Item 1. BUSINESS

Overview

FactSet Research Systems Inc. (the “Company” or “FactSet”) is a provider of integrated financial information and analytical applications to the global investment community. FactSet combines content regarding companies and securities from major markets all over the globe into a single online platform of information and analytics. By consolidating content from hundreds of databases with powerful analytics, FactSet supports the investment process from initial research to published results for buy and sell-side professionals. These professionals include portfolio managers, research and performance analysts, risk managers, marketing professionals, sell-side equity research professionals, investment bankers and fixed income professionals. The Company’s applications provide users access to company and industry analyses, multicompany comparisons, company screening, portfolio analysis, predictive risk measurements, alphatesting, portfolio optimization and simulation, real-time news and quotes and tools to value and analyze fixed income securities and portfolios. With Microsoft® Office integration, wireless access and customizable options, FactSet offers a complete financial workflow solution. The Company’s revenues are derived from subscriptions to services, content and financial applications. Revenues are derived from month-to-month subscriptions to services, databases and financial applications. Investment management (buy-side) clients account for 82.5% of annual subscription value (“ASV”), with the remainder from investment banking firms (sell-side) that perform Mergers & Acquisitions (“M&A”) advisory work, capital markets services and equity research.

Corporate History

FactSet was founded in 1978 and has been publicly held since 1996. The Company is dual listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol “FDS.” Fiscal 2015 marked the Company’s 37th year of operation, its 35th consecutive year of revenue growth and its 19th consecutive year of earnings growth as a public company.

Today, FactSet continues to uphold its key corporate values: having an intelligent workforce; offering exceptional client service; embracing long-term growth strategies; being a thought leader; providing a friendly work environment; performing community service; innovating within the financial industry; and embracing global diversity. As of August 31, 2015, FactSet has a market capitalization of $6.5 billion, up 22.6% over last year. The Company currently has 38 office locations in 21 countries employing 7,360 individuals. In March 2015, FactSet was ranked #48 on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For,” marking the Company’s seventh appearance on the list in the last eight years. FactSet was also recognized as one of the UK’s “Best Workplaces” by the Great Place to Work® Institute UK for the seventh consecutive year, listed in Crain’s “Chicago’s Best Places to Work” for the third year in a row and included in the “2015 Best Places to Work in France” list for the fourth consecutive year. In addition, in July 2015 the Company was awarded the Best Research and Analytics tool at the 2015 Systems in the City Awards.

The following timeline depicts the Company’s history with the financial information services industry since its founding:

M__anagement Changes

FactSet’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Philip A. Hadley, stepped down as CEO effective July 1, 2015. He remains an employee of FactSet and serves as the Chairman of its Board of Directors. During Mr. Hadley’s tenure as CEO, the Company’s annual revenue growth rate exceeded 14%, diluted EPS grew from $0.49 to $5.71 per share and over $2 billion was returned to stockholders in the form of cash dividends and share repurchases. FactSet’s President, F. Philip Snow, was named CEO, effective July 1, 2015. Mr. Snow, age 51, was also elected to the Board of Directors, effective March 16, 2015.

On January 21, 2015, FactSet hired Scott Miller as the Company’s new Executive Vice President, Global Director of Sales. Mr. Miller succeeded Michael Frankenfield and reports directly to Mr. Snow. Mr. Frankenfield, who has been with FactSet since 1989 and had been in his current role since 2009, remains with the Company as a Vice Chairman and works in a senior executive sales advisory position. In addition, on March 16, 2015, FactSet appointed Mark Hale as the Company’s new Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Hale succeeded Peter Walsh and reports directly to Mr. Snow. Mr. Walsh, who has been with FactSet since 1999 and had been in his current role since 2009, remains with the Company focusing on various discrete projects.

Lastly, in June 2015, FactSet hired Edward Baker-Greene, its first-ever Chief Human Resources Officer, to oversee and grow its critically important employee talent pool.

Business Strategy

FactSet’s business strategy is to be a leading provider of integrated financial information and analytical applications to the global investment community by consolidating data content with powerful analytics on a single platform, while providing superior individual desktop client service. Since its founding, the Company has used its dedicated workforce, technological proficiency and unwavering commitment to client service to drive revenue and earnings per share growth as well increase its international reach, headcount, and ultimately, its competitive edge.

In 2015, FactSet engaged in numerous strategic initiatives aimed at building and strengthening key pillars supporting its plans for future growth including its scalability, its rich pool of talent and the pursuit of innovation.

Scale

Operating the business at scale is about optimization, not duplication, of efforts. FactSet is highly focused on wisely allocating its resources to drive the greatest results across its segments. A few years ago, the Company embarked on Project NextGen, a multi-phase initiative designed to transition away from large mainframe computers to a more distributed environment powered by a vast array of smaller, faster and more cost-effective machines. The result is a more modern look and feel, a dramatic increase in the speed of the user experience and a robust platform that will allow FactSet to build innovative, cutting-edge products that meet our clients’ needs today and tomorrow.

The early years of FactSet’s evolution saw significant attention paid towards building a great product and establishing a loyal client following. Though these goals will always remain core priorities for the Company, in looking towards the future, there is a strong need to increase focus on the infrastructure that supports the business. In fiscal 2015, FactSet brought greater definition to these integral components of the business through the realignment of its product management and strategy teams. These efforts have enabled the Company to better scale its operations for future growth while simultaneously enhancing its world-class product offerings and services.

Dedication to Client Service and Support

Client service is a key component of the Company’s business model, with 62,205 users of FactSet spread across 2,976 clients in over 50 countries worldwide as of August 31, 2015. In addition to unlimited access to the Company’s global support desk, each client is assigned a consultant who works to become familiar with the user’s needs and processes. These consultants train users, assist on projects and answer any inquires the client may have. The consultant role has evolved through the years as FactSet has expanded its client base and products. FactSet aims to hire consultants to specialize in the products for user type, so that it can more effectively route support desk calls and create roles within consulting that encourage proactive support. Ninety-seven percent of clients reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with client service during fiscal 2015, consistent with the prior year. Service via email, text, instant messaging, or phone is available 24/7, year-round and includes visits by Company personnel for hands-on personalized desktop service. To enhance support to the Company’s 62,205 users on six continents, approximately 47% of new FactSet employees hired in fiscal 2015 joined as consultants.

As a metric to define the Company’s dedication to client service, FactSet consultants went on approximately 46,000 client visits during fiscal 2015. This client-focused dedication helped FactSet's increase its client retention rate to more than 95% of ASV and 94% when expressed as a percentage of clients, an increase from 93% as of the end of fiscal 2014.

The Employee Base

FactSet continues its commitment to recruit, develop and maintain a talented employee workforce as the Company believes that its future success depends on the retention of skilled personnel. FactSet has been successful in recruiting qualified employees by offering competitive compensation, benefits, equity participation and work environment practices. In June 2015, FactSet named its first-ever Chief Human Resources Officer (“CHRO”), as part of a strategic initiative to increase the investment in both its existing talent pool and the high caliber talent the Company aims to attract to remain competitive. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”), the CHRO will lead an agenda to maintain an ideal cultural balance for the Company’s employees globally and manage how FactSet will invest in career development.

As of August 31, 2015, employee headcount was 7,360 up 10.9% from a year ago. Of this total, 2,238 employees were located in the U.S., 832 in Europe and 4,290 in the Asia Pacific region. In the past 12 months, FactSet added 344 net new employees involved with content collection, 252 net new engineering and product development employees and 124 net new consultants, as the Company continues to focus on servicing its existing client base, expanding its content and improving its applications. Approximately 54% of the Company’s employees are involved with content collection, 24% work in product development, software and systems engineering, another 19% conduct sales and consulting services and the remaining 3% provide administrative support. FactSet believes that its current relations with employees are good, Company management keeps employees informed of decisions and encourages and implements employee suggestions whenever practicable. As of August 31, 2015, approximately 142 FactSet employees within certain French subsidiaries were represented by a mandatory works council. No other employees are represented by a collective bargaining agreement.

FactSet is proud to have received the following accolades in fiscal 2015:

	●	Ranked #48 on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.”

	●	Recognized as one of the UK’s “Best Workplaces.”

	●	Included in the “2015 Best Places to Work in France.”

	●	Named as one of the “20 Great Workplaces in Technology” by Great Place to Work®

	●	Named as one of the “100 Best Workplaces for Millennials” in the U.S. by Fortune.

	●	Listed in Crain’s “Chicago’s Best Places to Work.”

Innovation

FactSet’s focus is turning information into intelligence. Clients rely on timely, accurate data from inputs around the globe to make informed decisions about current exposures, daily trades and portfolio allocations, among other things. FactSet has a market-leading research management solution (“RMS”), which allows clients to easily integrate financial metrics to enhance their workflow and leverage powerful charts, market data and analytics. The Company has also developed the Multi-Asset Class (MAC) Risk Model to enable portfolio managers, advisors and investors to analyze the implications of potential trades, indicate predictive risks and assess the impact of any shock on their portfolios. FactSet Geographical Revenue Exposure (GeoRev), a recently released innovative data set, enhances the way a user can view company revenues by displaying them by geographic country and regional categories.

In 2015, FactSet introduced unique product innovations and applications across its segments which have improved the speed, usability and discoverability of its workstation. In addition to making the application more intuitive, new site-wide search functionality was released in fiscal 2015 and allows users to discover reports and applications. To support data integrity, FactSet released FactSet Portfolio Services to offer turnkey integration, robust and transparent data reconciliation and standardized custom reporting options across regions and asset classes. In addition, the Company introduced several new data sets to its proprietary content, including As-Reported Financials and FactSet ETF Data Analytics.

Acquisitions are also part of FactSet’s strategy. FactSet’s acquisition in February 2015 of Code Red Inc., a provider of research management technologies to the investment community, helped position the Company as a market leader in solving the current and upcoming challenges across the research space. Code Red enables firms to combine their research, unique workflows, and data from multiple systems into an efficient, complete, and repeatable investment process. With the addition of Code Red to FactSet's existing RMS solution, FactSet now offers a complete research management solution for all of our clients' workflows and the Company is confident that the investment community will derive great value from this acquisition. Code Red will also help clients maximize the value of FactSet’s exclusive content sets.

Client Subscription Growth

Annual subscription value at any given point in time represents the forward-looking revenues for the next twelve months from all subscription services currently being supplied to clients. At August 31, 2015, ASV was $1.058 billion, up 9.2% organically from a year ago. The increase in ASV during fiscal 2015 was driven by broad-based global growth from both the buy and sell-side, as FactSet experienced accelerated demand for its fixed income portfolio products, portfolio analytics suite of products, sales of equity attribution and MAC risk models.

During fiscal 2015, FactSet added 183 net new clients (excluding 50 new clients acquired from the acquisition of Code Red), increasing the number of clients by 6.7% over the prior year. The number of new client additions is an important metric for FactSet as new clients typically come on with modest deployments and often experience substantial growth in subsequent years. In terms of users, 7,609 net new users were added during fiscal 2015, the highest year over year growth total ever. FactSet saw healthy progression in the number of users at both its buy-side and sell-side clients as growth in the initial public offering (“IPO”) and M&A marketplaces helped boost the Company’s banking clients in 2015. In addition, FactSet released a new user interface with an emphasis on ease of use and search which contributed to the net user increase.

The following provides a snap shot view of FactSet’s ASV growth over the past 10 fiscal years.

Financial Information on Geographic Areas

Operating segments are defined as components of an enterprise that engage in business activities from which they may earn revenues and incur expenses, whose operating results are regularly reviewed by the enterprise’s chief operating decision maker (“CODM”) to make decisions about resources to be allocated to the segment and assess its performance, and for which discrete financial information is available. FactSet’s CODM is its Chief Executive Officer, who is responsible for making decisions about resources allocated amongst the operating segments based on actual results.

FactSet’s operations are organized into three reportable segments based on geographic business activities: the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. This alignment reflects the Company’s approach to managing the business and transacting in the various markets in which FactSet serves by providing integrated global financial and economic information. Sales, consulting, data collection, product development and software engineering are the primary functional groups within the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific segments that provide global financial and economic information to investment managers, investment banks and other financial services professionals. The U.S. segment services finance professionals including financial institutions throughout the Americas, while the European and Asia Pacific segments service investment professionals located throughout Europe and the Asia Pacific region, respectively. Financial information, including revenues, operating income and long-lived assets related to the Company’s operations in each geographic area are presented in Note 7, Segment Information, in the Notes to the Company’s Consolidated Financial Statements included in Item 8.

The European segment is headquartered in London, England and maintains offices in France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Sweden and Dubai. The Asia Pacific segment is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan with office locations in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mumbai, India. Segment revenues reflect direct sales to clients based in their respective geographic locations. There are no intersegment or intercompany sales of the FactSet services. Each segment records compensation expense, including stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, depreciation of furniture and fixtures, amortization of leasehold improvements, communication costs, professional fees, rent expense, travel, marketing, office and other direct expenses. Expenditures associated with the Company’s data centers, third party data costs and corporate headquarters charges are recorded by the U.S. segment and are not allocated to the other segments. The content collection centers located in India and the Philippines benefit all of the Company’s operating segments and thus the expenses incurred at these locations are allocated to each segment based on a percentage of revenues.

The following charts depict revenues related to each of the Company’s reportable segments.

Products and Services

FactSet offers smart, streamlined workspaces designed for investment managers, investment bankers, hedge funds managers, quantitative researchers and other professionals. Each personalized solution offers standard features such as wireless connectivity, seamless integration of real-time market data, content choices from hundreds of data sets, Microsoft® Office integration and financial screening capabilities. Customizable FactSet workspaces include the following:

Investment Managers

FactSet addresses the challenges unique to investment managers in its integrated platform. With FactSet, a user gains a sophisticated solution that can be customized with the exact data and analytics needed to support the firm's workflow while reducing training, technology, content, and deployment costs. The use of FactSet by investment managers can help them outperform the benchmark, ensure positive investment performance, efficiently find relevant news and information, help decide what to buy, hold or sell, and see performance trends and assess risk. The comprehensive FactSet platform enables investment managers to manipulate data to an unprecedented degree and present data in an infinite variety of formats.

Global Banking & Brokerage Professionals

FactSet enables investment banking professionals to gain in-depth company and industry insight with its integrated data and powerful analytical solutions designed specifically for a banker's workflow. From the beginning of research strategy to the end of the pitch, users can access the tools and information they need to identify new opportunities and track the companies and industries that are important to them and their clients. Key functionality includes the ability for an investment banker to leverage FactSet’s databases to find public and private market opportunities, filings, evaluate transactions, analyze industry trends, monitor market-moving news, and value companies. Sell-side professionals can also generate new buyer lists and investment and deal ideas, gain insight into the global deal market from M&A transactions, corporate activism, governance, connections between people and perform analyses more efficiently with industry-leading integration with Microsoft® Office.

Hedge Funds

FactSet offers solutions for alternative investments, including long/short positions, equity options and futures that allow users to view historical valuations, search millions of filings and transcripts, leverage the MAC risk model and access global economic data. Fund managers can track important events that may affect fund performance in real time for more than 850 indicators in 38 countries and regions, with access to event details minutes after they are released. In addition to analyzing portfolio risk, users can also view predictive risk characteristics, study exposures, and identify systematic sources of relative performance.

Wealth Managers

Using FactSet solutions can allow a wealth manager to stay on top of clients’ portfolios, streamline communication and internal research, create account review documents and analyze multiple asset classes. Managers can also integrate client holdings to track performance alongside real-time market data, and compare portfolios against thousands of global benchmarks, mutual funds, and ETFs. FactSet’s interactive account review documents aid in preparing client-friendly reports that reflect performance, characteristics, and composition of individual accounts as well as overall client or prospect relationships.

Private Equity & Venture Capital

Private equity and venture capital firms can access screening technology and links between funds and their portfolio companies to assist in uncovering new targets which are in line with their investment theory. FactSet solutions offer everything from high-level company snapshot reports to tools that create presentation and deal-ready books. Users can also leverage FactSet StreetAccount to view industry-specific news and metrics and track market receptivity and performance for the latest public offerings.

Researc__hers & Analysts

FactSet solutions provide the information to enhance research analysts’ workflows and provide differentiated ideas and opportunities to their clients. Users can gain country- and regional-level insight with a broad range of macroeconomic, index, interest rate, and other country-level data including overnight summaries, political highlights and trading updates. FactSet’s RMS tools allow the user to easily create, store, and disseminate ideas across their respective firms. Data can be exported and linked using Microsoft® Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

Consultants & Advisors

FactSet’s classification data helps consultants and advisors perform in-depth valuation and peer group analysis with industry-leading classification data that uncovers the multiple sectors. Users can also identify M&A targets, undertake commercial due diligence and understand industry structure and trends. Information on global sector and product-based classification systems, supply chain relationships, geographic revenue sources, fundamentals, private equity and venture capital data, debt capital structure, ownership, governance and activism can people can be accessed directly using software already in place.

Plan Sponsors and Pension Funds

Fund managers can use solutions specifically designed for selecting, analyzing, and incorporating external managers into an overall plan. For both direct and indirect investment, a user can aggregate portfolios, examine asset classes and styles, and analyze securities on a single platform. Managers can also decompose plan-level performance into asset allocation and manager selection effects using FactSet’s Macro Attribution reports. Presentation-ready documents can be created complete with qualitative information and quantitative analytics.

In addition, FactSet’s product and service offerings are customizable to meet the needs of many more professionals within the corporate, legal, governmental and academic fields who are involved in hedge funds, private equity, sell-side research, equity sales, trading, consulting, investor relations, law firms and academic institutions.

Proprietary Content Collection

In order to better satisfy the needs of clients, improve the Company’s competitive advantage and reduce dependency on third-party data providers, FactSet has invested in the procurement of proprietary content. This investment includes the expansion of the Company’s content collection group through several acquisitions including LionShares, Mergerstat, CallStreet, JCF, TrueCourse, europrospectus.com, a copy of the Worldscope database from Thomson, StreetAccount and Revere Data.

In addition to these strategic purchases, FactSet has set up a data collection infrastructure through the creation of content centers for data collection in India and the Philippines, the leasing and expansion of office space and the hiring of new employees. This infrastructure is the foundation of FactSet’s content group which as of August 31, 2015 has grown to 3,975 employees, or 54% of the total employee population. The critical goals for FactSet content each year are to find ways to differentiate its data from that of competitors along with increasing the timeliness, accuracy and completeness of the data and depth of coverage. During fiscal 2015, FactSet made several key enhancements to its proprietary content with the introduction of the following new data sets:

As-Reported Financials

As-Reported Financials is a new data set within the FactSet Fundamentals product line. As-Reported Financials data is available in income statement, balance sheet and cash flow reports via the Company tab in the FactSet workstation. As-Reported Financials allows users to easily view all as-reported reports in one place within the FactSet workstation, benefit from transparency with virtually 100% data auditability and view data in the format that it is presented by each company.

FactSet’s ETF Data & Analytics

FactSet ETF Data & Analytics provides comprehensive reference and analytics data across the universe of exchange-traded products. FactSet ETF Reference allows users to complete exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) due diligence using FactSet’s library of fund-specific data points and information on ETF structure, trading and benchmark indexes. Users can also search across asset classes using a horizontal classification system to understand each ETF’s exposure on a granular level and retrieve exchange listings data, including exchange names, tickers, exchange codes and listing currencies to monitor trades on multiple exchanges in different currencies.

FactSet ETF Analytics data enables users to make valid and reliable comparisons for critical statistics across the universe of ETFs using standardized methodology and consistent snapshots in time, access important portfolio data for equities, fixed income and commodities derived directly from underlying holdings and leverage proprietary ratings and scores to gather objective measures of fund efficiency, risk, tradability and fit relative to benchmarks.

FactSet Geographic Revenue Exposure

FactSet Geographic Revenue Exposure (“GeoRev”) is a comprehensive database that correlates geographic revenue to a proprietary normalized four-level geographic classification structure containing more than 280 countries, areas, regions and super-regions. With GeoRev in Portfolio Analytics, active managers can construct developed market portfolios to gain exposure to emerging markets. Risk managers are able to identify quickly companies whose revenues are dependent upon countries exposed to geopolitical risks, a natural disaster or a health epidemic, for example. The GeoRev data set covers 18,000 global securities with history starting with 2003 for U.S. firms and 2006 for international companies. The data set provides information to investors interested in measuring the multi-dimensional nature of geographic exposure risk for a company, portfolio or benchmark.

Continued proprietary database enhancements and the creation of new data sets are a testament to FactSet’s commitment to increase user satisfaction and exceed client expectations. The Company provides workflow and productivity solutions, and by expanding its proprietary data content sets, FactSet is best positioned to solve its clients problems in many areas of the market.

Third Party Data Content

FactSet aggregates third party content from more than 220 data suppliers, 100 news sources and 80 exchanges into its own dedicated online service which the client accesses to perform their analyses. FactSet carries content from premier providers such as Thomson Reuters, Standard & Poor’s, Axioma, Inc., Interactive Data Corporation, LLC, Dow Jones & Company Inc., Northfield Information Services, Inc., Barclays Capital, Intex Solutions, Inc., Bureau van Dijk, ProQuote Limited, MSCI Barra, SIX Financial Information USA Inc., Morningstar, Inc., Russell Investments, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, NYSE Euronext, London Stock Exchange, Tokyo Stock Exchange, NASDAQ OMX, Australian Securities Exchange and Toyo Keizai. Content fees billed to the Company may be on a fixed or royalty (per client) basis.

FactSet seeks to maintain contractual relationships with a minimum of two content providers for each major type of financial data, though certain data sets on which FactSet relies have a limited number of suppliers. The Company makes every effort, when reasonable, to locate alternative sources to ensure that FactSet is not dependent on any one third party data supplier. The Company has entered into third party content agreements with varying lengths, which in some cases can be terminated on one year’s notice at predefined dates, and in other cases on shorter notice. No single vendor or data supplier represented more than 10% of FactSet's total data expenses in any fiscal year presented.

Data Centers

FactSet’s business is dependent on its ability to process substantial volumes of data and transactions rapidly and efficiently on its networks and systems. The Company’s global technology infrastructure supports its operations and is designed to facilitate the reliable and efficient processing and delivery of data and analytics to its clients. FactSet’s data centers contain multiple layers of redundancy to enhance system performance, including maintaining, processing and storing data at multiple data centers. User connections are load balanced between data centers. In the event of a site failure, equipment problem or localized disaster, the remaining center has the capacity to handle the additional load. FactSet continues to be focused on maintaining a global technological infrastructure that allows the Company to support its growing business.

FactSet launched its multi-phase project, Project NextGen, a few years ago to evolve away from large mainframe computers to a more distributed environment powered by a vast array of smaller, faster, and more cost-effective machines. The Company operates fully redundant data centers in Virginia and New Jersey. These data centers handle FactSet’s entire client capacity. In addition, FactSet maintains a vast private wide area network that provides a high-speed direct link between the client’s local network and the data content and powerful applications found on the Company’s mainframe machines.

Research and Product Developmen__t Costs

A key aspect of the Company’s growth strategy is to enhance its existing products and applications by making them faster and the data within them more reliable. FactSet strives to rapidly adopt new technology that can improve its products and services. Research and product development costs relate to the salary and benefits for the Company’s product development, software engineering and technical support staff and, as such, these costs are expensed when incurred within cost of services as employee compensation. The Company expects to allocate a similar percentage of its workforce in future years in order to continue to develop new products and enhancements, respond quickly to market changes and to meet the needs of its clients efficiently.

Competition

FactSet is part of the financial information services industry, which provides accurate financial information and software solutions to the global investment community. According to industry reports, global spend on market data and analysis grew 4.1% to $26.5 billion in 2015 compared to the prior year. This extremely competitive market is comprised of both large, well-capitalized companies and smaller, niche firms including market data suppliers, news and information providers and many of the content providers that supply the Company with financial information included in the FactSet workstation. The largest competitors to FactSet are Bloomberg L.P., Thomson Reuters Inc. and Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ. Bloomberg’s market share grew to 32.0%, up from 31.7% a year ago while Thomson Reuters’ was approximately 25.9%, down slightly from the prior year. Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ market share is believed to be between 3% and 5%, comparable to that of FactSet. Other competitors and competitive products include online database suppliers and integrators and their applications, such as, MSCI Inc., Morningstar Inc., Markit Ltd., SunGard, Dealogic PLC, Interactive Data Corporation, Dow Jones & Company, Inc., BlackRock Solutions, The Yield Book, Inc., RIMES Technologies Corporation and Wilshire Associates Inc. Many of these firms offer products or services which are similar to those sold by the Company. FactSet’s development of its own robust sets of proprietary content combined with its news and quotes offering have resulted in more direct competition with the largest financial data providers.

Despite competing products and services, FactSet enjoys high barriers to entry and believes it would be difficult for another vendor to replicate quickly the extensive databases the Company currently offers. Through its in-depth analytics and superior client service, FactSet believes it can offer clients a more complete solution with one of the broadest sets of functionalities, through a desktop user interface or data feed. In addition, FactSet's applications, including its client support and service offerings, are entrenched in the workflow of many financial professionals given the downloading functions and portfolio analysis/screening capabilities they offer. As a result, the Company's products have become central to investment analysis and decision-making for clients.

Intellectual Property and other Proprietary Rights

FactSet has registered trademarks and copyrights for many of its products and services and will continue to evaluate the registration of additional trademarks and copyrights as appropriate. FactSet enters into confidentiality agreements with its employees, clients, data suppliers and vendors. The Company seeks to protect its software, documentation and other written materials under trade secret and copyright laws. While FactSet does not believe it is dependent on any one of its intellectual property rights, the Company does rely on the combination of intellectual property rights and other measures to protect its proprietary rights. Despite these efforts, existing intellectual property laws may afford only limited protection.

Government Regulation

The Company is subject to reporting requirements, disclosure obligations and other recordkeeping requirements per the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the various local authorities that regulate each location in which FactSet operates in. The Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, FactSet Data Systems, Inc., is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (“FINRA”) and is a registered broker-dealer under Section 15 of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. FactSet Data Systems, Inc., as a registered broker-dealer, is subject to Rule 15c3-1 under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, which requires that the Company maintain minimum net capital requirements. The Company claims exemption under Rule 15c3-3(k)(2)(i).

Corporate Information, including Internet Address

FactSet was founded as a Delaware corporation in 1978, and its principal executive offices are in Norwalk, Connecticut. The mailing address of the Company’s headquarters is 601 Merritt 7, Norwalk, Connecticut 06851, and its telephone number at that location is (203) 810-1000. The Company’s website address is www.factset.com.

Available Information

Through the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website (http://investor.factset.com), FactSet makes available the following filings as soon as practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC: the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, Proxy Statements for the annual stockholder meetings, and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All such filings are available free of charge.

FactSet broadcasts live its quarterly earnings calls via its investor relations web site. Additionally, the Company provides notifications of news or announcements regarding its financial performance, including SEC filings, investor events, press and earnings releases, and blogs as part of its investor relations web site. The contents of these web sites are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this report or in any other report or document the Company files and any reference to these web sites are intended to be inactive textual references only.

In addition, the Company’s Code of Ethical Conduct for Financial Managers and Code of Business Conduct and Ethics are posted in the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website and the same information is available in print to any stockholder who submits a written request to the Company’s Investor Relations department at its corporate headquarters. Any amendments to or waivers of such code required to be publicly disclosed by the applicable exchange rules or the SEC will be posted on the Company’s website. The charters of each of the committees of the Company’s Board of Directors are available on the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website and the same information is available in print, free of charge, to any stockholder who submits a written request to the Company’s Investor Relations department at its corporate headquarters.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

The following table shows the Company’s executive officers as of August 31, 2015:

Name of Officer	Age	Office Held with the Company	Officer Since
F. Philip Snow	51	Chief Executive Officer	2014
Mark J. Hale	42	Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer	2015
Scott G. Miller	47	Executive Vice President, Global Director of Sales	2015
Maurizio Nicolelli	47	Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer	2009
Edward Baker-Greene	52	Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer	2015
Rachel R. Stern	50	Senior Vice President, Strategic Resources and General Counsel	2009

F. Philip Snow – Chief Executive Officer_._ Mr. Snow was named Chief Executive Officer effective July 1, 2015. Prior to that, Mr. Snow held the title of President. He began his career at FactSet in 1996 as a Consultant, and in 1998 moved to the Asia Pacific region to hold positions in Tokyo and Sydney. After moving back to the U.S. in 2000, Mr. Snow held various Sales leadership roles before assuming the role of Senior Vice President, Director of U.S. Investment Management Sales in 2013. Mr. Snow received a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and a Masters of International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of the CFA Institute.

Mark J. Hale – Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Hale joined the Company in 1995 as a software engineer. During his 20-year tenure at FactSet, Mr. Hale has held several positions of increasing responsibility including Head of Software Engineering, and most recently, Senior Vice President, Director of Content Operations. Mr. Hale received a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Scott G. Miller – Executive Vice President, Global Director of Sales. Mr. Miller joined FactSet in January 2015. Previously, Mr. Miller was employed by Bloomberg L.P., where he had executive responsibility for enterprise accounts. Mr. Miller was a founding executive and Global Chief Operating Officer of Bloomberg’s Enterprise Solutions Group, responsible for the strategy and execution of that group’s major initiatives and day-to-day management. Mr. Miller spent 10 years in sales leadership roles within Bloomberg’s Financial Products Group, including Head of Sales, Americas; Regional Sales Manager, Americas; Regional Sales Manager, EMEA; and National Sales Manager, EMEA. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Miller worked in fixed income sales at Bank of Montreal in London. He started his career in 1992 at Nesbitt Thomson in Montreal, Canada and is a graduate of St. Francis Xavier University.

Maurizio Nic__olelli – Senior Vice President, Chief Financ__ial O__fficer. Mr. Nicolelli joined the Company in 1996 as the Senior Accountant and held the position of Chief Accountant from 1999 to 2001. From 2002 to 2009, he served as Vice President and Comptroller of the Company. From October 2009 to 2013, he occupied the position of Senior Vice President, Principal Financial Officer and was named Chief Financial Officer in fiscal 2014. Prior to joining FactSet, he was employed at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. He holds a B.S. degree in Political Science from Syracuse University and an M.B.A. degree in Accounting from St. John's University. Mr. Nicolelli is a CPA licensed in the state of New York.

Edward Baker-Greene – Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer. Mr. Baker-Greene joined FactSet in June 2015 from Voya Financial, formerly ING, U.S., where he was Head of Human Resources for Retirement Solutions, Operations, and Information Technology. Previously, Mr. Baker-Greene worked at Fidelity Investments for 13 years. At Fidelity, he was a part of the Personal and Workplace Investing division, where he held roles in business and human resources capacities, including Senior Vice President/Managing Director, Relationship Management. Mr. Baker-Greene began his professional career as a lawyer focusing first on employment law and subsequently recruiting, talent management, and human capital management. Mr. Baker-Greene received a B.A. from Tufts University and a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Rachel R. Stern – Senior Vice President, Strategic Resources and General Counsel_._ Ms. Stern joined FactSet in 2001 as General Counsel. In addition to the Legal Department at FactSet, she is responsible for Investor Relations; Facilities and Real Estate Planning; and Third-Party Content and Strategic Partnerships. Ms. Stern is admitted to practice in New York, and Washington D.C., and as House Counsel in Connecticut. Ms. Stern received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from the University of London and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Additional Information

Additional information with respect to the Company’s business is included in the following pages and is incorporated herein by reference:

		Page(s)
Five-Year Summary of Selected Financial Data		21
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations		22-41
Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk		42
Note 1 to Consolidated Financial Statements entitled Organization and Nature of Business		54
Note 7 to Consolidated Financial Statements entitled Segment Information		63