The FTSE 100 publishing and data company that has been one of the hardest-hit victims of an AI-driven market sell-off has insisted it is “almost inconceivable” that the technology could replicate its business.
Nick Luff, finance chief of Relx, argued that its “unique” and “comprehensive” data meant that it had an advantage over machine learning.
“It’s that information base which is critical. It’s unique, it’s comprehensive, it’s continuously updated on an industrial scale,” Luff said. “And we’ve got public records, which we’ve been collecting for decades, many which aren’t even available publicly any more. We’ve got thousands of licensed data sources coming in.”
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Relx — formerly known as Reed Elsevier — has found itself at the centre of the storm that has gripped the media and software sector, shedding about £9.4 billion of its market value since the start of last week, as its shares have fallen 20 per cent to their lowest level in almost five years.
Markets have become unsettled by the release of a range of products by the artificial intelligence company Anthropic for its Claude Cowork office assistant. Its 11 plugins promise to automate a variety of tasks for companies across legal, marketing and customer support.
The contagion has since spread to other sectors including wealth management, which was triggered by Altruist, a US-based wealth management platform, unveiling a tool to help financial advisers quickly personalise clients’ investment strategies.
“It’s clearly not us,” Luff said. “Sometimes … the market takes a while before it starts differentiating and distinguishing between companies in different positions.”
At the centre of the market’s angst is the fear that AI will eat away at core parts of Relx’s business, selling information and analytics to professionals in the legal, insurance and medical industries via its subscription platforms such as LexisNexis.
“In the short run, share prices are all about sentiment and how the market sees things and so on. In the long run, they’re about company performance and that’s what we control,” Luff said.
Luff set out his defence as Relx reported a 7 per cent rise in revenue on an underlying basis to £9.6 billion last year, in line with forecasts from City analysts. Statutory pre-tax profit also rose 7 per cent to £2.8 billion, up from £2.6 billion in 2024. The media group guided towards “another year of strong underlying growth in revenue and adjusted operating profit”.
The shares closed 39p, or 1.9 per cent, higher at £20.52.
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Unlike London Stock Exchange Group, which has also been hit by fears over AI disruption, Relx has refrained from striking licensing deals with any AI providers. “Our content is something that we use inside our products, not make available to others,” Luff said.
Despite being one of London’s largest companies, Relx makes relatively few headlines and Erik Engstrom, the Swede who has led the business for the past 15 years, has only ever given one media interview.
It will continue to press ahead with a share buyback programme worth £2.25 billion this year, of which £250 million has been completed. The full-year dividend was raised by 7 per cent to 67½p a share.
The operating margin expanded again to 34.8 per cent, from 33.9 per cent a year earlier, in line with the group’s ambition to grow revenue ahead of costs. Underlying revenue growth was led by its legal business, which includes LexisNexis, posting a 9 per cent increase. Luff said that faster growth was expected to continue for the division.
In line with the shift towards digital content, the group reported the standalone performance of its print business separately for the first time. Print products have declined to 4 per cent of group revenue, from 64 per cent two decades ago, and generated £399 million in revenue, from £517 million in 2024.
Relx was once a producer of books and magazines but has made a gradual transition away from physical media and sold one of its last print magazines in 2019. Now 83 per cent of revenues are digital, which has helped to offset a decline in print. It employs more than 36,000 people, of which two fifths are in North America, and has offices in 40 countries.
