come with most of the DNR cabins! Reserve one now as they get booked up months in advance.
A basic membership to ERNC is $40 dollars, which provides you with a parking decal (they are not part of the state park system), discounts on yurt/cabin rentals, a quarterly program schedule/newsletter, and the piece of mind that you are supporting a wonderful educational organization.
The trail system there ranges from easy to difficult - there's something for everyone! Check them out for a hike on your own or for their guided ones.
In the coming spring Taiga Trekkers and the Anchorage Outdoor Family Network would like to team up to organize a family outdoor service day and volunteer our time to help out with trail maintenance.


text:
Must Sell! Pizza Hut - North of Auckland
About this business for sale in Auckland SurroundsMust Sell! Pizza Hut - North of Auckland
This Pizza Hut store has enjoyed strong performance in this affluent territory and has established itself within the community as a family orientated fast food staple.
The business has shown 18 months of consistent growth which presents an awesome opportunity for a hard-working owner/operated to get into a rare north of Auckland Pizza Hut store.
The good things about this business:
- Fully managed
- Rent just 4% of the sales
- Strong lease in place
- Free parking
- Internationally recognised brand
- Great area to live for that important work/life balance
- 3,000 houses being built in next two years' time
- 3,000-4,000 population increased last year
- A working owner can earn up to $137,000 on the current sale
This is an extremely exciting opportunity for you to be your own boss and, whilst you do not need direct hospitality experience, you will have:
- A real customer focus and be sales driven
- Effective communication, sales, management and people skills
- A confident and enthusiastic approach
- The ability to organise, be disciplined, ethical and prepared to follow the system
- Commercial knowledge and financial capability to establish and manage your own business
- A passion for customer service.
Call me now for a confidential chat about the opportunity.
Asking price $439,000 (plus GST and stock).
Reference: EL00909
+64 9 555 6031
+64 21 129 1916
*Sellers Discretionary Earnings, also known as EBPITD (Earnings Before Proprietors Compensation, Interest, Tax and Depreciation). This is the estimated total discretionary earnings (profit) for a business, usually based on historical trading.


text:
How can you delete unwanted songs from your iPod nano after you downloaded them?
delete them from your itunes libaray then update your ipod.
How can i delete un wanted songs from my ipod nano after i downloaded them?
Answer well i guess your expecting me to answer your question...i agree with the dude above!! or girl...no offense!! : ) you need to go to your itunes and check the ones that you want to delete! go...
Read More »
How do you delete unwanted songs off of your iPod?
delete songs from i-tunes and then resync ipod
How do i delete songs off my ipod nano?
Your "Library" and your "iPod" are two different things. You just deleted the songs on your computer.Connect your ipod to your PC This should force iTunes to start, if not, start iTunes manuallyA...
Read More »
How can I add songs to an Ipod Nano that already had songs on it with out erasing the contents of the ipod.?
hi marleyfu! u need to have the "manage music and videos manually" option selected in itunes - try this:1. open itunes then plug ur ipod into ur computer.2. once u plug ur ipod into ur computer, it...
Read More »


text:
Log Out
Our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy have changed. We think you'll like them better this way.
Network Tuesday
Free Promotion, website, business, new book, music, event
7:00 pm EST
4:00 pm PST
Call in number 1-646-478-5603
Sorry we couldn't complete your registration. Please try again.
Please enter your email to finish creating your account.
Receive a personalized list of podcasts based on your preferences.


text:
03 March 2003, 04:30 AM
ok, I have got a basic rig up and am trying to teach myself maxscript. Here's my problem. I am trying to allow for when you grab the arm ik and pull it out to its limit, that it starts bending the spine toward the direction I pull the arm ik. (sort of like Motionbuilder and Mirai human bones setup) My problem is I cant figure out how to find out in a script when the ik goal is past the ik limit, so that I can make the spine start rotating. please help :P
ps I hope that made sense.
ps I hope that made sense.


text:
allergies. Just wasn't sure if he'd have a reaction to it or not but they're both fine.
Do these low lives steal pure bred dogs? Or it doesn't make a difference?
I'm all sorts of nervous now with the house. I told Chris never to leave them out in yard by themselves. If we can't see them, they can't be out. He's telling me I'm being paranoid.


text:
Oxfordshire Total Communication: Free resources and ideas from other people in Oxfordshire who are using Total Communication to communicate effectively with people with a Learning Disability.
Oxfordshire Family Support Network: Set up in 2007 by family carers who wanted to use their experience to help others in the same situation, Oxfordshire Family Support Network (OxFSN) provides information, advice and support to families of children, young people and adults with learning disabilities.
My Life My Choice: My Life My Choice is a self-advocacy organisation run by and for adults with learning disabilities in Oxfordshire.
Autism Oxford: Autism Oxford provides support, training and consultancy aimed at spreading awareness of the realities of life on the autism spectrum and supporting the development of autism services.
OxForward: OxForward is the voluntary Wellbeing and Employment Support service for adults living in Oxfordshire, including individuals who have a disability, commissioned by Oxfordshire County Council.
ACE Centre: Ace Centre is a charity providing support for people with complex communications difficulties.
Oxford and District Mencap: Oxford and District Mencap provide services such as group holidays, evening clubs and fundraising.
Oxfordshire Sports Partnership: Accessible sport and physical activity.
Mates 'n' Dates: Mates 'n' Dates gives adults with learning disabilities living in and around Oxfordshire greater access to leisure activities which most of us take for granted and a better social life, with the chance of forming friendships or more, in a safe and supportive environment.
Oxsrad: OXSRAD is an inclusive centre that integrates people with disabilities through sport and recreation. They offer a huge range of facilities and activities so that there is something for everyone.
Riding for Disabled:RDA Abingdon offers horse riding opportunities to disabled people in Oxfordshire and beyond.
FarmAbility: FarmAbility is an outdoor, farm-based programme for people with autism and/or learning disabilities.
Last updated: 9 November, 2017


text:
The Shutdown and your government mortgage: How it will affect FHA, VA and USDA loans
Government shutdown will affect mortgages
We have another government shutdown, and if you're applying for an FHA, VA or USDA mortgage, you are probably very concerned right now. Will the offices remain open? Are loans still closing on time on time? Will you be able to get the case number you need to even start an application?
Here's what you need to know.
What the FHA has to say
The FHA sent out a letter this morning stating that they will be operating at a limited capacity. Here's the scoop:
"While some services will continue to be operational, please note that across the board, the services that remain available during the shutdown will have significant impacts to customer service and/or limited functionality."
The following pre-endorsement loan processes will be available during the shutdown, but with limited staff assistance available and longer wait times for assistance:
- Condominium Project approvals under the Direct Endorsement Lender Review and Approval Process (DELRAP)
- Manual endorsement actions: case number cancellations, reinstatements, and transfers
- Resolution of the Holds Tracking queue
- TOTAL Mortgage Scorecard evaluations.
This means if your lender can't approve your loan using automated systems, you may have to wait. For example, if your credit history is too thin, they have to underwrite you manually, using the TOTAL Scorecard. That will likely cause a delay.
Ditto certain condominium projects — if your condo isn't already FHA-approved, you could be in for a longer wait.
The following processes will be unavailable for the duration of the shutdown:
- Condominium Project approvals under the HUD Review and Approval Process (HRAP)
- Test Case Loan Submission
If you already have an FHA loan approval, and your home appraisal and / or condo approval has no problems, you're probably okay. But anything requiring extra attention from the FHA may take longer.
VA and the shutdown
As you might expect from the military, the VA is fully-prepared. It even publishes a Field Guide to Government Shutdown. And its guide states that "home loan processing" is among the operations not affected by the government shutdown.
One more advantage of choosing VA home financing.
USDA borrowers may leave borrowers hanging
According to the USDA, a shutdown will transform Rural Development (RD) and its ability to provide services. Here's what they say in their document entitled Lapse in Appropriations Contingency Plan Rural Development:
"The unavailability of servicing actions not deemed excepted could have a negative impact on the financial stability of customers and mortgage lenders' financial operations. For example, borrowers would not be able to secure much-needed loans, make
loan payments, or reamortize loans."
From a practical standpoint, lenders would still be able to take your application, and those with the authority to approve loans (Direct lenders) would be able to do everything but complete the funding — that would have to wait until the agency is up and running again. if the USDA is your only option, you may have to wait for your funding. If you have other options, now is the time to check out loans like HomeReady from Fannie Mae. You can find lenders for those programs right here on The Mortgage Reports.Verify your new rate (May 25th, 2018)
The information contained on The Mortgage Reports website is for informational purposes only and is not an advertisement for products offered by Full Beaker. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the policy or position of Full Beaker, its officers, parent, or affiliates.


text:
Kokaquilts... where there's lots started... and even a few finishes!
I have bought some fabric to make niece Lucy a couple of birthday skirts. Thinking now though that one fabric per skirt is a bit dull. Yours are very cool!
Thanks so much for leaving me a comment. I love to hear your thoughts. Happy sewing!


text:
Great trip if you like to be at sea
Caribbean Princess Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern
Ship: Caribbean Princess
Cabin Type: Oceanview
Traveled As: Couple
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review Summary
Cruising is what you make it and there are certainly plenty of activities if you like that\, or places to chill out if you want that. Crew was very friendly\, entertainment was above average for cruise ships.
Ship Experiences
Food and Dining
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Pros: Only a few stops
Cons: Late seating


text:
In Stock
Expected to ship by .
Item #: 1591-02367-1144
This charming, space-saving multi-use table adds a pop of color as it stylishly serves as a writing desk or vanity. It keeps you organized with a drawer, top shelf and 2 divided cubbies. Top arrives assembled, just attach the legs.
To view item in an alternate color, rollover swatch above.
To view item in an alternate color, click on a swatch above.
Our goal is your complete satisfaction! If we have not delighted you, all unworn, unwashed or defective merchandise may be returned within 90 days. We are happy to send you a new size, color or style or issue a refund for the purchase price (excluding shipping and handling charges). For returns made after 90 days we will issue a gift card equal to the purchase price (less shipping and handling charges) that can be used toward a future purchase.
Click here to visit our Return Center.


text:
TMD / 6 posts found
TMJ/TMJ The Connection Between Teeth, Neck, Spine & Skull
One of the most difficult concepts to get across to my TMD patients and other doctors is the connectivity of the Jaw and the Neck. In fact, it is my strong belief that TMD/TMJ should really be classified as a Craniocervical Disease and hence fall under the umbrella of medical coverage rather than treated strictly as a dental problem.
TMJ/TMD Question Posed
During a recent meeting with a new colleague, a question was posed to me: "What makes us choose to dedicate so much of our practice to the treatment of TMD?" In my mind my initial response was "duhh" it's only the foundation of all we do in the mouth!
TMJ, Orthodontics (tooth movement) and dentistry's Dark Cosmetic Secret
I was reading an email on my Gmail account the other day and one of the corner ads got my attention. A fellow colleague was advertising as a "Holistic Dentist". Though I had heard it before, I have never put much thought into what it really means.
Headaches, Headaches, Everywhere!!!!
Headaches are one of the most common symptoms of a TMJ (Tempromandibular joint) problem and the number one reason for patients visiting their primary physicians. Tension headaches are the most common type of headache, and the TMJ headache is a tension type of headache. It is often described as a feeling of wearing a hat two sizes too small, with pain in a ring around the head, or as a migraine headache.
TMD & Sleep Apnea – So What's the Connection?
After the last two blogs, a number of people had asked me about the connection of TMD and Sleep Apnea, and even the origins of these issues. I am sure that many more had the same question in mind but did not ask. After all what is a dentist doing speaking about sleep apnea and snoring.
Best Treatment for TMJ
For the past few weeks I have been throwing around ideas as to the best way to respond to this matter. You see a recent article ( Feb.3 , 2009 NY times) titled "Best treatment for TMJ May be Nothing" nearly made me clench my jaw to pieces.


text:
Hot Spring in
Arkansas occupies
622 square miles and has a 2006 population of
31,730, a change from a 2000 population of
30,353 and
26,115 in 1990.
12.9% percent of the population is between the ages of 15 and 24,
12.7% percent is 25-35, and
13.6% percent of the population is 35 to 44.
There were
131 acts of violent crime reported in
Hot Spring in 2004, a change from
90 reports of violent crime in 2000.
The unemployed population in 2006 was
819 people:
5.3% percent. This was a change from the unemployment rate in 2000 of
Read more about
Hot Spring, Arkansas in the
Wikipedia entry.
PublicRecords.com is focused on helping you learn more about people in a safe and responsible manner.
PublicRecords.com does not provide consumer reports and is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). This site should not be used to determine an individual's eligibility
for credit, insurance, employment, housing or any other purpose covered by the FCRA.


text:
Things will be a lot different tomorrow, so I've been popping outside as often as possible today, and I even ate lunch out on the porch. My old lady cat Butterball hobbled her way out of the barn this morning and has been sitting in the sunshine:
I have a difficult time sitting down to eat lunch without a book in front of me, and today was no exception. Our book club recently read Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister, which I enjoyed enough that I picked up a couple more of her books at the library. Right now, I'm reading The School of Essential Ingredients.
Ms. Bauermeister has a way of writing about food and cooking...you can practically smell it and taste it. "She felt about her zester the way some women do about a pair of spiky red shoes - a frivolous splurge, good only for parties, but oh so lovely." "Antonia raised a bite to her mouth. A quick crunch of hazelnut, and then the pasta gave way easily to her teeth, the pumpkin melting across her tongue, warm and dense, with soft, spicy undercurrents of nutmeg. It felt like going home, and she relaxed into her chair with a sigh of happiness." As I nibbled my peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich, flipping pages, what I read made me think that I ought to forgo reading while I eat and place more attention on what I'm putting in my mouth. Perhaps I'd be more mindful and eat only what I truly enjoy. Food for thought...
Earlier this morning, I baked a pie type concoction for Some Postman's dessert tonight. (He insists upon having dessert at every meal except breakfast. Is it any wonder I've got a pillowy middle?) I call it a pie type dessert, because it's not exactly a pie. I'm calling it "Cherry Crisp Pie". Last fall, when we bought a new deep freeze, I discovered eight or ten quart bags of cherries from our long-dead cherry tree, buried in the depths of the old chest freezer. It's been a joy to use them over the winter. Today I turned the cherries into pie filling...
...lined a pie plate with a leftover store-bought crust (from the busy holidays), poured in the filling, topped it with a mixture of butter, brown sugar, flour, oats and cinnamon, then folded the edges of the crust over toward the center of the pie (because I used a too-large plate, oops). A little less than an hour in the oven, and this is what emerged:
Something must be wrong with my sniffer, because instead of pastry and fruit, the scent I'm getting is bacon. Bacon???
And now I am headed back into the kitchen, after having taken Pooka for a walk with Some Postman after he returned home from work rather early. To go with our Cherry Crisp Pie, I'm making a Spaghetti Pie, which has absolutely no pie crust in it.


text:
Cray Wanderers are exhibiting their new ground proposals to the public this week.
After almost two decades of ground sharing with Bromley, Cray were given the green light last year for their new stadium to be built.
However, London Mayor Sidiq Kahn pulled the plug on the development and the club's new stadium hopes were quashed.
But, not disheartened by that big setback, the club have since revised their plans for the new ground at the same site – Flamingo Park, just off the A20 Sidcup Bypass – and are not set to display them to the public on Friday and Saturday.
Wanderers Chairman Gary Hillman will hope the Mayor's concerns will be resolved with these new plans, and said: "We welcome anyone who would like to find out more to come along and join us at the exhibition, we will be happy to explain the new scheme, answer any questions and we look forward to receiving feedback from members of the local community."
The exhibition will take place between 2 and 5 pm on Friday, and again between 11am and 2pm on Saturday. If you would like to take the minibus on Saturday, it will pick up from The White Hart, 106 High Street, Orpington, BR6 0JY at 1245 PM, and then from The Bull Inn, Sandy Lane, Orpington, BR5 3HS at 1PM. To book, contact Mark Simpson (07948549699) or Mark Hunt (07854796325).
Hope @MayorofLondoncan can make it and see why 1000's voted last time and secure @OfficialWands future – please RT https://t.co/UyyJ4BZJwa
— Gary Hillman (@CWFCChairman) September 4, 2017


text:
Recently Viewed
new model 125cc 140cc pit bike special offer
Dear customer.
Now special offer for 125cc pit bike 140cc pit bike
please contact us to get quotation.
Yongkang upbeat is one of the best manufacturer supplier of ATV,QUAD,KIDS QUAD BIKE,49CC ATV,DIRT BIKE ,PIT BIKE,KIDS ELECTRIC BIKE ,KIDS ELECTRIC ATV.


text:
For the last several years, I've struggled with foot problems – plantar fasciitis, then bunion surgery, then more plantar fasciitis, a couple of cortisone shots but still more plantar fasciitis. I was advised to ice and stretch, to always wear supportive shoes and certainly to never go barefoot. I now have a wardrobe of supportive athletic shoes and expensive flip-flops with arch support that I've been wearing every time my feet touch the ground. I've even been wearing a special band around my foot with a pad on the bottom to give additional support to my arch. Supportive shoes, additional arch support and icing and stretching seemed to help, but still the plantar fasciitis was always slightly present and every so often it would flare up. Then I read the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall – if you're a runner, read it! No, if you're a human, read it! Among many other topics that are covered throughout the book's story, the author examines barefoot running and the science behind the construction of the foot. Now, understand, going barefoot is exactly the opposite of what my podiatrist recommends. This is one of those topics where the opinions are on polar ends and I've been subscribing, with some success, to one end. This week I decided to run (pun intended) to the other end. Beginning Monday morning, I quit wearing shoes indoors and I even spent a few minutes each day walking barefoot on the treadmill. No supportive shoes, no arch-support flip-flops, no arch-support bands, just my feet. What did I discover? I discovered that my feet didn't know how to relax. After years of never being given freedom of movement, my feet scrunched up with each step, like they were looking for the arch support. It took a while to get them to fan out, to roll through the motion, but within a couple of days, they felt so much better. I did have a flare-up yesterday. It might have been the run (with shoes) – I'm trying a new running style, or it might have been the hours afterwards that I spent scurrying around the house cleaning while still wearing my running shoes instead of going barefoot. A little ice and being barefoot for the rest of the day and the flare-up ended in time for me to wear heels last night. I don't think I'll be shucking my shoes for barefooted running, but I'm really enjoying going barefooted as much as possible. I even painted my toenails bright red – happy feet!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
1 comment:
I bought the book!
- February 12, 2012 at 9:05 AM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Westacott, Barnstaple
Letting agreed
Property Reference: G108
Price: £750PCM
Number of bedrooms: 3
Number of receptions: 2
Property features:
- Detached barn conversion
- Gas central heating
- Semi-rural location
- Parking for 2 cars
- 3 double bedrooms all with en-suite
- Courtyard garden
Property description:
A well presented detached barn conversion occupying a semi-rural location yet within a few minutes drive of Barnstaple. Gas central heating. Exposed beams. Kitchen/diner with oven and hob, utility, lounge, 3 double bedrooms all with en-suite facilities. Courtyard garden. Parking for 2 vehicles. Available April 2018. No pets.
Property location:
Property address:
Westacott, Barnstaple
Property energy performance:
To find out more information or to arrange a booking, please contact us.
E: email@example.com
Quoting property reference: G108