RELX PLC (REL) — Company Research

Last Updated: 23 October 2026

RELX PLC is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional customers. Its four businesses are Risk (LexisNexis Risk Solutions), Scientific, Technical & Medical (Elsevier), Legal (LexisNexis Legal & Professional) and Exhibitions (RX). Most revenue comes from subscriptions and transactions sold to lawyers, scientists, doctors, insurers, banks and governments, and the group is building generative-AI tools into most of its products. Since the last version of this report (7 June 2026) RELX has reported 7% underlying revenue growth for the first half and the first nine months of 2026, completed the purchase of the French legal-AI platform Doctrine, launched agentic AI features across Legal and Elsevier, and continued a £2.25bn share buyback. Every figure below comes from RELX's results announcements, trading updates, RNS notices and SEC filings. There are no analyst opinions, price targets or ratings anywhere in it.

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

1. Company Snapshot

2. The Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Steady 7% underlying growth: underlying revenue grew 7% in FY2025, in H1 2026 and in the first nine months of 2026, with Legal up 10% and Risk up 8% year to date.
• AI products being adopted: Lexis+ AI and the Protégé assistant are being taken up by more than half of US new and renewing legal customers, and Elsevier's LeapSpace research workspace is reported to show rapid usage growth.
• High margins and cash conversion: the adjusted operating margin rose to 35.5% in H1 2026 from 34.8%, and cash conversion was 99% in FY2025 and 98% in H1 2026.
• Large capital returns: a £2.25bn buyback for 2026, an interim dividend up 7% to 20.9p, and 87 million treasury shares cancelled on 21 October 2026.
• Data-driven Risk franchise: Risk, the largest segment at 36% of revenue with a 37.4% margin, grew 8% underlying on AI-enabled fraud, identity and insurance analytics.

Bear Case

• AI substitution fears: on 3 February 2026 RELX shares fell sharply alongside Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer after Anthropic released a legal plug-in for Claude, and RELX lists AI-driven change in customer demand as a principal risk.
• Higher leverage: net debt rose to £8,733m at 30 June 2026, 2.3 times EBITDA, from 2.0 times at the end of 2025, as buybacks were funded partly with new bonds.
• Exhibitions slowdown: Middle East disruption cut Exhibitions underlying growth to 4% for the nine months, from 6% in the first half.
• Currency and US exposure: currency reduced FY2025 revenue by 2% and adjusted operating profit by 3%, and North America is 79% of Risk revenue and 68% of Legal revenue.
• Open-access shift in STM: scientific publishing is moving from pay-to-read subscriptions towards pay-to-publish open access, while Elsevier's STM revenue is about 80% subscription.

3. Business Segments

FY2025 revenue by segment from the 2025 results announcement. Print and print-related revenue (£399m, 4.2%) is now reported separately.

In H1 2026 underlying growth was Risk 8%, STM 6%, Legal 10% and Exhibitions 6%. Follow information-services names on the ChartsView Live Charts page.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. RELX sells access to proprietary content, data and analytics, mostly through multi-year subscriptions (about 80% of STM revenue is subscription) and per-use transactions, such as identity checks in Risk. Exhibitions earns stand and sponsorship fees from organising events.

Unit economics. The adjusted operating margin was 34.8% in FY2025 and 35.5% in H1 2026. Most costs are content, technology and people, so revenue growth largely drops through to profit. Capital expenditure was £525m in FY2025, almost all capitalised software development (£504m), and adjusted cash flow was £3,301m, 99% of adjusted operating profit.

The moat. Decades of proprietary and contributory data (insurance claims, identity records, legal judgments and commentary, peer-reviewed science) that customers rely on for high-stakes decisions, deep embedding in professional workflows, and Elsevier's position as the largest scientific publisher. The risk to the moat is that general-purpose AI tools reduce the value of access to content on its own.

Capital allocation. RELX targets net debt of about 2 times EBITDA, grows the dividend broadly in line with adjusted EPS, makes small bolt-on acquisitions (£270m across five deals in 2025) and returns surplus cash through buybacks (£1.5bn in 2025, £2.25bn planned for 2026).

5. Financial Health

RELX reports in pounds sterling under IFRS. Revenue and EPS are from each year's results announcement. Long-term debt is non-current borrowings at each year end; total borrowings were checked against RELX's SEC XBRL filings (ifrs-full:Borrowings, CIK 0000929869: £6,167m at the end of 2021 and £7,267m at the end of 2025).

GAAP EPS is reported diluted EPS. YoY % is reported revenue growth; underlying growth, which strips out currency, acquisitions, disposals and exhibition-cycling effects, was 7% in each of FY2023, FY2024 and FY2025. FY2021 growth is measured against FY2020 revenue of £7,110m.

RELX reports earnings half-yearly. Its trading updates give growth rates only: for the nine months to 30 September 2026 underlying revenue grew 7% (Risk 8%, STM 6%, Legal 10%, Exhibitions 4%). H2 2025 figures are derived by subtracting H1 2025 from FY2025 and are not published by RELX.

Cash flow and balance sheet. In FY2025 cash generated from operations was £3,735m and net cash from operating activities £2,836m (confirmed in SEC XBRL data). Capital expenditure was £525m, depreciation and amortisation within adjusted operating profit £504m (plus £248m amortisation of acquired intangibles, £752m in total), and free cash flow before dividends £2,313m. At 31 December 2025 cash was £131m, borrowings £7,267m (current £1,571m, non-current £5,696m) and net debt £7,201m. At 30 June 2026 cash was £220m, borrowings £8,906m (current £2,343m, non-current £6,563m) and net debt £8,733m, after a €1.5bn bond issue in June 2026.

2026 outlook (22 October 2026). "We continue to see positive momentum across the group, and we expect another year of strong underlying growth in revenue and adjusted operating profit, as well as strong growth in adjusted earnings per share on a constant currency basis."

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, October 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

7. What Are They Building

Agentic AI in Legal. Lexis+ AI (launched in the US in 2023) answered more than five million prompts in the US in 2025, and more than half of US new and renewing customers are adopting it. The Protégé personal assistant gained agentic features in August 2026 to take lawyers "from first idea to review-ready work product", Protégé Work was added in H1 2026, Mistral models were integrated for French customers in July 2026, and Lexis+ with Protégé launched in the Middle East and North Africa in October 2026. LexisNexis also has an alliance with Harvey.

Doctrine and European legal AI. RELX completed the acquisition of Doctrine, a French legal-AI platform with 27,000 daily professional users and more than 100m documents, on 3 September 2026, and has set an ambition to serve one million legal professionals across Europe.

AI research tools at Elsevier. LeapSpace, an AI research workspace drawing on more than 20m peer-reviewed articles and books, added agentic features in June 2026 (Writing Coach, Claim Radar, Compare Tables). Elsevier also runs ScienceDirect AI, Scopus AI, ClinicalKey AI and Reaxys AI Search, and Sherpath AI was used by more than 73,000 US nursing students in 2025.

AI analytics in Risk. Risk's growth is driven by AI-enabled analytics and decision tools on contributory data, including IDVerse AI document authentication acquired in 2025, and Intelligize+ AI Disclosure Management launched in October 2026.

8. Competitive Landscape

RELX competes with other professional-information, data and analytics groups.

RELX's 7% underlying growth in 2025 was in line with Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer, its closest legal-information rivals, and Informa is the main peer for its Exhibitions business.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Erik Engstrom has been Chief Executive Officer (CEO) since November 2009, Nick Luff has been Chief Financial Officer since 2014 and Paul Walker has chaired the board since 2021. Andy Halford became Audit Committee chair in July 2026. All 2026 director and PDMR dealings disclosed through RNS were linked to share plans, apart from one sale:

After the February 2026 vesting Erik Engstrom held 1,327,129 shares and ADSs, and Nick Luff 358,792.

10. Key Risks

• AI disruption (Strategic): general-purpose AI tools could reduce demand for content access or let competitors work around RELX's intellectual property; RELX's own principal risks now cite this, and it relies on outside large-language-model and cloud providers.
• Open access and research integrity (Regulatory): a shift from subscription to pay-to-publish models and fraudulent papers are risks for Elsevier, whose STM revenue is about 80% subscription.
• Exhibitions exposure (Macro): events depend on the economic cycle, travel, venues and security; Middle East disruption has already slowed 2026 Exhibitions growth to 4%.
• Currency (Macro): RELX reports in pounds but earns much of its revenue in US dollars and euros; currency reduced FY2025 revenue by 2%.
• Leverage (Financial): net debt of £8,733m and 2.3 times EBITDA at H1 2026, up from 2.0 times, as buybacks run ahead of cash generation.
• Data privacy and cyber security (Regulatory): Risk handles large volumes of personal data, so tighter privacy rules or a breach could restrict products or bring fines.

11. Recent Developments

• 25 Jun 2026 — Elsevier adds agentic AI to LeapSpace. New Writing Coach, Claim Radar and Compare Tables features cover the full research workflow.
• 09 Jul 2026 — Mistral in Lexis+ for France. LexisNexis integrated Mistral models into Lexis+ with Protégé for French customers, hosted in the EU.
• 23 Jul 2026 — H1 2026 results. Revenue £4,871m with 7% underlying growth, adjusted operating margin 35.5%, adjusted EPS 68.6p (up 8%) and interim dividend 20.9p (up 7%); full-year outlook reaffirmed. Andy Halford became Audit Committee chair.
• 24 Aug 2026 — Agentic Protégé. LexisNexis added agentic capabilities to Lexis+ with Protégé.
• 03 Sep 2026 — Doctrine acquisition completed. The French legal-AI platform joined LexisNexis in Europe; the price was not disclosed.
• 19 Oct 2026 — Intelligize+ AI launched. A new AI disclosure-management suite for securities filings.
• 22 Oct 2026 — Nine-month trading update. Underlying revenue up 7% (Risk 8%, STM 6%, Legal 10%, Exhibitions 4%) and outlook reaffirmed; a new £125m buyback tranche began and 87m treasury shares were cancelled.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 02 Dec 2026 — scheduled end of the final £125m tranche of the 2026 buyback
• 31 Dec 2026 — financial year end
• Expected Feb 2027 — FY2026 results and final dividend (the FY2025 results were published on 12 February 2026; the 2027 date is not yet in RELX's financial calendar)
• Expected Apr 2027 — Annual General Meeting and first-quarter trading update (both were on 23 April in 2026)
• TBC — ex-dividend and payment dates for the 2026 final dividend

Interest-rate decisions and currency-moving data releases are on the ChartsView Economic Calendar. Discuss RELX and AI in information services in the ChartsView Forum.

Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.