Euronext's third quarter was its strongest in the period under review, with revenue of €547.4M up 24.9% year on year and diluted EPS of €1.90 up 30.1%. Management credited record fixed income trading led by MTS Cash on volatility and debt issuance, record intraday power trading after the power futures launch, and the new Euronext Athens contribution across listings, trading and clearing. SE fair value of €207 is 21.9% above the price.
Management upgraded FY2026 underlying operating expenses excluding D&A to EUR 760 million, EUR 10 million below February's EUR 770 million, and announced a share repurchase of up to EUR 350 million over 12 months from 9 November. Strategy points were the Nord Pool power derivatives rollout to Germany in Q2 2027 and Athens joining the single order book in June 2027. Asked about MTS volumes falling sharply after September, management said they partly recovered and tied them to volatility. On AI competition and cash market fragmentation, it offered no firm view.
Consensus expects FY2026 revenue growth of 17.2% and EPS growth of 19.0%, on analysts' adjusted EPS. FY2027 slows, with EPS growth of 9.6%, which fits a year of Athens and power contributions annualising rather than a new step. The price implies revenue growth of 4.2% a year, 13.0pp below that FY2026 consensus. EPS has beaten the estimate in 5 of the last 8 quarters, a record that supports the near-term numbers.
Operating margin moved from 46.4% in FY2022 to 52.8% in FY2025 (+6.4pp, up, better), and net margin from 30.9% to 35.3% (+4.4pp). ROIC rose from 8.1% to 11.5% (+3.4pp), better on trend, though it ranks below the middle of comparable companies and below their median. Return on assets is about 0.2%, which is thin. Quality stays held back by share count growth and a ROIC that clears its cost of capital by only a modest margin, so margins are strong while capital returns are not yet.
The two valuation measures disagree: SE fair value of €207 is 21.9% above the price, yet the trailing P/E of 23.5x is 28% above its own 10-year median of 18.3x. The analyst target of €182, from 9 analysts, is 7.3% above the price. SE fair value carries high confidence, though 70% of it sits in the terminal value. For the price to hold, FY2026 revenue growth near the 17.2% consensus has to persist into FY2027's expected 5.0%. A miss on that step-down would show the shortfall.
The SE Score is 1 of 3. Quality earns 1 star: ROIC of 11% clears the cost of capital and cash conversion is strong, but the balance sheet sits in the Altman distress zone. Moat earns 1 star: ROIC has topped 15% in only 5 of 10 years, and its five-year return ranks low among comparable companies. Value earns 3 stars because the price is below SE fair value, which lifted nothing in the business tier; the company's own multiple history disagreed with the cash-flow model, so the multiple alone was used.
Euronext N.V. operates securities and derivatives exchanges in the Netherlands, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, the United States and internationally. It sells listing, cash and derivatives trading, post-trade, clearing, custody and settlement services, market data, and technology and colocation solutions to investors, broker-dealers, exchanges and financial institutions.