Grab your life vest, and jump ship. You heard it straight from the CEO.
53 replies (most recent on top)
That’s because PS and the Board made the huge strategic mistake of investing in portfolio life cycle acquisitions which are easily replaceable by AI and not in content. They have almost no content moat. It will take time but ultimately they are in big trouble .
I feel it’s really about how much proprietary content we have. For the content I work with ,Fixed Income, it’s all third party content. Im not sure whats our advantage here. Stitching together others data doesn’t really feel advantaged
I encourage everyone to read the Twitter post by @DavidOndrej1 that talks about why we’re sinking… note: it has nothing to do with CFO and everything to do with the decisions our SBU heads made.
Also an interesting read in the Times of India. Just Google this article/headline: Explained: What is Anthropic’s AI tool that wipes $285 billion off software stocks in a single day?
We wont be around by the end of Feb-March.
CFO joined in 2018 and wiped everything to when she started.
Glad we hired BCG again and pouring money into marketing and finance.
$200 - wow ... back to 2016-2017.
Did they really say, ‘Market Conditions’ .. Why are they needed then. Down over 50% in a year is more than ‘market conditions’ .. they have invested in the completely wrong things and hire the wrong people. That’s on them and the bod, not the market
Yahoo finance explained the dip in a recent article (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/factset-faces-ai-pressure-investors-111103196.html). Don’t take the statements of the ELT (“Market Conditions”) at face value… you have to dig in to them, and this article does a good job of that. We’re no longer compared with just Bloomberg, Aladdin, TR, etc… we now are grouped with OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), & the other AI platforms.
Anyone have that life jacket handy?
@38s even snow said "be ready for change" on his way out.
Reminds me of the scene in Caddyshack: Well, we're waiting....!
Feel bad for sanoke. He probably had no idea what he was getting into. I think his options are at around 290 but vest at 150% of that so needs to see closer to 450 stock price.
Thats going to be the next big scandal. The lack of due dilligence on that deal will lead to shareholder lawsuits. They are probably already ready to go
The company culture is worsening due to lack of clear leadership. The work life balance is not what it was two years back and teams are not interacting openly. The agenda to work hard and push through tasks is putting pressure on employee health and safety. While the new CEO seems to be making good moves, ignoring the company work culture is concerning
Leadership blames market condition for this level of drop is simply insane. Which competitor dropped its price more than 50% last 12 months . It’s part of factor but they really need to think something goes wrong.
My company canceled our FactSet license 10 minutes after the CUSIP acquisition announcement. Would never use such a company with such compromised ethics ever again. FactSet reaping what it sowed.
We have to change this thread name to sinking fast rather than slowly. Not sure how it ever comes back up
The markets reacted today across the board, looking at SAAS firms being disrupted by AI. S&P, LSEG also had 10-15% drops. MSCI dropped 7%, TR 21%.
The company is mismanaged because of lacklustre leaders at the helm, particularly the ELT. Can Sanoke fix this? Maybe. Maybe not. Time will reveal all.
Overspent? Who is responsible for all the money spent on GenAI? I doubt that money was spent on employees. Those who made those decisions should be cut.
A 20% reduction is what is needed, and it will happen whether people like it or not. You will be included as you wish
It su-ks for both of us or most of us not to be getting retention bonuses. The Board and ELT don’t care about what’s said here otherwise they would have done something about it by now. It’s $220, so there’s not much you can do, especially after spending five years focusing on DEI and BRGs. But this is where we are, and good for those who already left.
We have a mediocre investor relations guy sending an email explaining why the stock is tanking, right before another 10% haircut today.
We overspent as a company, and it’s too late to course-correct now. We also made the mistake of staying, so we’re part of the problem as well
Leave or get packaged out whichever comes first.
Board, ELT, L3 and the old guard who would rather work 9-3 M-T are exactly who need to be blamed for the situation we are in.
To assume pointing this out means one is “complaining” and “doing nothing good” is a bit rich coming from the “leaders” who continue to rake in retention bonuses and millions while effortlessly steering the company to ruins.
It’s easy to say “be part of the solution” instead of assuming responsibility and taking ownership for the mess power hungry optics driven “leaders” have created precisely because they don’t listen. Nor do they think beyond their own interests, for the collective good of the company.
When you come to a layoff site and say “find somewhere else if this is not for you” - you might already be addressing those who have left but are shareholders, suffering the consequences of poor decisions by the ones named here.
You are blaming everyone and everything instead of helping move things forward. Pointing fingers at the board, CEO, ELT, L3s, and teams is not productive.
This is our current situation. If you are unhappy and only want to complain, then it may be best to leave. If you feel your value would be better recognized outside this company, you should consider moving on. You will get paid fairly while working Mon-Sun.
Great leadership, it dropped 45% last year and this year YTD already 20% drop
Ask yourself - what’s proprietary about our business that won’t be commoditized by AI? Maybe you get risk models, maybe you get data, but that’s pretty much it. And then you ask yourself, what is the size of those proprietary products that will insulate us from the shift from a seat-based or workflow-based model to an Agentic AI-based model? The answer is relatively small. You then look at what those two areas bring in relative to the size of the firm, and its not something that employees will want to acknowledge, but it’s an asset/resource heavy company for not a lot of future revenue growth.
The firm has pulled all the levers it can (layoffs, delayed hiring, downsizing real estate footprint, cutting discretionary spending), and investors are now pessimistic on the short to mid-term (0-24 month) outlook. Low revenue growth with limited ability to pull additional efficiency levers… not a great investment.
TLDR; the days of workflows are behind us, & we’re a workflow-based company. We don’t have a ton of proprietary IP that will feed in to AI models.
The minute anyone mentions buyside leadership, one of the puppets comments to deflect to the CEO/HS.. this is predictable. Yes, Sanoke needs to do something . How about ask RR/SK/FF for some accountability. Their old guard needs to go and it needs to start with these crooks
How long has Sanoke been there now? At some point, have to stop blaming the old guys. Can’t believe large investors aren’t in his face at this point. There is no news or changes in top management. Stock is already down another 13% this ytd. Almost 50% over 1 year. He needs to do something bold to stop the bleeding.
- CE
The LB FIX network supposed to deliver 7 figure ASV yet they can barely hang on to thir own clients. SK, RR and FF should be ashmed of themselves for robbing the shareholders with such a acquisition. Clearly there is deep rot in leadership at the top of the buyside org.
Buyside had a record of bad acquisitions but DSO is overly bloated. Yes the revenue have increased over the years simply due to market demands but if products are a copy and paste and nobody creates custom feed anymore, why do we need such a huge team to create all these bottlenecks? The number of implementation folks in FactSet is 3 times bloated compared to our competitors!
Is this simply for power to have more people … that’s on management team to assess. Don’t just focus the non-“revenue generating” teams.
Bisam, Cusip, Portware, … the list is huge. If anyone ever did an ROI analysis of the PLC, head would/should role. But same people still making the decisions. Ultimately, the BOD is responsible for approving this. At some point, there will be a SH lawsuit.
@2ds with acquisitions like cymba, liquidity book - the great Buy Side team just keeps delivering repeated failures. You really need a new lead for that group or at minimum break into smaller teams
Take it behind the barn and…… use your imagination….
@25r - and down another 5% so far today. The stock price isn't going to increase unless someone can convince the street that something has improved. It looks like the captain has changed but everything else is the same.
Dont forget liquidity book. Not sure how to rank the worst acquisitions but that may be worst .
Maybe sanoke goes back to JPM. He’s obviously over his head. Wonder if he’ll do another LinkedIn post on how amazing he’s discovered you can do screening on FactSet. And even download to excel! Can’t make it up.
@25b Guess who reduced more than 70-80% of their holdings?
Some of the board members.
How the market reads those moves is anyone’s guess.
@28x True that - wonder though why your sentiment for an acquisition is positive.
A study of acquired companies would suggest otherwise. Think of what FDS did with BiSam, Cymba, Code Red, Truvalue for example. Let alone what it did with the employees/ founders of those companies.
On the bright side, with the stock price lower, it should make us a better acquisition target :-)
@25r I don't get this obsession with the past. Glory days are gone, it's hard work when industry growth slows and competition gets tough. No Phil will save us now.
Down more than 6% today .. you’re right. Something needs to change. Bring back Phil Hadley. Stock would double.
@244 - I'm looking at the stock price and not everything is fine.
Amazed still no elt changes. I guess everything was fine except for former ceo.
Who is the ship?