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RELX sells information and data analytics to businesses, scientists, lawyers, and doctors, mostly through subscriptions.
RELX is a data company wearing a publisher's coat. It takes messy, scattered information — court rulings, scientific papers, risk statistics — and turns it into clean, searchable tools that professionals pay for month after month, like a gym membership for lawyers and scientists. Three main pieces make up the business: risk analytics, scientific and legal information, and exhibitions.
The biggest piece, risk, does things like verify someone's identity, screen for fraud, and help insurers price policies. The second piece sells subscriptions to scientific journals and legal research tools, where lawyers and researchers rely on it because it saves them hours. The third piece runs big in-person trade shows around the world. Exhibitions took a hit during the pandemic but have bounced back as people want to meet face to face again. Most of the money comes from repeat subscriptions, which makes revenue steadier than a typical publisher's.
The company started long ago as a magazine and book publisher, then figured out that owning the data behind the content was far more valuable than printing it. So it bought and built analytics businesses and sold off most of the old print titles. Today the appeal to investors is that customers rarely cancel — switching costs are high because the tools get woven into daily work. RELX uses its cash to pay dividends, buy back shares, and invest in AI tools that squeeze more insight from its data. The risk is that AI could make it easier for competitors to build similar tools, so the company is racing to stay ahead with its own.
Saved answer · last researched 9 Oct 2026