RELX PLC (RELX) Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

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RELX PLC (RELX -0.65%)
Q4 2020 Earnings Call
Feb 11, 2021, 4:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the RELX results announcement for the year to the 31st of December 2020 conference call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Sir Anthony Habgood. Please go ahead, sir.

Sir Anthony Habgood -- Chair

As in what turns out, we've been a truly extraordinary. The whole organization rose to the challenge of maintaining high levels of customer service in hugely changed working conditions, reflecting the quality and dedication of our staff around the world. And throughout, we continue consistently to pursue our strategic priorities, delivering growth in revenue, adjusted operating profit and cash across our three largest business areas. I hope you will agree with me that this is a good result in what is now about 95% of the revenues of the company. Our exhibitions business was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. And because of COVID-related restrictions, inevitably went into loss, which caused our adjusted earnings per share to be 14% lower than last year at 80.1p.

Given the resilience of our three largest business areas, our strong financial position and cash flow and our confidence in the outlook for the company, we are proposing a full year dividend of 47p, an increase of almost 3%. Our long history of strong ESG performance was again enhanced during the year, and I especially commend the actions of Elsevier for the way in which they have supported the scientific and medical response to the pandemic. Researchers and healthcare professionals now have free access to over 50,000 relevant articles, which have been downloaded over 200 million times to date. As you know, this is my last results presentation as Chair of RELX, and I am delighted that Paul Walker will be succeeding me next month. I believe that overall, the company is well positioned managerially, financially and strategically, as I prepare to hand over to him.

PAul has a strong record of value creation as a FTSE 100 chair and Chief Executive, has a deep understanding of corporate governance and brings extensive international experience in sectors relevant to RELX' business both through his executive and nonexecutive roles. I believe that he is an outstanding choice to guide the company and its exceptionally talented management team forward to the next level, and I am confident that RELX will continue to prosper under his viewership. Finally, I would like to thank you all for following and supporting RELX over the past years.

And with that, I will now hand over to Erik and Nick, who will take you through the results.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Anthony. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for taking the time to join up on our call today. As you may have seen from our press release this morning, our three largest business areas, which together represented 95% of RELX's revenue in '20, have continued to perform well. And all delivered another year of underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth. However, the exhibition business was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We continued to make good operational and strategic progress. We continued to invest behind our strategic priorities. And we continued to build on our strong ESG performance, making good progress on many of our important internal metrics and maintaining or improving our key external ratings.

Early in the year, when the impact of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic on our exhibition business was still uncertain. We took the decision not to try to offset any potential profit shortfall in exhibitions by constraining investment in the strategic priorities of our three largest business areas: STM, Risk and Legal. Instead, we decided to continue to invest behind the organic development and rollout of sophisticated information based analytics and decision tools and to continue to supplement our organic efforts with targeted acquisitions during the year. Taken together, total revenue for the three largest business areas increased by 2% in 2020. Adjusted operating profit was up 4%, and the operating margin increased by 50 basis points. In the exhibition business, we are focused on serving our customers as well as we can, while taking the appropriate steps to ensure the future of the business through the accelerated development of digital tools and by adjusting our operating cost structure.

Looked at by format, the rate decline in print revenue roughly doubled PAUSE 2020, in part reflecting temporary free COVID-19 related disruption for our physical distribution channel, but also reflecting an acceleration in the long-term structural shift from print to digital in many of our markets. Face to face revenue was, of course, impacted severely by was, of course, impacted severely by COVID-19 as almost all exhibition venues outside Asia were closed for most of the year. Electronic revenue grew 3% on an underlying basis for the group as a whole. Whilst the transition from electronic reference to electronic decision tools continue to drive growth, this trend was partly offset by temporary drop in transactional revenue streams in some of our customer markets that were negatively impacted by COVID-19. So let's look at the results of each business area. In STM, underlying revenue growth was 1%. Electronic revenue, which represented 86% of the total, grew 3% and in line with the prior year.

Print revenue, which was impacted by distribution issues related to COVID-19, particularly in the first half, declined at roughly double the rate of recent years. Taking around one percentage point of the divisional growth rate for the year. In primary research, we launched 115 new journals, of which over 100 for Autopay Open access pilots. The number of article submissions to our journals grew by over 25% in the year for a total of over 2.5 million, almost doubled the total number of articles that we received five years ago. The number of articles published grew double digits in the year and is now more than 40% higher than it was five years ago. We continue to increase our market share of both subscription and open access articles while maintaining or increasing our relative quality advantage in each segment. The customer environment for primary research varied by segment and geography. Many corporate segments, particularly life sciences had good growth globally.

The academic institution subscription segment, which represents roughly 40% the divisional revenue, so strong growth in some key Asian countries but varying degrees of budget pressure in other geographies. We spent more time working customer-by-customer than in a typical year, often providing a range of alternatives that can help them meet their needs. As a result, at this point in the renewal cycle, the subscription renewal completion rate for the year so far is in line with recent years. Open access revenue growth accelerated across geographies. In databases and tools and electronic reference, which represents over 1/3 of divisional revenue. We've seen strong new sales in corporate life sciences, driven by the addition of new AI-based tools from RELX' and supported by text and data mining capabilities from the acquisition of.

We saw strong growth in research management, including double-digit growth in both. Strong growth in Health education was driven by increased adoption of digital tools. In the nursing segment, our remote participation facilities were set up in many colleges during the year. Our digital courseware services and digital simulation training tools grew strongly and were supplemented by the acquisition of Shadow Health in December. We saw an acceleration in growth in many of our digital clinical solutions, driven by continued expansion and geographical rollout of our clinical key suite. Strong growth at clinical path are evidence-based treatment decisions support tool. Print books, which now represents less than 10% of divisional revenue, with a steeper decline than in recent years, largely reflecting disruption to distribution channels during COVID-19-related shutdown.

Going forward, trends in our customer markets may continue to vary somewhat by segment. But overall, we expect another year of modest underlying revenue growth. In risk, underlying revenue growth was 3%, and underlying adjusted operating profit growth was 4%. Transactional revenue, which represents around 60% of the division in total, COVID-19-related slowdown in March and April, but has continued to see improved growth since then. Subscription revenue, which represents around 40%, remains resilient overall for the year, albeit with some delays in new business closes and customer implementation. Business services, which now represents nearly 45% of divisional revenue, was expanded during the year by the inclusion of the acuity business unit that formally reported under data services.

The alignment of these units with our business services, financial clients and compliance operations will enable further sharing of technology platforms and data, strengthen our customer value proposition and accelerate the rollout of new tools. Whilst recovery has been gradual in some customer segments, such as physical retail, hospitality and travel; many parts of business services, such as identity verification and fraud prevention, returned to double-digit growth before the end the year. In digital identity, metrics continued to perform strongly throughout the year. And with the integration, of email age largely complete open businesses have continued to grow in the 30% range. In insurance, representing nearly 40% of the divisional total. Our customer markets have seen a steady recovery in the COVID-19-related disruption in March and April, with second half U.S. auto insurance shopping trends in line with recent years. U.S. driving activity recovered to around 95% of the prior year level by January this year from a low point of around 50% in April.

Claims volumes have followed a similar trajectory. During 2020, we broadened our data sets in the connected car segment through a growing number of relationships with the OEMS, enabling us to provide telematics and vehicle information-related services to both insurance carriers and auto manufacturers. In adjacent verticals, we've seen strong growth in life insurance as customers seek alternative data sources and automation of the application and underwriting processes. Outside the U.S., we saw strong growth in the U.K. and China, driven by new product launches and expansion of contributory data set. In data services, which after the transfer of the Accuity Financial Services business units represent just over 10% of divisional revenue. We saw continued good growth in petrochemicals. Whilst aviation saw the double-digit growth rates at the beginning of the year slowing before turning into declines at the end of the year. Government representing around 5% of divisional revenue.

Strong growth was driven by the continued expansion and rollout of analytics and decision tools. Going forward, in 2021, we expect the year of strong underlying revenue growth, with a fundamental for the majority of our markets line with pre COVD-19 trends. In legal, underlying revenue growth was 1%, with underlying adjusted operating profit growth ahead of revenue growth at 7%, reflecting continued efficiency gains. Electronic revenue now representing 87% of the divisional total, continued to grow 3%, in line with the prior year, driven by the development and rollout of legal analytics and new integrated functionalities. Print revenue declined in low double digits, steeper than the recent mid-single-digit average, mainly due to supply disruption and temporary closure of customer offices, effectively reducing the divisional underlying revenue growth rate for the year by a percentage point. In North America, which accounts for around 2/3 of divisional revenue.

The legal services market, as on COVID-19-related disruption in the early part of the pandemic, with new sales dipping in March and April. As the year progressed, the environment appeared to strengthen again. And in the second half of the year, new sales were running ahead of the prior year. In September, we launched LEXUS plus in the U.S. It uses machine learning and natural language processing to unite multiple legal research an analytics functions, including advanced search, practical guidance and analysis, all delivered through an upgraded and modernized user interface. It has been fully rolled out in law schools, where it has been very well received. And after the initial stage of the commercial rollout to law firms, the customer response has been very positive with adoption by new customers, particularly encouraging. Going forward, trends in our major customer markets are stable, and we expect another year of modest underlying credit growth.

Exhibitions Was significantly impacted by COVID-19 in 2020, and revenue for the year was down by around 70%. The business had a good start to the year, but was severely disrupted from early March exhibition venues began to close and local destructions were introduced across most of our markets. As a result, we were able to hold only around a 170 of the close to 500 face-to-face events that were originally scheduled for the year with no significant events in Europe or North America since March. Venus reopened in China in June, in Japan in August, and we held a small number of events in a few other countries in the second half. Through the disruption, we have accelerated the rate of digital innovation. We have enabled both exhibitors and attendees to participate remotely in the physical events that have taken place, which has been particularly useful for international participants where physical events could not take place, we get experimented with a range of alternatives, adding value for exhibitors and attendees and enabling us to maintain engagement with industry communities.

During the year, we also took action to reduce the ongoing operating cost structure of the business and Nick will take you through the details of both exhibition revenues and costs in a few minutes. Going forward, the evolving COVID-19 pandemic will continue to impact our at home physical events make any outlook for the year uncertain. In 2020, we continue to reshape our portfolio through selective acquisitions that support our organic growth strategies. We completed 11 acquisitions for a total consideration of GBP878 million. The most significant of which were Emailage and ID Analytics and risk and side bite and Shadow Health in STM. And with that, I will now hand over to Nick Luff, our CFO, who will talk you through our results in more detail.

I will be back afterwards. PAUSE For graph up and our usual Q&A.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you. Let me start by providing more detail on the group financials. As Erik said, our three largest business areas delivered continued underlying revenue growth 2020. But with the decline in exhibitions, group revenue was 9% lower on an underlying basis. With exhibitions recording a loss, adjusted operating profit declined by 18% underlying, resulting in an adjusted operating in of 29.2%. Adjusted earnings per share declined by 15% at constant currency, reflecting the fall in operating profit, offset by a lower interest charge. Cash conversion was strong at 97%, leverage to the period end was 3.3 times, including leases and pensions, up from 2.5 times at the end of 2020 because of the hit to EBITDA caused by the loss in exhibition. With the business outside our exhibitions, proving its resilience and continuing to grow, we have been able to increase the full year dividend by 3% to 47p.

On the share buyback, we had deployed GBP150 million when the program was suspended in April, and we have confirmed today that the Board does not intend to resume the program this year. Looking at revenue, the three largest business areas, STM, risk and legal, continues to deliver underlying growth. The growth in those three businesses was more than offset by the reduction in revenue from exhibitions, where we saw an underlying decline of 69%. Overall, group revenues were down 9% underlying. Combined, portfolio and cycling effects were a net drag of 1% while currency was neutral, resulting in total reported revenues down 10% for the year. On adjusted operating profit and risk delivered underlying growth in line with us slightly ahead of underlying revenue growth, with costs carefully controlled in response to the slower revenue growth compared to 2019.

Underlying growth was strong and legal, aided by continued PAUSE efficiency gains. Portfolio effects were a small drag on profits for STM, and larger ones are legal, we lost the profit contribution from some software businesses sold in 2019. Saw a small net benefit from portfolio changes, driven by the profit contribution of recent acquisitions. Exhibitions reported an adjusted loss of GBP164 million compared to a profit of GBP331 million in the prior year, with cost reductions not sufficient to offset the drop in revenue. Currency movements were a small benefit to profit growth, mainly driven by the hedging program in STM. Overall, all group adjusted operating profit was down 17% to just under GBP2.1 billion. Turning to margins. Although FTN's underlying profit growth was in line with underlying revenue growth, margins were higher as they benefited from exchange rate movements, mainly on the hedge book.

Risk and Legal both saw small increases in margin. And Legal, the margin benefit of the strong underlying profit growth was partly offset by dilution from portfolio effects. At the group level, the loss in exhibition resulted in a 2.4% reduction in the total margin of 29.2%. Looking at the group level income statement. Again, you see the impact of exhibitions on both revenues and operating profit. Adjusted net interest expense was GBP160 million, well below the 2019 figure, which included a one-off charge related to an early bond redemption. The effective interest rate on gross debt was 2.1%. The adjusted tax charge was GBP373 million. Adjusted effective tax rate was 19.5%, benefiting from some nonrecurring credits. The rate was still higher than the 17.6% for 2019, which included a larger one off credit.

Adjusted net profit was a little over GBP1.5 billion, down 16% at constant currency. At 80.1p, adjusted earnings per share was down 15% constant currency, 14% at reported exchange rates. This next page shows you what's going on between adjusted and reported profits. Amortization of acquired intangibles increased to GBP376 million, partly due to new acquisitions but also including some impairments. We incurred GBP183 million of one-off costs in exhibitions that we have treated as exceptional. That's made up of GBP61 million of costs relating to council events, GBP82 million of restructuring costs and GBP40 million of impairments. I'll talk more about the restructuring later.

With unusual acquisition accounting adjustment relating to some buyout options for a minority interest in legal, leading to a net acquisition credit of GBP12 million, and that line item is normally a charge. Our venture fund owns a small Palentir, which lifted on NASDAQ in September. Currency as price more than doubled between listing and the year-end, resulting in a mark-to-market gain, which is reflected in the nonoperating credit of GBP130 million. And after all that gave reported profit before tax of just under GBP1.5 billion, down 20% and reported EPS of 63.5p, down 18%. Turning to cash flow., you can see the impact of the loss of net ambitions, which flowed through to EBITDA. Group capex of GBP362 million, equivalent to 5% of revenue, in line with the previous year. As I mentioned earlier, cash conversion remained strong at 97%.

Interest, tax and acquisition-related payments were similar to the prior year and GBP51 million of exceptional costs and exhibitions are paid out in cash. The total free cash flow of just over EUR1.2 billion. And here's how we use that free cash flow, including acquisition spend of GBP878 million, with the largest deals being Emailage and ID Analytics within Risk followed by Shadow Health in STM. Total dividend payments were GBP880 million, and you can also see the GBP150 million, which went on buying back shares prior to holding the program in April. Overall, net debt at the end of the year was GBP6.9 billion, GBP700 million higher than the end of 2019 to GBP600 million lower than at the end of June. Leverage, which we calculate in U.S. dollars was 3.3 times, including leases and pensions or 2.9 times when you exclude them. Looking forward, we would expect to bring leverage back to our historic range over the next couple of years.

Despite the loss in exhibition, the group remains highly cash generative, and our priorities for the use of cash are unchanged. The first of those priorities is an organic investment in the business. And as I mentioned, that has continued at the same sort of level at around 5% of revenues. Acquisition spend depends on the opportunities that arise. 2020 was a year of higher-than-average spend with the two most significant acquisitions, Emailage and ID analytics coming early in the year. We have continued to increase the dividend latte long-term prospects of the business and continue to target cover of two times over the longer term. Due to the loss in exhibitions, leverage is higher than in the recent past. And as I've said, we aim to bring that back into the normal range over the next couple of years, and the strong cash generation should enable us to do that. Historically, we have used surface capital to buy back shares.

With the leverage above our normal range, we don't have surplus capital at the moment, hence, the decision not to resume the buyback this year. Clearly the swing a loss in expirations had a significant impact on the group financials for 2020. With no major events in Europe or North America since early March, revenue dropped by a little over GBP900 million. Operating costs were lower, of course, by about GBP450 million, in part because we're excluding GBP61 million of costs related to council events, which we have treated as exceptional. But with a lower contribution from joint ventures as well, it looks like almost GBP500 million from the profit in 2019 for the loss position in 2020. As Erik said, there is significant uncertainty on the short-term outlook for the business, and we will seek to manage the cost accordingly, being flexible with the event program and minimizing commitments to event costs where we can.

We've also taken action to produce the ongoing overhead of the business. Looking back at 2019, indirect costs were about 40% of the overall cost base of around GBP400 million. We'll be aiming for something around 25% lower than that for indirect costs in 2021, and we would expect to sustain that in future years. A little under half of the reduction in indirect cost was achieved in 2020. The one-off restructuring costs to achieve the reduction of GBP82 million, which is part of the overall exceptional of GBP183 million. This chart shows you the phasing of exhibitions revenues in 2020 by quarter and by geography. For 2021, we currently have showed that around 3/4 of the number of events we held in 2019, and that will be a higher proportion weighted by size of events. As you would expect, we have been moving events back in the calendar whenever possible. Events are running in Japan right now with some limits on visitor numbers.

We have event schedule for China, Japan and elsewhere in Asia in Q2, albeit there will be reduced venue capacity in Tokyo from May in the run-up of the Olympics. Outside of Asia, there are very few events scheduled until Q3 and for Europe, not until near the end of that third quarter. The schedule for Q4 is pretty busy with events scheduled across the world. And finally, on ESG, we continue to track our performance very closely with the same rigor as we do our financial performance. We publish a range of metrics in our annual report and in our corporate responsibility report, I only picked out a few for you here.

The decline in our emissions over 10 years is another example of how we drive change in the company, continuously seeking new ways to do better moving step-by-step, relentlessly improving with no endpoint to that improvement. Of course, 2020's emissions level was helped by the switch to remit working, but the trend downwards is clear. And I should add, these are gross emissions, including offset, emissions for our own operations are already at net zero.

With that, I will hand you back to Erik.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Nick. So just to summarize what we have covered this morning. In 2020, our three largest business areas continue to perform well, with all three delivering underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth. We made further strategic and operational progress and continue to invest behind our strategic priorities, both organically and through acquisitions. Going forward, we expect each of our three largest business areas: STM, Risk and legal, to deliver another year of underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth in 2021, similar to pre-COVID-19 trends.

The timing and pace of recovery in exhibitions remains uncertain. And finally, I would like to thank Sir Anthony Habgood for his extensor leadership as Chair of RELX. For over a decade, he has expertly led the Board helped shape the strategic direction of the company and provided constant and invaluable advice, support and guidance, me and to the executive team.

And with that, I think we're ready to go to questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from the line of Katherine Tait from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Katherine Tait -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, just on the acquisition outlook for the year. I appreciate that sort of timetable in terms of when you're currently sort of scheduling things to come through. Can you help us understand -- how you're thinking about the cost structure -- for the cost base for this year-- across the sort of given the considerable uncertainty that you have over whether or not these events are going to run. Are there incremental cost cuts that you would need to do in that case? Or are you sort of sufficiently happy that the sort of flexibility within your variable costs will enable you to see through any further difficulties going forward?

Then secondly, in STM, good to hear the sort of update on the renewals -- and the progress there. Can you just give us a sense of whether or not any additional pressure on sort of the pricing of the subscriptions at this point. Obviously, it's been a big focus of investors historically, but balancing that with the open access growth that you're seeing? Just tell us a little bit more detail in terms of how the growth is breaking down and how you're anticipating that going into 2021 as well? And then finally, just on legal. With the launch of Lexis Plus, can you just kind of give us a little bit more detail in terms of the corporate rollout? Is this being seen as a sort of an upsell from the sort of the main subscription business today? Or is there a sort of additional product? Like how should we think about the way that corporates are going to shift toward this product over the next year or I? Thank you.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Katherine, it's Nick here. I, just to take your exhibitions question on the managing the costs. I think as we said, the -- if you go back to 2019 as a pre-COVID year, the cost base is about 60% direct that relate directly to the events themselves and 40% indirect or overhead costs. As we indicated, we've taken action to reduce that overhead cost. So I mean it's about GBP400 million base we had in 2019, we're looking for it to run about 25% lower than that in 2021. And obviously, we made a step toward that last year The indirect cost is where you have more variability within the year, of course, depending on which events we run. So we are looking wherever possible to keep those costs low to avoid committing too early to those direct costs, it partly depends on if you can't run an event, how late in the process do you find out, you're not going to run that event.

And obviously, we're trying to the extent we can to run as many as we can. But generally speaking, the direct cost of the events we should be able to manage pretty much depending on what runs and what doesn't run. And the indirect cost, we've taken the action we've taken and that we should see that cost base come down. But clearly, the overall outlook, very much dependent on what revenue ultimately comes in.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

On STM, as I said, in terms of this year's renewals, it appeared that your question was mostly directed at the journal subscription side, which I think I said in my earlier update that for the corporate side, it's gone very well, and we see strong growth across the strong interest across the world when it comes to the academic institutional subscription side, we have seen continued strong response in some key Asian countries, but there is a varying degree of budget pressure across most other markets. And we have spent a significant amount of time working customer-by-customer so far during this renewal cycle. And at this point, when it comes to completion, we're in a similar place to the last few years. You asked what does that mean going forward for '21. I think that we're likely to see a similar type of pattern for the near future. But then in the medium term, it's unclear to us how this will develop. What you also asked what's happening with the open access side and with future budget allocations.

As a service provider to the research and information industry, we are very happy to provide our customers with whichever combination of services that they are looking for, and we work with each one to make sure that we come up with a set of alternatives for them to consider but help them meet their needs and that we do so in a way that provides harder quality to them than other major providers and a lower activity cost to them than other major providers. We expect to continue to gain slight market share on the subscription side as we have over the last few years, and we expect to continue to gain market share in the open access segment faster, just like we have over the last few years. When it comes to Legal, you asked about LEXUS plus.

This was rolled out commercially basically in September in the U.S., and this is an integrated solution where a customer can choose different content set or different modules, different tools, different analytics to use on that integrated solution, and they can also vary their usage or the number of people using and how they use it and the pricing is set up accordingly. What we have seen so far is that new customers that come new or customers that have been away for a while, they overwhelmingly choose LEXUS plus as the solution set and a combination of content sets and analytics on top of that. When it comes to existing customers, we're only in the early stages of rolling out and launching alternative conversion upgrades for those customers. But the response has been very positive.

Katherine Tait -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you and the next question comes from the line of Adam Berlin from UBS. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Adam Berlin -- UBS -- Analyst

Hey, good morning everyone. Thanks for taking three questions please. First question is, can you give any commentary on the run rate of RBA underlying revenue growth into Q1? I think you talked about after the Q3 results, that it was kind of running at around 11.5%, the normal run rate. Any update on that? And maybe specifically, you said in your commentary, Erik, that the transaction revenue was down in March-April and we be recovering. Is that transaction revenue now up kind of year-on-year? Or is it still down year-on-year?

Just a question in RBA and then a question on STM. It's quite a remarkable improvement in EBIT margins this year given the pressures on the top line. I just wanted to understand what's driving that? Is that just efficiency gains? Or is that to do with the mix shift between print and electronic that's helping the margin? And do you think this level of margin can be sustained? And just some commentary around that would be helpful and then thirdly, you mentioned the gain on the Palantir state. Can you just update us what's your current equity stake in Palantir? Thanks very much.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Okay. Adam, what -- I'd just take the second and third of those and let Erik comment on the risk dynamics. The STM margins, as you would have seen from the numbers, the underlying revenue growth in the underlying profit growth are actually in line with each other and the portfolio changes weren't significant. So what actually was driving the margin improvement was currency, mainly from the hedge book. So it's actually -- the business is a bit more biased toward dollars in terms of revenue and a bit more toward sterling and euro in the cost base, but we do-do hedging to smooth and managed [Technical Issues] those currency movements and so the decline [Technical Issues] in Sterling and euro from 2020 to 2019.

Going forward, I think we're -- we've -- I think we said in the guidance, we are expecting operating profit growth to be slightly ahead of revenue growth, which will be marginally beneficial to margins, but then you've got a building portfolio change [Technical Issues] whatever they do and of course, currency, we don't know. So that can go either way. We're not specifically targeting moving margins one way or the other, our objective is more focused on the profit growth relative to the revenue growth. Your question on Palantir, we own -- in rough numbers, about 10 million shares in Palantir, and you can see that in the investments line within the balance sheet. So it's a great investment that our venture fund made in 2006, but and it's a nice thing to have. And the revaluation gain, as you see in 2020 was good and Palentir price is up since the year-end as well. But in overall RELX terms, it's not enormous.

Adam Berlin -- UBS -- Analyst

Sorry, Nick, just to clarify, if the currency stays where it is today, around would you expect the STM margin to revert back toward where it was in 2019? Just help us kind of work that through?

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I will, directionally -- a stronger sterling relative to the dollar would be over time, would be a drag on margins in SEM, but because of the hedge program in, that's quite a while to come through. So it's a little bit difficult to set all the mix of currencies to to say what exactly will happen in one year, but net-net, the pressure from stronger sterling relative to dollars is downward on margins.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Okay, and on the risk question, what you saw, broadly speaking, during the second half was that the transactional revenues continued to strengthen and we finished the year and ended up getting into this year with many of the transactional growth rates that we described before, that some of them have gotten back up into double-digit growth in some of our stronger segments and some of the -- some of the big trends, both business services and insurance that we had last year and to this year, looks similar to what we have looked like in the past. Some of them are even stronger, such as Digital Identity and so on. On the other hand, as I mentioned, there are certain subsegments where we have subscription base slightly larger such as aviation that have been impacted by COVID-19 and continue to be impacted by it that we have slight offsets in physical retail hospital lab travel as well as in some of the aviation segments that are not quite back where we have been in the past. Some are running better than they used to in the past and some are slightly behind. So that's why when we look at the outlook for this, we say that at this moment, we can see six weeks into the year, if you look at this compared to where we were prior to COVID-19, there are some differences, but broadly speaking, it looks pretty similar.

Adam Berlin -- UBS -- Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you and the next question comes from the line of Tom Singlehurst from Citi. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Tom Singlehurst -- Citi -- Analyst

Thank you for taking the question. It's Tom here from Citi. Just a couple actually. Firstly, STM, we had a bit of a full store, or at least it's a decimal point issue maybe, but the nine months accelerated to 2%, then obviously decelerated to to 1% for the full year, and you mentioned print was most likely the sort of the driving force behind that. I'm just wondering, just in general, with print weighted to the second half. I mean should we end up with a profile where you typically deliver better growth for STM in the first half and then consistently see a slowdown into the second half because of the the waiting to print, which presumably continue to be under pressure. So that's the first question and then the second question, I appreciate there's uncertainty for 2021, but can you just give us your best guess of when you'll be back 2019 levels of activity and exhibition? I asked that on the basis that your best guess is probably better than my best guess. Thank you.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Okay, on the first question there regarding STM growth rates. It is true print has historically been weighted toward the second half, that has been the case for many years,which means that on average, we'd expect that to -- as long as it keeps declining, to have a slightly larger impact on the second half, and that happened this year as well. On the other hand, the print ratio in the division keeps going down. And hopefully, as the declines are stabilizing, again, it should become a smaller and smaller issue as we go forward. When it comes to exhibitions? Nick?

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Tom. Well, I mean, as you say, it is a guess. Clearly, the -- when we're able to operate, where we're able to operate, whether there'll be any restrictions, what impact there is on international travel and so on. I think we are in the calendar for this year, we have got, by number, about 3/4 of the events we ran in 2019. It's higher -- a higher proportion of that, if you weighted it by size of event. So it's not that dramatic a decline, but clearly, there could be some revenue attrition. We would expect some revenue ration of those shows that we do run but that's difficult to predict. 2022, we won't have the Olympic disruption in Tokyo, which will -- that's going to be 2020 and that in 2021 and indeed, we end up with more venue capacity in Tokyo, so that will help us. But how the rest of the portfolio evolves around the world, it's difficult to predict, and we'll have to see how we go. So I suspect your guess is as good as mine actually.

Tom Singlehurst -- Citi -- Analyst

No, that's very clear and maybe one more sort of follow-up on exhibitions. Very simply, I mean, is it better that an event takes place this year even if it's massively under capacity just to keep the brand going? Or is it better just to not run them if they're not going to be running at full capacity. Is there any tension there between what's good for you and what's good for the customers, ultimately, what I'm asking.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes. It's a fair question. We would actually do what we think is bet strategically, and that means what's best for the customer. So even if financially, you might be better off not running an event at all because you can save more costs than the revenue unit sort of thing, we would generally -- our bias would be toward running the event if we can and that's the better thing to do for the customer and the longer term. So we'll have to see how it evolves, but that's definitely our bias as we look at the events. What matters, of course, the event, something that the customer values. Is there an audience there that they want to in -- even with smaller attendee numbers, the quality of the audience, if people are -- the companies coming or sending more senior people generally. Either if it's fewer people, you can still get a very positive show and very good feedback from exhibitors. So the bias is definitely to run the event, if at all possible.

Tom Singlehurst -- Citi -- Analyst

Very well, thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you and the next question comes from the line of Nick Dempsey from Barclays. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Nick Dempsey -- Barclays -- Analyst

Yeah, Good morning guys. I've got three questions left. So first of all, when I listen to your comments, Eric, on 2021 for STM, you're saying that renewals for journals have been pretty normal overall. Print smaller in the mix and has an easy comp. Momentum seems good in databases and tools and e learning. So could we hope for a slightly better rate of revenue growth in 2021 at STM than we saw in 2011 to '19 second question, just on exhibitions. Can you talk to us about conversations that you've been having with potential exhibitors in the geographies outside of Asia?

So do you get the sense there is a lot of pent-up demand? Do your customers talk about issues with raising budget to come to an exhibition, even if the sales teams are keen to come? Just some color there? And the third question, just on change in working capital in 2021. Presumably, when you do run exhibitions in the second half, many of your customers will never have had their cash refunded from 2020. So we'll get a negative impact on change in working capital there. But I suppose also, you could hope for more forward bookings in the second half of '21. So interested in how that all balances out for change in working capital to OK.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

So on STM, the outlook for '21. Well, as as you said, there are places where we are hoping for slight improvements in '21. And if you said, can we hope for being even better going forward. Of course, we always hope, but hope is not a strategy, and we need to make sure that we work our way through every business segment, every product launch, every product expansion, every customer, one at a time to try to continue to deliver increased value and therefore drive by the gradual improvement in the growth rate in STM over time, but we do have to acknowledge that a large part of our academic institution market, they all are under different range -- a different range of budget pressures now from what they would have been in an average year in the time period that you described, and that is going to make it slightly harder for us to accelerate in the near term and we do work with each one of our customers to make sure that they are in a position where they can continue to use our tools in the right way for them, given the situation that they're going through. So that we are positioned to get back to all of us growing, hopefully, post pandemic world and therefore, hope for something better.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Nick, on your question on exhibitions and pent up demand. We are in very regular dialogue with the measure exhibitors particularly as we are moving events around in the calendar and moving them back in the calendar and those -- that dialogue is a very high level of engagement, and that tells us that the exhibitors are very interested in the -- when the event is going to take place. They want the event to take place. So in that sense, the demand is there. I expect that people have saved money from not coming to events in prior years, but what matters to them is does coming to the event when it's running, again, add value and they'll make a rational commercial decision and as long as we are providing the value of being there and the commercial value in the contact with customers and the sales impact that has then I think every confidence that the exhibitors will want to be there and we'll come back.

Your question on working capital, you're right, there was some effect of -- because obviously, the schedule of events in Q1 and to some extent, Q2 this year is much thinner than normal. That did have some effect on deposits, although many have been rolled over, of course, from last year. But in RELX terms, it's still -- it's not huge, we actually did 97% cash conversion was actually higher, notwithstanding that dynamic, actually higher overall group cash conversion. So you'll -- if you look at the end of this year, this should actually be a bit of help from -- if the schedule of events in Q1 and Q2 2022, and the bookings for those is busier than we were at the end of this year going and last year going into this year, but these are relatively small numbers in group terms, and I'm not expecting anything dramatically different on cash conversion overall for '21.

Nick Dempsey -- Barclays -- Analyst

Thanks guys.

Operator

Thank you and the next question comes from the line of Patrick Wellington from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Patrick Wellington -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Yeah, morning evverybody. A couple of questions. First of all, on STM, I think you gave us the number of article submissions at 2.5 million. Can you tell us how many were published? I think it was GBP0.5 million last time. And then just stepping back on the STM business. As you say, the number of articles published has, I think, doubled over the last five years and yet your growth is 2% per annum. So are you not sharing sufficiently, would you say, in the growth of this industry? And are you being too good to your customers? And will that dynamic change with open access? Do you think that the shift toward read and publish deals where you're going to get paid on article volume growth as opposed to the reading will be beneficial to the underlying growth rates of the business? And then last sort of on STM picking up on something, I think, Catherine take said at the beginning, which is that your volume of renewals, as you say, has been pretty good at the start of the year. But would you say that the mix in terms of pricing against that volume has been as good?

And finally, on STM, would you say that your relations for your customers have improved? I mean, normally, at this time of year, we get one or two libraries around the world on the academic journal side saying, we've got our deal with El severe. It's been very notable this year the dog bit doesn't bark, that hasn't been the case and that actually, you seem to be, as you say, signing deals quite well. So do you think there's been a big step forward, maybe over the last two years, in terms of your relationships with your STM customers? And then finally, one more, just on legal. Nick, a couple of years ago, you told us that legal organic revenue growth and profit growth wouldn't be so -- quite so out of line with the profit growth so much faster than the revenue growth. But actually, if you look at the table at the back, and you look at the result this year, it's been pretty much the same relationship plus one plus 7. So what should we expect going forward? Will there continue to be that sort of notable difference? Thank you.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Okay, so let me try to go through those from the beginning here. STM articles, just to make sure I'm clear on this. Number of submissions to the to the company over the last five years have almost doubled, number of articles published over that time period have grown a bit over 40%. So the total number of articles published in the year a little over -- now over 550,000 actually slightly or 560,000 articles. So that's the growth rate we have seen in the year, right? And on articles published and you asked about the question of that growth is higher than our revenue growth, and I think that's exactly the point of the strategy that we are pursuing in the primary research publishing market illustrated there with the unit growth, which is that we want to provide higher quality, higher volume with an improving sort of value and price ratio per unit.

So every single year, for the last now 15 years, at least, we have tried to drive for an effective cost per article published effective cost per article access to cost per article used, so the majority of our customers going down every year. That is actually our strategy. When it comes to -- you said a question of what does that mean or when we have an increase in open access, which is where revenue is priced per article on a more explicit basis that we believe that our customers are under varying degrees of budget constraints in the primary research market and as a provider of services to them, we are openly servicing them under any business model and any publishing model that they request from us and our approach in each one is the same that we should do higher quality and lower effect price over time and we don't believe that there's a fundamental advantage or disadvantage financially to providing service under one model or another.

When it comes to the question of mix this year, we said contract renewal completion rate for the academic subscriptions are at the same rate before, you're absolutely accurate is pointing out that in some parts of the world, in many parts of the world, outside of Asia, there is budget pressure on some of our customers, many of our customers and therefore, among the range of options and choices that we are talking to them in that, some of them have opted for solution sets and packages, but in the near term, are slightly, slightly less expensive or lower revenue growth than we would have had in a typical year over the previous 10-year period that you referred to and I think that why at this point, we look at the overall situation for the company or for STN for this year that the outlook is similar to previous years because we also have many subsegments with the current growth rate, the current spend growth is significantly higher than it has been over the last decade or so, in particular, in corporate life sciences and medical education and other types of research management and digital tools that are growing often into double digits.

To add it all up beyond primary research, where we are today in terms of the outlook for the year at the beginning of the year, it is very similar to what we've seen in the last two years, but there are some ups and downs within that. You also asked about a relationship. We have worked very, very hard to try to stay close with our customers and interact with them directly and on your question, which ones speak up publicly, that is something that's entirely up to our customers to decide when they feel that they want to express it using public and when they want to do it directly with us. We prefer to spend our time working with them directly and trying to understand their issues their concerns or their priorities that have been weak their objectives in a way that work.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Your question on the legal Patrick and that differential or a differential between profit growth and revenue growth. You're right [Indecipherable] a decent differential in 2020 not quiet decided why we should go back 2016, '17, '18. We had the differential proper growth, revenue growth was 8%, 9% or even 10% so it's narrow a little bit. I think we're still strategically looking to improve the margins in legal overtime. In any one year depends on effects and probably a change in the lights, but that's maintaing that -- differential between proper growth, differential growth -- is very much what we're trying to do. I think it's very hard to sustain big differentials for a long time, and we have gone through that period now of getting off of the old platforms and the -- taking out the dual running costs, but we are still focused on controlling the cost carefully, automating processes, doing things that are more effective to -- cost more effective way and so it is objective to maintain a differential. It may not be quite seasoned in recent years, but -- and we're still trying to maintain some sort of [Indecipherable]

Patrick Wellington -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Yeah that's great and for Nicholas recall [Phonetic] the question Eric well done. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you and the next question comes from the line of Matthew Walker from Credit Suisse. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Matthew Walker -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Thanks very much. I've got three as well, please. The first is on LEXUS plus, if you're an existing customer, what kind of price uplift do you pay for the Lexus plus? I remember when Westlaw had something similar. They did charge an uplift in price. Second question is you've taken 25% out of the indirect cost base on exhibitions. Does that signal that you think that there will be a sort of permanent diminution or deterioration in the revenue for exhibition. So even when it recovers, it won't get back to 2019 levels? Or do you intend at some point to put that cost back in and then finally, on risk, I guess, maybe you had 3.5% growth or whatever it was in Q4. How do you -- can you just explain the building blocks for risk to get back to more normal pre-COVID levels of growth in 2021 from that Q4 level? And then finally, thanks very much to the Chairman who's been really exceptional.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

On LEXUS plus, it is not a direct replacement with a price uplift. It is actually a set of integrated solutions that can be linked and integrated with machine learning, artificial intelligence, links and so on. And pricing for each customer is going to reflect the services they use how much they use it and also, to some extent, the value that they derive from it. And growth in revenue per customer is largely going to be driven by the increased uptake of the analytics product which LEXUS plus facilitate. So it's a very different way of looking at using a legal information tool, and it will be pricing differently because of that in terms of the different components and usage and the user base. It's modular in a very different way. And therefore, not clear what that will mean for each customer. It depends on what they opt to use, particularly from the analytics suite.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

And Matthew your questions on exhibitions and indirect costs. That's something we're always trying to do across all of our businesses and make sure the operation are as cost effective as possible that's what gives us the resource and the capacity to cope between, cope behind the new market entry and new product development etc. and so that would've happen in instances anyway. We did have a new leader coming to the business he joins in our risk division, taken on the CEO position in exhibitions. He's bringing fresh thinking to it, the situation has given him an opportunity to accelerate things that you perhaps would have done over a period of time, so bringing forward some of the -- restructuring, creating a leaner, quicker organization. We've also reviewed the portfolio of events and removed some of the smaller ones, but with that been ongoing process we will be having anyway as well and overtime of course we'll lauch new events so that will evolve, but this step change in indirect costs, we expect that to be sustainable, and we will continue to work on those and make sure were as efficient as possible

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Rose when it comes to how it looks at the beginning of 2021 and the trends receiding at the market now I think we look particularlly how things were trending right at the end of the year and early in this year and I think that's what's behind the outlook statement we made for this year. We had not try to go back as we do mathematically to figure out what was there for the 2nd half or the 3rd quarter or the 4th quarter. We looked at the trends toward the end of the year and the beginning of this year and if I -- we've said that in many of our business service this segment broad prevention I put the info on were back up to growing double digits with digital identity tools growing even faster than that and when it comes to insurance shopping behavior's coming back to the kind of growth it is before even the driving patterns are still behind but gradually coming up and offsetting that ofcourse is slight soft but still in some of these segments that we mention before, for in particular subscription things in aviation and [indecipherable] So we pay for that together that's what's behind the current outlook for the year.

Matthew Walker -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

One final quick follow- up for you Erik. Have you have any thoughts about selling or merging exhibition's business?

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Well as you might imagine a company of this size as we are. We review every single one of our four business areas as well as all the major sub units each year. Both internally and with a board. We look at what they do today and their position on the group and their strategy. An exhibition is not an exeption to that, we do that every year. But as Nick said at the end of 2019 we moved over one of the most senior executives from risk over to the exhibition business and we did that because we believe that over the next five to 10 years. The exhibition industry would go through a significant digitaltransformation that would increase the value of the industry participants get from that industry. We believe that would be very well positioned to support that, or perhaps even just that transformation of our knowledge is how to build out databases, develop sophisticated analytic, and to leverage the very sophisticated and powerful technology platforms that we already have in the company like traditional. As the pandemic developed of course, we have shifted our attention to supporting during the pandemic and during the recovery and there are many people who believe that the pandemic will accelerate digital transformation in the industry and that believe that by the time that tape debates about the comeback, that the industry will be much further down that path already, and therefore that relatively new position in a much better place before that.

On the other hand, it's very possible that that does not happen at all and we do not believe that you should focus on trying to make that kind of that kind of decision, but it's best to focus on the question of how do we support our customers, right, to the best value we can, and how do we accelerate the digital transformation to the highest value for our customers. And how do we make sure that we're ready to recover. When a condition that you open in most of the world, while keeping the cost structure in line with sloping line. So therefore, the world of expeditions, and we believe that it's probably very similar discussions, taking place, and other exhibitions owners arounf the industry. I don't think they're going to see that significant structural shift at the moment while you're in the middle of a pandemic

Matthew Walker -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Thank you and the next question comes from the line of Makilito Nun from Bounds team. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Makilito Nun -- Bounds team -- Analyst

Good morning. Two questions. The first one on exhibition. You mentioned that there was the theory of material virtual events revenue for the first time. Could you give us a cup bit of color on that. Is it coming from mainly from FMD or like for the physical events? Is it mostly coming from the companies that would have been exhibitors? And is there any significance or, for example, data-driven lead generation revenue involved? And then the other question on risk and business analytics. The with the democrats now back in charge. The FCC again making no noises about data brokers, I know sectors and risk solutions is not technically a Data Broker but do you see any kind of changes in the regulatory environment for VA going forward. Thank you very much.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

I think it's fair to say that we are still experimenting with different revenue models, different formats of virtual events. What exhibitors find helpful what attendees, find helpful where they see value. What they're willing to pay for most of the revenue generated still is biased toward exhibitors, but a few consumer events, then it's more based on attendees but are more traditional b2c events exhibitors but in different revenue models. Whether directly linked to lead generation, or around advertising or promotion or meeting generation and so on. So, I would think, I would say an experimentation, still focused on revenue from the exhibitor to the people who derive the most direct value from, from being at the event.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

As you know we've been in the data industry for many many years, and I've seen quite a fair amount of change in terms of regulatory framework, primarily to do with other geographies and while at the on the surface, increased regulation and complexity might seem that it could be negative, to people actually serving customers with information data database analytics myself. I actually believe that it also provides some opportunities because the harder it is to use information, the more that the harder the penalties is for incorrect use larger the compliance requirements, the more range of customers that we serve.

In order to protect them and to take the right, take the right decisions in terms of how to use paid information how to get value from, from the existing data and I think that we are also well positioned to capture that opportunity to help them do better by adjusting quickly and doing it across our customer industry segments that they don't have to do it at the same time, individually, but rather companies can then be a step begin and help them comply, and help them get the values, while following the new regulations. So, I don't I'm not making any predictions of what exactly will change in regulation, but what is clear is that it will continue to evolve regulations will continue to change, it will continue to get more complex and most likely diverse and, and we see that as partly as a, as a challenge and partly an opportunity to help our customers.

Makilito Nun -- Bounds team -- Analyst

Very helpful, thank you both

Operator

Thank you and the next question comes from the line of Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Konrad Zomer -- ABN AMRO -- Analyst

Hi, good morning gentlemen. It's Konrad Zomer ABN MRO. Two questions, please. The first on exhibitions. I would guess that most of the cost base is variable instead of fixed. And the 25% reduction suggests that, that may be true. But can you share with us what that split is, in your opinion? And if 2021 was to work out to be another difficult year for events. How much further do you think you could and would be willing to reduce the cost base? And my second question, did I hear you say, Nick, you owned 10 million shares in Palantir? Because if that's true, then that reflects a value of about $350 million, which is more financially than I thought you owned in the company, but I might have misheard it. I apologize if I did. Thank you.

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

You heard correctly. That is -- I mean, in round numbers, that's roughly how many shares that we have implanted and that's -- it's mark-to-market. The stake is marked to the value of the shares at the end of the year in our balance sheet. As you see, the share price has been very volatile, but the share price is higher now than it was at the end of December. Your question on exhibitions and variable and fixed costs. I would say the philosophy we have is that no cost is fixed, all costs can be managed over time, but I would -- and I gave these numbers earlier. We do break the cost base down. If you go back to 2019, this is the last normal year, if you like, the overall cost base, which then was about GBP one billion, it's split roughly 60-40 between direct costs that relate directly to the events that you're running.

So hiring the hall and generating the audience and marketing costs and things like that and 40% is indirect costs or overhead costs, so the cost of your own people and offices and so on. When we talk about the 25% reduction through the restructuring we've done, that is referring specifically to the indirect costs and the actions we're taking there. The direct costs, as I said earlier, managing those in a sense, they do vary with the events you run much more readily. Clearly, at some point, it run to even, you have to make some commitments. so we're seeking to minimize those commitments with the uncertainty over the event schedule, but we'll have to see how that pans out for later in the year when most of the events are now scheduled. But overall, it's a quite short-term flexible cost base for that 60%. The other 40% on the indirect cost is -- takes time to manage.

Konrad Zomer -- ABN AMRO -- Analyst

Yeah, very clear. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you and the last question comes from the line of PAUSE Sami Kassab from Exane. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Sami Kassab -- Exane -- Analyst

Thank you and good morning everyone. It's Sami at Exane. three questions, please. The first one is what is the share of revenues from open access in 2020? I think it was high single-digit last year. Have you crossed the 10% mark? Or will you cross it this year perhaps? Secondly, on exhibition, can you comment on the revenue attrition for shows currently taking place in China and Japan? To me, Japan looks like it's down 50% plus. Is that indeed what you're seeing there? And is that what we should expect for Europe or the U.S. as well for the shows to take place later? And lastly, on risk. Could you please elaborate on the revenue side and the growth trends for two subsegments of the division, namely the International division in insurance and business services as well as the Cyber Fraud Solutions. How big are they? And what's their current growth rate, please? Thank you.

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Okay. On the -- on the STMside, you were fairly PAUSE fairly accurate and when you describe where we are in terms of the share of open access of the primary research subsegment of STM. The -- in terms of article cans, we're now into double digits share of our total articles and when it comes to the revenue share, on the margin there, it is becoming slightly less precise because we have a few more of these overall customer agreements where you have subscription and a certain number of open access articles or things included in an overall spend on and it's a bit about how you attribute on the edge there. So I think that when you described it is actually very accurate that I think you said last year were high single digits and perhaps I'll be crossing double digits?

Or are we above to do that? That is exactly probably how many of us would describe it depending on exactly how you distribute revenue in combined deals, but as you have heard, the number of articles received is growing very quickly, and therefore, the number of articles published and the revenues are growing faster, of course, in open access for us than for many other industry participants as well as growing faster for us here than the subscription segment, even though the subscription segment is also...

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Sami, your question on exhibitions and revenue attrition. I mean at the moment, we're running events in Japan and in Russia. We actually haven't had any in China for a few weeks, just the way the can happen to work out, China is -- the venues are open. The revenue -- big picture for those events is very wide. There are restrictions in Japan. You can't have more than 5,000 people at an event at any one time. So a bigger events are being impacted by that restriction, smaller. So the variability in the range of revenues is very broad. To the extent to which the audience or the exhibitor base for in Events, international obviously has a big flows into it. That 50% you mentioned in terms of exhibitor numbers is probably a fair guide for what's going on and revenue will broadly full of that. But I don't think you can read anything into what that means for other geographies, what it means for events, different time later in the year in other parts of the world, I really wouldn't encourage you to extrapolate it. I think the uncertainty -- you can't read too much into what we're seeing in one particular geography, a few events.

So we'll have to see what happens. Your other question on risk. International revenues in insurance and business services are still growing well. That's ahead of the overall average for the division, and that's continued through 2020. They had some disruption to transactional revenues in the same way as the division as a whole, but continue to run well and ahead of the domestic U.S. revenues in both insurance and business services. And fraud prevention, cyber fraud prevention, that is a very strong subsegment that is growing well into double digits. It depends on what exactly you count as cyber fraud, but fraud prevention and identity verification is one of the stronger parts and it's come back strongly quickly.

Sami Kassab -- Exane -- Analyst

And how big are these two subsegments roughly?

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, I -- if you're taking the business services, which is a more international business. And insurance, I guess they're about 5% of 5% plus of those two subsegments. And the fraud -- it's a big part of the business services. The cyberprotection is a reasonably big part in which -- how you categorize the product, but fraud is a big part of -- fraud prevention is a big part of the Business Services segment.

Operator

Thank you very much gentlemen. Thank you and we just received one last question from Rajesh Kumar from HSBC. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.

Rajesh Kumar -- HSBC -- Analyst

I'll get straight to the question. Just in terms of thinking about new investments in various products. As you look ahead in a full track world what are the areas where you're most excited about? And the second one is a quick follow-up on STM. You've provided quite a lot of color in terms of how renegotiation of progressing. Can I request you to give some more color on if the renegotiations are better on the corporate side versus the library -- academic library or are there any differences by geography or segment that we should bear in mind than thinking about the future?

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes, let me just answer the last one first. It's very easy because there has been -- there is a difference between corporate and academic segments. There are also significant differences between the different geographies and also between different types of institutions within those subsegments. Overall, corporate is currently in terms of its discussions and renewals stronger, and we're particularly strong in the largest corporate segment, which is life science-related industry where we have seen strong demand from a wide range of our tools and products. On the first question, I just want to make sure I understood it. When you talked about new investment in product, were you asking across the company? Or did you ask specific? I didn't quite here. Were you specifically focusing on one of the divisions.

Rajesh Kumar -- HSBC -- Analyst

No, across the company. What things are exciting?

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I believe that the most exciting sort of general opportunity for this company, is the transition that we're going through and continuing to go through of moving from electronic reference information, reference tools, databases to more sophisticated, higher value-add analytics and decision tools where you can work with a customer group or an industry group to actually identify and measure the results they get from using different types of analytics and actually measure the value and provide an increasing value through those broader data sets, more sophisticated analytics and new technologies. We look at driving in that direction across all our market segments and all our four divisions.

We have gone the furthest down that path, of course, in the risk divisions, who've been active longer. We have built up the technology capability there earlier. And it's very sophisticated, very powerful. We have leveraged that into the other divisions, and we're primarily building out the solutions that to more sophisticated analytics organically. Sometimes, we are also adding acquisitions when it supports those organic growth strategies and where we are the natural owner directly fits the analytical buildup that we've done internally. But that transition of continuing to invest organically, primarily in analytics and decision tool products, many of them using more advanced machine learning artificial intelligence tool, that is definitely a primary area of investment.

Rajesh Kumar -- HSBC -- Analyst

Thank you very much

Operator

Thank you and this was our last question. Please continue with your closing remarks.

Sir Anthony Habgood -- Chair

I would just like to thank you all for joining us this morning. On this slightly unusual full year results review for us. I look forward to seeing you in person at some point in the future. And hopefully, that will happen at some point over the next year or so. Thank you again for taking the time and for joining us today.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Duration: 92 minutes

Call participants:

Sir Anthony Habgood -- Chair

Erik Engstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Nick Luff -- Chief Financial Officer

Katherine Tait -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Adam Berlin -- UBS -- Analyst

Tom Singlehurst -- Citi -- Analyst

Nick Dempsey -- Barclays -- Analyst

Patrick Wellington -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Matthew Walker -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Makilito Nun -- Bounds team -- Analyst

Konrad Zomer -- ABN AMRO -- Analyst

Sami Kassab -- Exane -- Analyst

Rajesh Kumar -- HSBC -- Analyst

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