Tradeweb to Acquire Trumid - TRADEWEB MARKETS INC

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on short notice to discuss TradeWeb's announcement of its intent to acquire TruMid. After prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q&A. I'd like to remind you that certain statements in this presentation and during the Q&As relate to future events and expectations and as such constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements related to, among other things, our 2026 credit revenue outlook, our proposed acquisition of Truman, the anticipated timing of the proposed acquisition, the potential benefits of the proposed acquisition. The expected synergies, including expense synergies of the proposal acquisition, estimated tax assets, our plans, objectives, expectations, and intentions regarding Truman, our and Truman's potential future performance, including the projected Truman financial information and the expected impact of the proposed acquisition on us and our growth rate and adjusted diluted eps the industry and markets in which we and truman operate as well as our other expectations beliefs plans strategies objectives prospects and assumptions and other future events are forward-looking statements actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward- looking statements is contained in the accompanying investor presentation and our periodic reports filed with the SEC. In addition, on today's call, we will reference certain projected true mid-financial information, certain non-GAAP measures, as well as certain market and industry data. References to historical true mid revenue in the prepared remarks and during the q a are adjusted on a non-gap basis to exclude the impact of certain dealer equity incentive arrangements and other dealer incentives that were previously in place and no longer apply as of the first half of 2026. important additional information regarding such projected true mid financial information non-GAAP measures and market industry data including sources is in the accompanying investor presentation Thanks, Ashley. Good morning, everyone. Today, we're announcing that TradeWeb has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire TruMid for a purchase price of approximately $1.97 billion, which includes $1,75 billion for the business and approximately $220 million for tax assets being acquired. TruMID is an electronic credit platform that leads in gray markets and dealer workflows, and it is highly complementary to our business. The transaction meets the financial bar we set for every acquisition. We expect it to be accretive to adjusted earnings per share in the first full year after close without any revenue synergies related to new cross-sell opportunities and to our earnings growth rate. Sarah will walk through the terms shortly. Reflecting on our journey at the time of our IPO, we were known as a rates platform with bold ambitions in credit. Since then, we have competed and differentiated. Credit has morphed into one of our most important growth engines and is on track to exceed $500 million in global revenues for the first time in 2026. We got there by staying incredibly close to our clients, understanding how they want to trade, and then building a multidimensional liquidity pool and a spectrum of protocols. As we look ahead, we believe credit will continue to remain one of the largest markets with a long runway for growth. Trace volumes have grown 10% annually since 2014. This growth has been driven by rising corporate profitability, advancing technology, and an increasingly sophisticated client base. Together, these forces have combined to catalyze electronification and increased turnover velocity. Package trading, algorithmic pricing, and automated execution have moved from the edges of the market to the center of it. And we see that every day in our own volumes. With that said, our biggest competitor in credit and across our markets is another platform. It's still the phone. And that tells you how much opportunity is still in front of us. Every time we make trading easier, reduce complexity, or bring buyers and sellers together in a better way, we have an opportunity to move another piece of this market electronic. Gray markets are particularly interesting to us. This is where a bond's life and price discovery begins, before it has been officially issued. It's a meaningful market today, comprising about five percent of trace but much of the workflow is still manual running through spreadsheets chats and voice that's exactly the kind of market that tradeweb has spent nearly three decades helping to transform and we think timing is compelling with a multi-year refinancing and ai infrastructure cycle on the horizon we believe the new issue market will remain front and center clients increasingly want better price discovery and more efficient execution around new issues. And as electronification and velocity increases, we believe our opportunity expands. TruMid started in a way that feels very familiar to us. Dealers saw a real market problem and funded and worked with the team to solve it. In TruMids case, that problem was how do you find point in time liquidity in gray markets their answer was swarms a protocol that brings a group of participants together on the same bond at the same moment throughout the day and from there truman became one of the innovative platforms in the space and expanded into dealer rfq and attributed trading protocols that complement our own the other thing that really matters to us is the team we have known and respected the true mid team for years and we began informal conversations early this year as we spent more time together it became clear that mike and the team share our vision of the credit markets many of them have sat in the seats of our dealer and buy side clients and they bring a real focus on innovation relationships matter in this business and and we're thrilled to welcome them to the TradeWeb family. Looking ahead, TrueMid advances our credit strategy in three ways. First, it extends our offering to the full life cycle of a bond. Gray markets are where a bond's trading life begins, and with TrueMID, we can serve clients from those first moments of price discovery all the way through the secondary market. We have spent decades taking successful protocols into new markets, and we plan to introduce swarms across our global credit network. Second, it enhances our position with two client groups that keep growing in importance. Hedge funds are at the forefront of systematic trading in credit using strategies they have run in rates and equities for years. And TruMid has built a loyal following in that community. Dealers are automating more of their flow and increasingly starting trades, not just responding to inquiries. Third, it lets us move faster. We would otherwise have spent resources building and scaling these capabilities ourselves. Instead, we can put those resources toward our next frontiers in credit, emerging markets, algorithmic trading, and block trading. On data, our philosophy is unchanged. First, respect the privilege of access to client trading data, apply the right monetization guardrails, and improve execution outcomes. AI is becoming a meaningful part of how credit trades. Our Terra AI chatbot turns our data into real-time insight for clients, and TruMid's smart voice automates the trades that still start on the phone. Trumid's unique data from the earliest trading in a bond will help make AI price and Terra sharper and our clients' execution better. We are confident in our ability to integrate Trumad and deliver on this opportunity. With that, let me turn it over to Sarah to walk through the transaction in more detail. Thanks, Billy, and good morning, everyone. Billy covered why Trumed fits our strategy. I will walk through the economics of this transaction and how it also meets our financial objectives, including being accretive in the first year post-closing. The consideration has two parts, a net purchase price of approximately $1.75 billion and a tax asset valued at approximately $220 million. The $1.75 billion net purchase price represents 19.4 times fully synergized 2026 adjusted EBITDA. The transaction will be financed with $1,89 billion in cash and $82 million with equity for a total purchase price of $1.,97 billion. The $82 million equity component reflects TrueMid's incoming management rolling the majority of their consideration into TradeWeb equity, which will be subject to an ongoing lockup that will expire two and a half years after closing. The transaction is targeted to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Trumid has grown revenue from 2022 through 2025 at an approximately 30% CAGR. That momentum has continued in 2026, with run rate revenue for Trumad tracking at approximately $150 million, which if achieved would be up more than 25% year-over-year, as the platform and its protocols continue to gain traction with dealers and hedge fund clients. Profitability has improved alongside that growth. With TruMid's projected adjusted EBITDA margin improving at an average of 500 BIPs annually in 2025 and 2026, with margins tracking at approximately 20% for this year. The transaction clear is the financial bar we have laid out. We expect the acquisition to be accretive to adjusted EPS within the first full year after closing, with the level of accretion increasing as the remaining expense synergies are realized. We are confident in our ability to complete the integration over 18 months and expect to generate $60 million in run rate expense synergies, with 70% realized in the first full year after closing and 95% in year two. Our accretion assumption is underpinned by 10% revenue growth for TrueMid annually. We use this growth forecast for purposes of underwriting the deal, and it does not account for the current strong new issue and secondary volume environment. It also assumes approximately 400 basis points of standalone adjusted EBITDA margin, expansion annually, and reflects $65 million of foregone annual net interest income, as we expect to fund the transaction with cash on hand. Finally, while not baked into our accretion, we clearly see the potential to generate revenue synergies by introducing TruMid's differentiated protocols across our global product and client network. Let me spend a moment on the tax asset, which we believe is a notable feature of this deal. As part of the transaction, we are acquiring tax assets worth approximately $220 million on a present value basis, representing roughly $345 million of cash tax savings expected over time. The benefit has a few components. Approximately 75% of the benefit comes from a new stepped-up tax basis in TrueMid's underlying assets created by this transaction. The remainder comes from inheriting the existing tax basis of certain entities' interest in TrueMid and net operating losses. Altogether, these tax benefits will offset future taxable income and are expected to reduce our cash taxes over a number of years. This will provide a meaningful benefit to free cash flow with 40% of the gross value expected to be realized within five years. Stepping back, we believe this is a compelling investment for TradeWeb. We believe we're acquiring a business with attractive growth prospects, significant opportunities to scale, and increase profitability while creating meaningful value for shareholders through earnings accretion and stronger cash flow generation. As we look ahead, our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. We will continue to prioritize organic investment in the business, followed by strategic acquisitions and investments, share repurchases, and a growing dividend. With that, let me turn the call back over to Billy. Thanks, Sarah. Based on our previously disclosed quarterly volumes and pricing, we believe we've produced another strong revenue and volume growth quarter, and those trends have continued into October. Strong months are welcome, but we run this business for the next decade, not the next quarter. Global debt markets keep growing and remain central to funding the world economy, and technology is advancing faster than at any point in our history. These two forces drive our opportunity, but you don't win markets simply by putting two companies together. We have to execute, integrate thoughtfully, and keep innovating. Most importantly, we have to keep earning our clients' trust and business every day. The way credit trades is changing, and we intend to lead that change. With TrueMid, we can serve a bond from its first trade through the rest of its life. That brings us one step closer to a market where every trade at every stage can be done electronically. With that, I will turn it back to Ashley for your questions. Thanks, Billy. Operator, you can now take our first question. Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question at this time, you will need to press Star 1-1 on your touch-tone telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, simply press Star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Now first question, coming from the line of Craig Sittenthaler with Bank of America, Yolanda Snellman. Good morning, Billy and team. Congrats on the deal. Greg. So starting off with a big picture one from us. Why is TradeWeb the right owner of this asset? Because, you know, Trubit was on a nice growth trajectory as of yesterday. And we're also curious on the synergies of putting swarms and attributed trading next to your leading lineup of protocols. and also what this deal could mean for pricing over the long-term, too. Good question, Craig. Thank you, as always. You know, why are we the right owner of the asset? You know why are they the right asset for us? Why is this a strategic fit? That's the right question. Why do we think that this is going to work? I think it's going to work from our perspective in a very straightforward way. To start with, I would say because we share, I think from my perspective, I would say like the same ethos and mentality. You have to always ask yourself the question, like, what separates you as a company? What is the thing that defines you? And as you know very well, TradeWeb is a technology company. Trumid is a, a technology country. But I think from an ethos perspective, for both companies, depth of knowledge really matters, and that matters across products. I think it matters across client segments. I think It does something really important, which it allows both companies to engage with clients in creative ways and doing something that is fundamentally important, which is solving problems. I think you have to have a sense of humility to know that you need to listen to clients and do something which is very important, which is build trust. And then the third thing, which you have is you have be commercial and commercial to transform what you're hearing from your clients into something that is a viable product. That's the ethos. And so when you get into viable product, to your question, I think that transitions to something which matters a lot, which is do you believe really in building tools that the full life cycle of the market find ultimate value in? And so from a product perspective, as you know very well, we've made our kind of innovation bones, obviously, in secondary trading. You've heard a lot from us over the years, Craig, around portfolio trading, et cetera. You know, we've gone from basically a, you know, an afterthought in credit to, you know, close to $500 million in credit revenue by being innovative in secondary trading. Trumid has kind of, I think, in a super interesting way from our perspective, they've lived and created trust and they've innovated around obviously making the market in grays, you know more available to a wider audience, making that marketplace more transparent and more efficient. And I think in a very important way, I think TradeWeb, I think, has largely defined ourselves as kind of best in class, as you know very well, with, I Think, like the asset manager base. I think that's a pretty straightforward statement. And as TruMid has pursued, I think, innovation and new issue, and as they've led with tools and protocols that have brought, I think, the systematic players into the equation in very, very strong ways. We like that combination of clients, the largest, most important asset managers in the world, and these most sophisticated, systematic hedge fund players. We love that combination of clients especially, I thing, when you do something that's probably critical which is when you share the mindset and understanding, really, bank behavior and what matters to the market makers, which I think has been, from our perspective, I think a core strength and really a core strengths of both companies. So bottom line, I would say, is that we are obviously very excited about this acquisition. I will say this very clearly. We look forward to welcoming the TruMid team, closing the deal, and updating you as we execute on our integration plan. And thanks for the question. Thank you, Billy. Thank you. Our next question in queue coming from the line up, Christian Bullen with Autonomous Research, your line is now open. Good morning, Billy and Sarah. So, TRIB has a strong track record of successfully building businesses organically. Your current credit business is a testament to that. So we'd love to understand or get a better sense of why you chose to spend almost $2 billion on TrueMid rather than build this organically. It's a good question, Christian. How are you today? Yeah. You know, as CEO, you know, sometimes you wear a bunch of different hats. I think one of the most important hats that I wear is obviously, you know, with the executive team pushing the company to be the most ambitious company that we can be. And so we ask ourselves those questions around build versus buy, like, all the time, as you can imagine. And the roots of TradeWeb, Christian, as we've largely gotten here as builders of marketplaces, I think that's something that's core to kind of who we are. That being said, also, as you know, this is, I think, and Ashley would know for sure, I think this is our fourth acquisition since I've been CEO of the company. So I do believe very strongly that you can and need to do both. I think with this Truman deal, in the most interesting way, I think it actually showcases both skills. So, you know, with this deal, obviously we will acquire kind of like I think something very important, which is two unique protocols. Their swarm protocol and their attributed trading protocol, best in class and unique. We will acquire, I think, something that I mentioned from Craig's question, which has deep penetration into the hedge fund community, which we view as critically important. And so, therefore, we will acquire kind of scaled protocols and networks. But as we acquire these things, we're not going to lose sight of something that we are very excited about, which is what we get to build going forward, you know, with our new partners, which is things like building more insight and analytics, building the electronification framework of voice-centric flows through AI, auto-spreading, AIX. Ultimately, I think, in a very, very important way, continuing to build probably the most important thing that you can do in the market, which is client trust. So we feel really good about this combination, in part because I think it's allowing us to exercise the two most important muscles. that ambitious companies need to have. So appreciate your question and thanks very much. Thank you. Our next question coming from the lineup, Ken Worthington with JPMorgan, your line is now open. Hi, good morning and thanks for taking the question. Can you walk us through the accretion math and the rationale for the assumptions that you're using? So maybe first, how did you end up at the 10% growth in your forecast versus the 25% to 30% historic growth you highlighted in the prepared remarks? And then looking at the 400 basis points of margin improvement, what does this contemplate for your contingent investment in TruMed as you generate cost synergies? Hey, Ken, how are you? Let me take that. So I think a couple things. The way we're thinking about it, 10% is a starting point for the standalone business as it exists today. So as a reminder, and we covered this in the remarks, that doesn't include any of the revenue synergies related to the new cross-selling opportunities, such as taking swarms global, which we are extremely enthusiastic about. When we thought about it on one hand, Trumid has benefited from a smaller revenue base, very strong issuance environment. And from an underwriting perspective, we don't want to underwrite this deal by simply just assuming history repeats itself and the current environment, which is extremely strong, is the go-forward long-term environment. And issuance, as you know, is very hard to predict quarter to quarter. So when we factored our underwriting case even against a more muted backdrop, we still feel like Truman can grow 10% a year, and that's relative to, as we've talked about, 25% plus for 2026. On the other hand, the cyclical backdrop, and Billy talked about this, looks very strong, and the issuance pipeline does look robust. Structurally, we believe in the electronification of credit markets. The turnover velocity still has a lot of room to run, particularly with systematic trading and ETFs that are continuing to proliferate. So if issuances stay strong and electronification and velocity keep moving the way we expect, none of that's really baked into that 10% assumption in our numbers. and we see real upside to both Truman's ability to compete in gray markets and growth secondary revenue, which has been an increasing source of their growth. If I try to walk down through accretion, you start with Truman's revenue, which we talked about tracking to $150 million this year and the 10% growth rate, and then we'll work our way back down to net income. So the core EBITDA for Truman is tracking around 20%, expanding that 400 basis points of margin a year that we talked about, plus $60 million of run rate synergies, which we've talked about. And 70% of that, so fairly quickly, we expect to realize in the first year. So within the first year, you can get to a pretty attractive net income number. Those synergies are on top of the core margin. The offset to that is we expect net interest income to fall by about $65 million after funding the deal from the cash portion. So that should get you to pro forma net income along with your standalone assumptions for TradeWeb and clearly lines up to an accretive transaction pretty quickly, which only gets more accretiv as those synergies get fully realized. The only other thing I'd point out is while that accretion fully factors in the cost of acquiring the tax assets, it doesn't actually include the benefit of the cash tax savings that can be an additional incremental benefit in EPS. So that tax asset, as a reminder, provides tangible cash tax savings over the future years of about $220 million, of which $135 million is in the first five years. So when you think about that cash savings, it accelerates our free cash flow conversion, and then it can provide NII upside each year as those cash savings compound. And again, that part is not even factored in the accretion. So, overall, I'd say we've built a relatively conservative set of assumptions into our expectations, and there are quite a few sources of upside, including, you know, mostly if that cyclical backdrop remains as strong as we expect it to be. Great. Thank you for that. Thank you. Our next question, coming from the line of Dan Fannin with Jeffrey, Ceylon is now open. Thanks. Good morning. Billy was hoping you could expand upon your comments on why this is the right time to buy given where we are in the new issue cycle. And then can you talk about how durable Trumid's growth is away from the new-issue market and other products and asset classes? Yeah. Dan, how are you? Good. As you know, it's been almost like one catalyst after the next over the last few years from kind of tariffs to geopolitical acceleration of the AI hyperscalers. And we think the catalyst wave will continue going forward. So I start with I think we're making this bet with the credit markets in a really strong spot. And we thank, you know, fundamentally we thank and we'll make this call that the new issue market is a really good neighborhood from our perspective to invest into. um if you take a like a half a step back for a second um and you've heard me say this dan i don't think it's a i don'T think it'S by any stretch like an overstatement to say that you know one of the most consequential secular trends happening right now in finance is the application of technology into professional markets you know period um and so you know to your point look like we know this, like rates are going to kind of go up and down. By the way, that's good for our, as you know, good for a macro business, but rates are gonna go up down. Issuance is going to have its kind of, you know its peak moments and there's going to be some obviously volatility around that. But if you believe, I think in two things, which is the force of technology impact in marketplaces, plus that markets will continue to grow, our opportunity by definition is going to compound alongside of this transformation. And that's the thing ultimately that makes us quite excited about this. And as we've kind of paid very close attention to our new partners at TruMid, back to your question about durability, obviously we've been well aware of the impact that they've had in, you know, our neighborhood of secondary trading. And we feel like we are onboarding best in class around venue and marketplace. And, we feel quite good about their durability of their business model. And thanks a lot for your question. Thank you. Thank You. Our next question coming from the line of Ben Phillips with Barclay. See your line is now open. Hey, good morning and Thanks for taking my question. Sarah, during your prepared remarks, you talked a little bit about the hedge fund opportunity and about revenue, potential cross-sell opportunities. Curious if you could give us a bit more color on the current overlap between your customer base and theirs. I'm wondering if there are any risks of dis-synergies, are there any instances where you have a customer who's using both you and TruMid, but not a separate provider, which could open up some opportunities. So any color you can give on sort of the state of the current client overlap would be helpful. Thank you. Sure. Hey, Ben. I would say, look, anytime two platforms come together, some flow gets rationalized, but we've looked at that thoughtfully, and we think the overlap here is pretty small given the new capabilities and differentiated client relationships between TradeWeb and Trumid. And importantly, I would Say these impacts are already reflected in any of our 10% forward growth assumptions, but maybe a few components just to kind of dig into why we believe that. I'd say the first thing is the complementary nature of the client basis, which Billy just highlighted, is one of the things we are most excited about. So historically, we've scaled in U.S. credit through achieving greater penetration with asset managers than hedge funds. TrueMid's client base really leans the other way. They have built an incredibly loyal following against hedge funds, many of which are newer to our platform and trade with us less actively. So there's not a lot of overlap there, and we feel on the buy side are really adding rather than seeing that overlap. On the dealer side, they're central to both platforms. And Trumid's dealer RFQ and gray markets activity should deepen the liquidity that those dealers bring to our network. So RFQ is about 40% of their revenue. Trumad's RFQ is primarily anonymous. So it actually complements our RFQ, which is primarily disclosed rather than overlapping. And that's been, you know, as Billy was alluding to, a source of growth for TruMid and help, again, buy their client strong hedge fund activities. So when we put it together, we're really expecting a broader client network, deeper pools of liquidity, which is good for clients, particularly in gray markets among systematic hedge fund clients. And when you factor in the uniqueness of the TruMID protocols, we're very confident that any dissynergy is already factored into our assumptions. Okay, great. Thank you, Sarah. That's a lot of good color. Thanks. Thank you. Our next question coming from the lineup, Jeff Schmidt with Will & Blair. Your line is now open. Hi, thank you. So, you're targeting $60 million of expense synergies, which is pretty substantial relative to Truman's, I guess, call it $30 million of standalone EBITDA. Can you provide more detail on where those cost savings will come from and what's your confidence and executing on them? Sure. Look, we have underwritten the synergies in this transaction with a very clear line of sight in a business we know really well. And so the way I think about it is today TradeWeb and Trumid each run their own versions of a number of things across technology, product, sales, and corporate functions. And once we combine, for the most part, we really only need one of each. So when you bring the two teams together on one platform and one integrated operating model, that's really going to be the biggest share of synergies. That said, and I don't take this lightly, we're a growth company. We add more than 100 roles a year. And so where there is overlap, our first instinct is going to be to find great people in new places to contribute across TradeWeb's broader platform. aside from that component which by far is the biggest component of the synergies the rest is really straightforward two companies means two sets of contracts for clearing data other vendors professional fees and we'll consolidate those and pay for one instead of two on the technology side our guiding principle is really focused around clients and client choice we want to give them more ways to trade, less friction on one platform. And so where TrueMid's RFQ and portfolio trading workflows mirror ours, we're going to bring that into one existing protocol. So our clients get the same functionality, but through one connection instead of two. On swarms and attributed trading, they're flagship protocols where they're very differentiated. Clients will stay using those protocols and we'll make them available just to more clients across our network. So under the hood, it really is going to run as one unified backend stack, single client connectivity, entitlement, and surveillance layers. And clients hopefully get more protocol choice with a much simpler setup. And when you go through that, in which we have in detail from an integration standpoint, we're very confident in our ability not only to realize the $60 million of run rate expense synergies, but to do so relatively quickly, with 70% being realized in that first year, and as we've said, 95% in year two. So this is not a long integration. Hopefully that helps give you a little bit more color on the expense synergy side. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Our next question in queue coming from the line of Alexander Plosin with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Hey, Bailey. Hey, Sarah. Good morning, everybody. So obviously we've seen a bit of consolidation in market structure universe in the last few months. To what extent, you guys, looking to acquire Trumet, was impacted at all by ICE Market Access DL? And then ultimately, now that we'll have two larger-scale platforms, how do you envision the competitive landscape between the two firms involved, assuming the deal is close? Good question, Alex. My heart rate on my Apple Watch just went up a little bit. I'd like to say it impacted us. it didn't though um the only thing i was trying to do not to make you laugh was to get the announcement on ice's earnings morning like they did to us but we couldn't quite time that perfectly but we were trying um as you know like i think very well like we grew up we've grown up as a company competing with um you know with bloomberg from day one and i said on the last earnings call very genuinely with a lot of respect to jeff and ice um you Know we embrace competition in the marketplace, and I'll say that again, we embrace competition in the marketplace. We think it's good for clients. And I think we have shown kind of time and again that we can compete and we can win in tough environments against tough competition, and we believe that. And we feel very strongly that TrueMid fits us in ways that I described before. It's about, you know, And opportunistically, you know, ultimately, as we described before, I think accelerating our expansion into gray and early markets, I think that's really, really important. And then this concept of entering into a better relationship with our hedge fund world, I think, is really, really important, and that's what we wanted. So we believe that this provides us some of the most kind of attractive places ultimately to grow in credit, which is what this deal is about and swarms and attributed trading will help us ultimately get there. And that's back to kind of building with our new partners kind of post deal. So, you know, from my perspective, I kind of say it to you this way, like, you Know, we love the venue business. We love the marketplace business, and we'd rather compete on kind of protocols and workflow and building trust with clients. That's a very, I think, comfortable, in a good way, place for us to be in. So the only thing I would say, I Think in an interesting way about kind of this deal, and what we're getting from this deal is I do feel like it frees us up to do something which is important, which is I think lean harder into an area of the business that matters to us, which is EM credit, where we see a lot of room to grow going forward. And we're going to compete there, I think, in good ways. So interesting timing. I think your frame, as always, Alex, is correct. We look forward to kind of more competition in the space. And as you know, I Think It's Made Us a Better Company, and we look forward to continuing to get better every day. Thanks for the question. Thanks, Billy. Thank you. Our next question coming from the lineup, Chris Allen with KBW. Your line is now open. Hey, morning, everyone. I think most things have been covered. One thing I'm curious about is what are the plans for which technology stack will host the combined platform? And just given the integration timeline, I'm just curious how easy it is to shift maybe from the true mid-side swarms and attributed trading over to the trade website or vice versa if you're going to go back onto the true Mid-Side. So I'm curious any color on that front. Good question. Ashley, you want to take that? Yeah, I can kick off. Chris, ultimately, as Sarah mentioned, it would be one unified back-end stack, and that will be powering a client experience where we'll retain what's unique from TrueMid as far as their tribute trading and swarms protocols grow. And then we'll be merging that with where we excel, which is RFQ and portfolio trading. So that's sort of the technology experience for the client. Didn't quite catch the second part of your question. I was just wondering whether it's going to be on the TradeWeb stack or a true mid-stack, and how easy it is to shift those protocols from one to the other? Yeah, it's going to be in the trade-back stack. In terms of, we never say anything is easy, but, you know, an integration timeline roughly being about 12 to 18 months, that gives you some sense of the degree of difficulty. We're pretty confident we can do it without really impacting the client experience. Thank you. Thank you, our next question coming from the line of Michael Cypress with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just curious how this deal affects your appetite for M&A moving forward and the overall cap structure. Thank you. Yeah, it's a good question, Mike. Talk about like being ambitious companies, right? So I will say it doesn't change it, right. We believe, and Sarah and I talk about this a lot, We believe, like, very strongly the path to do more is to do something really well. So I think in a very fundamental way, like success begets success, just like liquidity becomes kind of these virtuous cycles inside of marketplaces. They're kind of similar in interesting ways. So our priorities are the same, right? First, invest in organic growth. Second, pursue M&A and strategic investments like this one. And I think as we continue to show the marketplace that we can do both, opportunities will continue to follow along these avenues. As you know, as we've had significant growth over the past bunch of years, to be able to grow our organic businesses the way that we have, plus show the workplace that we are highly capable of doing the right kind of deals with the support that we've gotten, I think means a lot. And so we're going to continue to be like super open-minded around more deals going forward that fit us in the way that you would expect these deals to fit us, in ways that we have talked about today. That being said, you'll see I think rigorous ownership from the management team on this deal. And we will be focused on the here and the now of making this deal work within a very kind of competitive environment, which is obviously credit. Maybe I'll just add to that. I think also just from a financial flexibility, I think this is somewhat straightforward, but with more than $2 billion of cash on the balance sheet, unlevered, very clean balance, no debt on our balance sheet, and we're producing a billion dollars of free cash flow a year, and this acquisition only compounds and adds to that, we think we'll have plenty of financial flexibility. And I would say, you know, as we think about integration and execution, I think we've proven that we have that muscle. This will be concentrated in the credit space. But as Billy alluded to, this is an ambitious company. And so we're going to continue to invest in areas like frontier markets digital and have a lot of opportunity in terms of the management bandwidth we've built over the last five years. Thanks for the question. Thank you. And that's the end of our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Billy Holt for any closing remarks. Thank you all very much for joining us today. Any follow-up questions, as always, please feel free to reach out to Ashley, Samir, and the team. We look forward to reuniting shortly. Everyone have a great day, and we appreciate your time. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.