Item 1. Business

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Overview

MSCI offers content, applications and services to support the needs of institutional investors throughout their investment processes. Clients look to us for an integrated view of the drivers of risk and return in their portfolios, broad and deep asset class coverage, quality data, an objective perspective and innovation.

MSCI clients include asset owners (pension funds, endowments, foundations, central banks, family offices and insurance companies), asset management firms (mutual funds, hedge funds, providers of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”)), private wealth managers and financial intermediaries (banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, custodians, trust companies and investment consultants).

We provide products and services that support global investing and for decades have helped institutional investors address challenging investment and risk problems. Equity factor investing was pioneered in the 1970s based on research, data and analytics developed by Barra – part of MSCI since 2004. We continue to innovate in the development of indexes and analytical models; provision of ratings and analysis that enables institutional investors to integrate environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) factors into their investment strategies; and analysis of real estate in both privately and publicly owned portfolios.

Clients use our content and applications to help construct portfolios and allocate assets. Our analytical tools help them measure and manage risk across all major asset classes. Our powerful computational and reporting engine can process large multi-asset class portfolios on an intra-day basis. We offer clients the flexibility to tailor MSCI products and services and integrate them into their own workflows.

Primary Uses of MSCI Products and Services

Institutional investors use MSCI’s offerings to achieve a wide range of objectives.

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Benchmarking—Institutional investors worldwide use indexes from MSCI to evaluate the performance of their funds. MSCI indexes are among the most widely used benchmarks for multi-country passive and active equity strategies worldwide.

Index-linked product creation—MSCI indexes are used as the basis for products such as ETFs. MSCI is a leading provider of equity indexes to the equity ETF industry, with approximately 800 ETFs based on MSCI equity indexes listed around the world.

Portfolio construction—Asset managers use our research, data and multi-asset class and multi-currency models to help build portfolios and allocate assets. Our global equity content sets provide tools for portfolio optimization and back-testing. Asset managers also construct portfolios by replicating or tracking MSCI indexes.

Risk management—MSCI’s tools for statistical analysis provide clients with a broad range of risk calculations on a daily and weekly basis. One of our best-known statistical models calculates Value at Risk (“VaR”), which estimates the largest possible loss that could be incurred in a portfolio at a specific confidence level over a given period of time. We offer an extensive library of stress testing scenarios that enable clients to design and run stress tests that reflect their own investment parameters.

ESG integration—MSCI ESG Research provides in-depth ratings and analysis of ESG-related business practices of thousands of companies worldwide. Our ratings and analysis can help institutional investors pursue their sustainable long-term investing goals and uncover risks and opportunities that traditional investment research may not detect.

Performance attribution—MSCI offers a suite of performance attribution models with which to analyze the sources of portfolio performance on an absolute or relative basis. Our tools are multi-asset class and multi-currency, and we collect market and asset data daily. A streamlined workflow makes attribution reporting intuitive and efficient.

Regulatory reporting—We help institutional investors comply with regulatory reporting requirements around the world. Our processing capability enables us to create and implement a broad range of customized reports.

Our Business Model

Our principal business model is to license annual, recurring subscriptions to our products and services for an annual fee, paid up-front. Fees may vary by product or service, number of users or volume of services. Recurring subscriptions include MSCI’s managed services offering, whereby we oversee the production of risk and performance reports on behalf of clients.

We also derive revenue from clients who use our indexes as the basis for index-linked investment products such as ETFs or as the basis for passively managed funds and separate accounts. These clients commonly pay us a license fee for the use of our intellectual property based on the assets under management (“AUM”) in their investment product.

Certain exchanges use our indexes as the basis for futures and options contracts and pay us a license fee for the use of our intellectual property based on their volume of trades.

Clients also subscribe to periodic benchmark reports, digests and other publications associated with our real estate products.

We also realize one-time fees related to customized reports, historical data sets, and certain implementation and consulting services, as well as from certain products and services that are purchased on a non-renewal basis.

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Revenues for the year ended December 31, 2015 totaled $1,075.0 million, up 7.9% from the prior year period. Sources of revenue consisted of $857.5 million in recurring subscriptions, $198.0 million in revenue from asset-based fees, and $19.5 million in non-recurring revenue.

Our Product Segments

MSCI operates in four segments: Index, Analytics, ESG and Real Estate. Because the operating segments of ESG and Real Estate do not meet segment disclosure reporting thresholds, ESG and Real Estate are combined and presented as part of the All Other segment for reporting purposes. This segment structure reflects a change that we made to our reportable and operating segments during the year ended December 31, 2015 to better align our financial reporting with how our products and services are offered to our clients, as well as to offer additional insight into how the Company is being managed. See Note 1, “Introduction and Basis of Presentation,” and Note 13, “Segment Information,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included herein for additional information on our current segment reporting structure.

The following table presents operating revenue and Adjusted EBITDA by reportable segment for the year ended December 31, 2015:

		Year Ended December 31, 2015
		Operating Revenues				Percentage of total (%)				Adjusted EBITDA(1)				Percentage of total (%)
		(in thousands)
Index		$	558,964				52.0	%		$	392,987				81.6	%
Analytics			433,424				40.3	%			95,468				19.8	%
All Other			82,625				7.7	%			(6,758	)			(1.4	%)
Total		$	1,075,013				100.0	%		$	481,697				100.0	%

(1)	See Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Results of Operations” for the definition of Adjusted EBITDA and discussion of Adjusted EBITDA and Segment Results.

Index Segment

MSCI’s indexes are used in many areas of the investment process, including index-linked product creation and performance benchmarking, as well as portfolio construction and rebalancing, and asset allocation. MSCI currently calculates over 180,000 global equity indexes and approximately 8,300 custom indexes. As of December 31, 2015, 97 of the top 100 global asset managers licensed equity indexes from MSCI (as ranked by Pensions & Investments (“P&I”) in its report dated April 2015).

MSCI’s global equity indexes are designed to measure returns across a wide variety of equity markets (e.g., Europe, Japan, USA, emerging markets), sizes (e.g., small and large capitalization), styles (e.g., growth, value), industries (e.g., banks, media), strategies (e.g., active, passive, factors) and themes (e.g., economic exposure). MSCI-branded ESG indexes are designed to help clients incorporate ESG considerations into their investment processes. MSCI’s real estate indexes are designed to measure the performance and risk indicators of our clients against their peers.

Clients receive data directly from MSCI or from one or more third-party providers of financial information that distributed our equity index products worldwide as of December 31, 2015.

The performance of MSCI’s equity indexes is also referenced frequently when selecting investment managers, assigning return benchmarks in mandates, comparing performance and providing market and academic commentary. The performance of certain of our equity indexes is reported on a daily basis in the financial media.

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Products in MSCI’s Index segment include:

	•		MSCI Global Equity Indexes. MSCI Global Equity Indexes are our flagship index products. As of December 31, 2015, we calculated indexes that covered more than 80 countries in developed, emerging and frontier markets, as well as various regional and country indexes built from the component country indexes. These indexes include the MSCI ACWI, MSCI World, MSCI EAFE, MSCI ACWI IMI, MSCI Emerging Market and MSCI USA Indexes. We also offer industry indexes, value and growth style indexes and large-, mid-, small- and micro-capitalization size segment indexes. We believe that MSCI Global Equity Indexes are the most widely used benchmarks by cross-border equity funds. A number of asset owners use the MSCI ACWI IMI Indexes as the policy benchmark for their equity portfolios. We also continue to enhance and expand successful product offerings, as evidenced by the launch of new indexes (e.g., the MSCI Core Infrastructure Indexes, MSCI Adaptive Hedge Indexes, MSCI Adaptive Capped Indexes, MSCI Islamic Indexes M-Series, MSCI India Domestic Indexes, MSCI Indexes with the ITG Fair Value Model, and MSCI Enhanced Value Indexes) to be used as the basis for ETFs and other financial products.

	•		MSCI Custom Indexes. In recent years, MSCI has significantly increased the number of custom indexes it calculates. MSCI currently calculates approximately 8,300 custom indexes, which apply a client’s criteria to an existing MSCI index. Examples of customization criteria include liquidity screening, currency hedging, tax rates, stock exclusions or special weighting. Custom indexes can reflect specific investment criteria, such as socially responsible investment requirements or regulatory constraints. They can be used for back-testing strategies or developing specialized investment products, minimizing portfolio tracking error and constructing index-linked products.

	•		MSCI Factor Indexes. MSCI Factor Indexes seek to address an emerging trend among institutional investors and asset managers whose asset allocation processes include risk groupings such as growth, income, inflation, volatility and liquidity. MSCI Factor Indexes reflect components of equity return that were once considered added value, or alpha, but that can be attributed to sources of systematic return such as value, size, quality, yield, volatility, or momentum. MSCI offers a comprehensive suite of factor index families, including the MSCI Minimum Volatility Indexes, high-exposure factor indexes (e.g., the MSCI Enhanced Value, MSCI Equal Weighted and MSCI High Dividend Yield Indexes), single high capacity factor indexes (e.g., the MSCI Quality Tilt, MSCI Dividend Tilt, MSCI Size Tilt, MSCI Momentum Tilt, MSCI Volatility Tilt and MSCI Value Weighted Indexes) and combinations of factor indexes and multi-factor indexes, such as the MSCI Diversified Multiple-Factor Indexes.

	•		MSCI ESG Indexes. MSCI ESG Indexes are designed to meet the growing demand for indexes that integrate ESG factors into benchmarks to measure performance for use by institutional investors who wish to adopt a long-term sustainable investment view. They enable clients to issue index-based ESG investment products, to benchmark the performance of ESG portfolios, and to measure and report on compliance with ESG mandates. The MSCI ESG Indexes include: Sustainability Indexes that use a selection process based on MSCI ESG Ratings; Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Indexes that exclude companies based on certain values, norms or ethical standards; Environmental Indexes, including Low Carbon Indexes, Fossil Fuels Exclusion Indexes and benchmarks that represent the markets for renewable energy and clean technology; and custom indexes based on client-defined ESG specifications.

	•		MSCI Real Estate Indexes. MSCI’s Real Estate indexes cover sectors, factors, liquidity and custom indexes that span the real estate market.

	•		Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS ®__). GICS was developed and is maintained jointly by MSCI and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services, LLC, a subsidiary of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“Standard & Poor’s”). This classification system was designed to respond to clients’ needs for a comprehensive, consistent and accurate framework for classifying companies into industries. GICS is widely accepted as an industry analysis framework for investment research, portfolio management and asset allocation. MSCI’s equity index products classify constituent securities according to GICS. We

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	offer GICS Direct, a joint product of MSCI and Standard & Poor’s. GICS Direct is a database comprising over 44,000 active companies and more than 54,000 securities classified by sector, industry group, industry and sub-industry in accordance with the proprietary GICS methodology.

Analytics Segment

MSCI’s Analytics products offer institutional investors an integrated view of risk and return. Our research-enhanced content and tools help institutional investors understand and control for market, credit, liquidity and counterparty risk across all major asset classes, spanning short, medium and long-term time horizons.

MSCI’s Analytics platform includes Barra multi-factor models; pricing models; methodologies for performance attribution; RiskMetrics models for statistical analysis, such as VaR; and tools for security analysis, portfolio optimization, back testing and stress testing.

Our global risk and performance engine is built for scale, enabling clients to conduct complex simulations and stress tests.

Analytics products from MSCI include:

	•		RiskMetrics RiskManager. We believe that RiskMetrics RiskManager is an industry leader in VaR simulation and stress testing. Clients use RiskManager for daily analysis, measuring and monitoring of market and liquidity risk at fund and firm levels, sensitivity and stress testing, interactive what-if analysis, and counterparty credit exposure. RiskManager is a highly scalable platform accessed by clients via a license to a secure, interactive web-based application service, and is offered as an outsourced risk reporting service or as a web service in which a client’s systems access RiskMetrics’ core risk elements by connecting directly to MSCI’s systems.

	•		BarraOne. BarraOne, powered by the Barra Integrated Model (“BIM”), provides clients with global, multi-asset class risk analysis using Barra’s fundamental factor methodology. BarraOne also includes VaR simulation, stress testing, optimization and performance attribution modules that enable clients to manage multi-asset class portfolios, carry out risk allocation budgeting, manager monitoring, performance attribution and regulatory risk reporting.

	•		Barra Portfolio Manager. Barra Portfolio Manager is an integrated risk and performance platform that is designed to help fund managers and their teams gain additional portfolio insight, manage a more systematic investment process and make faster, more informed investment decisions. The hosted interactive user interface allows users to analyze risk and return, conduct pre-trade what-if analysis across a number of scenarios and construct portfolios using the Barra Optimizer. It also allows users to decompose the risk and attribute the return of their portfolios according to Barra models. The platform supports optional data management services that allow users to outsource the loading and reconciliation of their portfolio and other proprietary data.

	•		Barra Equity Models Direct. Barra Equity Models Direct delivers our proprietary risk data to clients for integration into their own software applications. Barra Equity Models Direct includes Barra Global Total Market Models, Barra Regional Equity Models and Barra Single Country Equity Models. The proprietary risk data in Barra Equity Models Direct is also available via third-party providers. We offer the proprietary risk data from global, regional and single country Barra risk models and most of these models are available with short-term and long-term time horizons so that clients can select the risk data that best suits their investment processes.

	•		Barra Integrated Model (“BIM”)__. BIM provides a detailed view of risk across markets and asset classes, including currencies, equities, fixed income, commodities, mutual funds and hedge funds. It begins by identifying the factors that affect the returns of many asset classes, including equity and fixed income securities and currencies. These factors are then combined into a single global equity model that forecasts the risk of multi-asset class global portfolios.

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	•		Barra Aegis. Barra Aegis is a sophisticated software application for equity risk management and portfolio analysis that is powered by our proprietary equity risk data. It is deployed by the client as a desktop application. Barra Aegis offers an integrated suite of equity investment analytics modules, specifically designed to help clients actively manage their equity risk against their expected returns. It also enables clients to construct optimized portfolios based on client-specified expectations and constraints.

	•		HedgePlatform. HedgePlatform, a reporting service, allows clients that invest in hedge funds, including funds of funds, pension funds and endowments, to measure, evaluate and monitor the risk of their hedge fund investments across multiple hedge fund strategies. MSCI collects position-level information from hedge funds on a monthly basis and provides clients with risk information for each individual hedge fund in which they invest as well as aggregate risk information for their overall portfolio of hedge funds. Clients who use RiskManager to measure the risk of their own holdings can further integrate the positions collected via our HedgePlatform service to allow computation of risk across their entire portfolio, while the confidential and proprietary nature of the underlying hedge fund holdings is maintained. HedgePlatform reports include statistics such as exposure (e.g., long, short, net and gross), sensitivities, scenario analysis, stress tests and VaR analysis.

	•		InvestorForce. InvestorForce products offer performance reporting solutions to the institutional investment community in the United States by providing investment consultants with an integrated solution for daily monitoring, analysis of and reporting on institutional assets. InvestorForce products also offer clients access via a web portal to a database that includes portfolio analytics and transaction and holdings information, which is updated in real time as data is collected from custodial banks and fund managers.

	•		WealthBench. WealthBench is an investment planning platform for private banks, financial advisers, brokerages and trust companies. WealthBench assists users in delivering informed, tailored investment planning proposals for high net worth individuals reflecting their needs, goals and risk tolerances while remaining consistent with firm-driven investment and risk-based policies. WealthBench incorporates robust analytics, market-consistent inputs and transparent methodologies.

	•		CreditManager. CreditManager is a portfolio credit risk management system used primarily by banks to calculate economic capital, facilitate risk-based pricing and measure credit risk concentrations. The application is designed to consolidate and compare risks and opportunities across multiple credit exposures including bonds, credit derivatives and traditional lending.

All Other Segment—ESG

MSCI’s ESG products offer research and ratings that enable institutional investors to assess risks and opportunities arising from ESG issues, as well as evaluate both individual securities and investment portfolios. MSCI develops screening and modeling tools that allow users to align investments with a set of ESG values such as perceptions of certain business activities, religious views or international norms; generate buy/restricted lists of companies that meet those criteria; understand the implications of restrictions on portfolios; and examine company specific profiles. The tools also include the ability to monitor a company’s adherence to internationally recognized norms and principles. Subscribers to MSCI ESG Research included 47 of the top 50 global asset managers, as of December 31, 2015 (as ranked by P&I in its report dated April 2015).

ESG products from MSCI include:

	•		MSCI ESG Research. MSCI ESG Research has a dedicated, in-house ESG research team, which enables MSCI to control, monitor and manage data quality. Our research analysts assess thousands of data points across 34 ESG issues, covering more than 5,900 global companies in more than 70 sectors, including more than 150 fixed-income issuers, as of December 31, 2015. MSCI ESG Research led nine major categories, including “Best SRI Research” firm and “Best Corporate Governance” firm in the

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	2015 Independent Research in Responsible Investment (IRRI) survey. We also use MSCI ESG Research to create MSCI ESG indexes, which are included in our Index segment.

	•		MSCI ESG Ratings. MSCI ESG Ratings are designed to provide institutional investors with the ability to integrate ESG into investment decisions by identifying risks and opportunities that may not be captured through conventional analysis. This includes ratings for 25,000 equities and 140,000 fixed-income securities. In addition, MSCI also assigns ESG ratings to more than 2,200 companies worldwide, covering an additional 90,000 fixed-income securities. Ratings are designed to identify and analyze ESG issues, including exposures (e.g., business segment and geographic risk), management and industry-specific measures that may include the intersection of a company’s major social and environmental impacts with its core business operations, thereby identifying potential risks and opportunities for the company and its investors.

	•		MSCI ESG GovernanceMetrics. MSCI ESG GovernanceMetrics provides institutional investors with corporate governance research and data on over 7,000 public companies worldwide. Asset managers and owners can access company profiles, rankings and underlying governance and accounting metrics to satisfy client investment guidelines, enhance engagement activities and manage potential portfolio risks.

All Other Segment—Real Estate

MSCI’s Real Estate products provide real estate performance analysis for funds, investors, managers, lenders and occupiers. We provide products and offer services that include research, reporting and benchmarking. MSCI’s Real Estate performance and risk analytics range from multi-asset class to property-specific analysis. MSCI also provides business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers and brokers worldwide.

MSCI’s Real Estate products comprise private real estate benchmarks and indexes typically branded “IPD” and include:

	•		Portfolio Analysis Service (“PAS”). PAS is a single platform for real estate risk management and performance attribution that analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of a real estate portfolio’s performance relative to its benchmark. PAS provides portfolio management tools that are designed to assist in building effective real estate portfolios, allowing users to gain additional portfolio insight to help them make informed investment decisions. Performance attribution enables users to analyze the sources of portfolio risk and return on an absolute or relative basis. PAS provides real estate investors with a granular understanding of the exposures and returns of their real estate portfolio, from the building to the fund level.

	•		IPD Global Intel. IPD Global Intel is a databank that equips asset owners, researchers, strategists and portfolio and risk managers with data analytics to enhance their understanding of local, regional and global real estate performance and risks. IPD Global Intel comprises a consolidated set of global, regional, national, city and submarket indexes with breakdowns by property type. Drawing from actual performance data on approximately 1,300 funds and 66,000 real estate assets, IPD Global Intel provides investors and managers an authoritative view of market trends and time series, as well as actionable information on property markets for more than 30 countries.

Growth Strategy

We believe we are well positioned for growth over time. Our multi-pronged strategy is focused on addressing the most critical needs of institutional investors and building on our strong client relationships and integral role in the investment process.

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Client Growth

We believe there are opportunities to increase our business with existing clients and to add new clients. We intend to:

	•		Increase product subscriptions within our current client base. We expect that our products and services will enable us to offer clients more ways to achieve their current and future objectives. Many of our clients use only a limited number of our products, and we believe there are opportunities to sell additional content and tools to existing clients and to increase the number of users and locations. We believe our knowledge of our clients and our familiarity with their investment processes enables us to license these additional products to our clients.

	•		Expand our client base. We seek to add new clients by increasing our sales efforts and by leveraging the investments made in recent years, including transitioning away from our historic product-centric approach to a client needs-centric approach by merging our legacy product brands under an umbrella MSCI brand. We also believe that efforts to expand our geographic presence in recent years have positioned us to further leverage our brand strength, product reach and access to the global investment community to attract new clients.

	•		Focus on client relationship management. During 2015, we realigned MSCI’s global client coverage organization to sharpen our focus on current clients and improve our ability to identify new prospects. Our Analytics team transformed its product line across multiple dimensions, including strategy, product development, execution and governance. We also consolidated legacy risk management analytics and portfolio management analytics sales teams into one integrated team, as well as incorporated ESG and Real Estate sales and service teams into our overall client coverage organization. To ensure that MSCI provides world-class service to our largest accounts, we have assigned senior account managers (“SAMs”) to cover such accounts on a dedicated basis.

	•		Increase licensing of indexes for ETFs and other exchange traded investment products. Based on demand for our indexes as the basis for ETFs, we believe that there is opportunity for continued growth and expansion in the market, among both asset owners and managers, including registered investment advisors. We will continue to pursue opportunities to increase licensing of our indexes for index-linked investment products to capitalize on the growth in number and variety of our indexes and related products. The table below illustrates the growth trend with respect to the number of exchange listings of ETFs linked to MSCI equity indexes in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (“EMEA”) and Asia.

Number of Exchange Listings of ETFs Linked to MSCI Equity Indexes
		As of
Region		December 31, 2015				December 31, 2014				December 31, 2013
Americas			273				239				190
EMEA			466				409				381
Asia			59				39				36
Total			798				687				607

Historical values of the assets in ETFs linked to our indexes are set forth in a table under Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Results of Operations” below.

	•		Increase managed services offerings. Continued pressure on management fees is causing our clients to look for ways to become more operationally efficient. MSCI’s Managed Services include end-to-end services that aim to assist clients with meeting operational and regulatory requirements by providing a convenient and cost-effective way to outsource data processing, systems administration and reporting. By outsourcing these functions to MSCI’s data management professionals, we hope to free up our clients to focus on value-added work such as risk budgeting, asset allocation and manager selection and

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	monitoring. Our end-to-end services include consolidation of data from various sources, data reconciliation analysis, uploading of data into MSCI’s risk and portfolio management applications, identification of anomalies and customized reporting at a client’s direction.

Develop New Products and Product Enhancements

We plan to develop new product offerings and continue to enhance our existing products. Much of our product development is based on an ongoing and active dialogue with clients, which helps us to understand their needs and anticipate market developments. We intend to:

	•		Create innovative product offerings and enhancements. We see strong demand for new MSCI products and services that can help clients implement their investment strategies. We strive to transform clients’ challenges into opportunities by introducing innovative new products and enhancements to existing products. In Index, this includes developing new indexes, including custom indexes and currency-hedged indexes. In Analytics, we are transforming our platform in response to clients’ needs for investment differentiation, operational efficiency, risk management and regulatory compliance, and producing content that addresses those needs cost effectively. As ESG moves more into the mainstream of investing, we are developing new research and ratings products that assess corporate responsibility. Additionally, in Real Estate, we are building new products for Real Estate markets in a number of countries, as well as creating a platform that delivers products more efficiently and offers clients new ways to interact with our data.

	•		Execute on investments to expand our capacity to design and develop new products. Over the past two years, we have increased investment in product development teams, research, data production systems, technology infrastructure and software application design to enable us to design and develop new products more quickly and cost-effectively over time. Further increasing our ability to construct additional indexes, and design software applications more effectively, will allow us to address client needs and bring new products and product enhancements to the market more quickly. During 2015, we upgraded our technology infrastructure by moving one of our data centers to a world-class data center in Nevada. This move significantly increased our capacity to meet the growing needs of our largest global clients.

	•		Growth through acquisitions. We intend to continue to seek to acquire products, technologies and companies that will complement our product offerings and client base, as well as increase our ability to provide investment decision support tools to equity, fixed income and multi-asset class investment institutions, and the financial intermediaries that serve such institutions.

Competitive Advantages

We believe MSCI’s competitive advantages include:

	•		Our strong client relationships and deep understanding of client needs. One of the advantages of MSCI is that our vantage point enables us to view financial markets in terms of what matters to global investors and financial institutions. From 35 offices in the Americas, EMEA and Asia, we engage in conversations with institutional investors looking beyond geographic boundaries and asset classes to produce content and knowledge about global risk-taking and opportunity. We believe that our consultative approach to product development, dedication to client support and our range of products enable us to build strong relationships with investment professionals and institutions around the world. The skills, knowledge and experience of our research, applications development, global sales, data management and production and product management teams enable us to develop and enhance our models, methodologies, data and software applications in accordance with client demands and needs. We consult with clients and other market participants during the product development process to take into account their actual investment objectives and requirements. As of December 31, 2015, MSCI’s clients included:

	•		97 of the top 100 global asset managers (as ranked by P&I in its report dated April 2015);

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	•		87 of the top 100 global pension funds (as ranked by P&I/Towers Watson in their report dated September 2015);

	•		69 of the top 100 global hedge funds (as ranked by Preqin as of 2015); and

	•		86 of the top 100 global banks (as ranked by The Banker Database as of 2015).

We believe that our relationships with the leading institutional investors are broader and more global than our peers.

	•		Data quality. MSCI offers proprietary software and databases that house data from more than 200 third-party sources as well as data that MSCI produces. Our data-management teams work to achieve the highest standards for data quality and accuracy. MSCI currently calculates more than 180,000 end-of-day indexes daily and more than 10,000 indexes in real time.

	•		Extensive historical databases. MSCI has amassed extensive databases of historical global market data, proprietary equity index data, private real estate benchmark data, risk data and ESG data. We believe our substantial and valuable databases of proprietary index and risk data, including over 40 years of certain index data history, nearly 40 years of certain risk and real estate data history, as well as over 14 years of certain historical governance data, would be difficult and costly to replicate. The information is not available from any single source and would require intensive data checking and quality assurance testing that we have performed over our many years of accumulating this data. Historical data is a critical component of our clients’ investment processes, allowing them to research and back-test investment strategies and analyze portfolios over many investment and business cycles and under a variety of historical situations and market environments.

	•		Client integration of our products. Many of our clients have integrated our products into their performance measurement and risk management processes, where these products become an integral part of our clients’ daily portfolio management functions. In certain cases, our clients are requested by their customers to report using our tools or data. Additionally, our tools can help clients comply with local regulations or client reporting requirements. Consequently, we believe that certain of our clients may experience business disruption and additional costs if they cease using or replace our products.

	•		Brand recognition. We believe that MSCI’s brand is well-established and recognized throughout the institutional investment community worldwide. The strength of MSCI’s brand reflects the longstanding quality and widespread use of our products. We believe our indexes, platforms and content are well-positioned to be the tools of choice for investment institutions increasingly looking to third-party products and services for help with benchmarking, index-linked product creation and portfolio and multi-asset class market risk management.

	•		Global products and operations. Our products cover most major investment markets throughout the world. For example, the MSCI Global Equity Index family provides broad equity market coverage for over 80 countries in our developed, emerging and frontier market categories; and MSCI produces equity risk data for 45 single country models, 10 regional equity models and an integrated multi-asset class risk model covering equity markets and fixed income markets. As of December 31, 2015, MSCI’s clients were located in 86 countries, with many of them having a presence in multiple locations around the world. As of December 31, 2015, MSCI’s employees were located in 22 countries in order to maintain close contact with our clients and the international markets we follow. We believe our global presence and focus allow us to serve our clients well and capitalize on a great number of business opportunities in many countries and regions of the world.

	•		Sophisticated models with practical application. We have invested significant time and resources for more than three decades in developing highly sophisticated and practical index methodologies and risk models that combine financial theory and investment practice. We continually enhance our models to reflect the evolution of markets and to incorporate methodological advances into risk forecasting. New models and major enhancements to existing models are reviewed by our model review committee.

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	•		Open architecture and transparency. We have an open architecture philosophy aimed at increasing data access and integration features in our products and services. Clients can access our data through our software applications, third-party applications or their own applications. We also recognize that the marketplace is complex and multi-layered, as a competitor in one context may be a supplier or distributor in another context. For example, Standard & Poor’s competes with us in index products, supplies index data that we distribute in our portfolio analytics software products and jointly developed and maintains GICS and GICS Direct with us. In order to provide transparency, we document and disclose many details of our models and methodologies to our clients so that they can better understand and utilize the tools we offer. Consistent with our open architecture approach, we believe this transparency benefits us and our clients.

	•		Scalable application platforms. We will continue to invest in our data centers, technology platform and software products to provide highly scalable solutions for the processing of large volumes of asset and portfolio data. In doing so, we are able to offer clients computing capacity that they would otherwise not be able to access in a cost-effective manner through internal development.

	•		Highly skilled employees. Our workforce is highly skilled, technical and, in some instances, specialized. In particular, our research and software application development departments include individuals with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, finance, portfolio investment and application development who combine advanced academic credentials with market experience. Our employees’ experience and knowledge give us access to, and allow us to add value at, the highest levels of our clients’ organizations.

Clients

As of December 31, 2015, MSCI served approximately 6,400 clients across 86 countries worldwide, with 52.2% of revenues coming from clients in the Americas, 35.5% in EMEA and 12.3% in Asia and Australia. To calculate the number of clients, we may count certain affiliates, user locations, or business units within a single organization as separate clients. For example, the asset management and broker-dealer units of a diversified financial services firm may be treated as separate clients, even though the financial services firm is the only party to the applicable subscriptions or licenses. If we aggregate all related clients under their respective parent entity, the number of clients would be approximately 3,850, as of December 31, 2015.

Our Aggregate Retention Rate was 93.4% and 93.0% for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. See Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Key Financial Metrics and Drivers—Operating Metrics—Aggregate Retention Rate” for the definition of Aggregate Retention Rate and more detailed aggregate retention rate data.

Revenues from our 10 largest clients contributed a total of 26.0%, 25.8% and 25.1% to our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively.

In the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013, our largest client organization by revenue, BlackRock, Inc. and its affiliates (“BlackRock”), accounted for 10.3%, 10.6% and 9.7% of our operating revenues, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013, 93.0%, 92.1% and 89.1%, respectively, of our revenues from BlackRock were attributable to fees based on the AUM of ETFs linked to MSCI equity indexes, including its iShares ETF business.

Geographic Information and Client Region

We currently have branches or subsidiaries in the following locations: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and the U.S. See Note 13, “Segment Information,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included herein for additional information on our revenues and certain assets by geographic area.

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Marketing

We market our products to asset owners and managers, chief investment officers, active and passive portfolio managers, chief risk officers and financial intermediaries. Our research and product management teams seek to understand our clients’ investment processes and needs in order to design tools that help clients understand the dimensions of performance and risk in their portfolios and make better-informed investment decisions.

Members of our research team and other employees regularly speak at industry conferences, as well as at our own events. For example, we hosted approximately 800 seminars, webinars, conferences and workshops in various locations across the globe in 2015. These events bring our staff and our clients together, expose those clients to our latest research and product enhancements and give our staff an opportunity to gain insight into our clients’ needs.

Our marketing professionals arrange interviews for our industry and product experts in prominent financial and trade media and issue press releases from time to time on client wins, new research and product developments. We also communicate with both existing clients and prospective clients through our email newsletters which deliver research, insights and product specific news, through our public website and client portals, and via social media.

Our marketing department collaborates with our product specialists to analyze our clients’ use of our products and to analyze the competitive landscape for our products. We also supplement these direct marketing efforts with targeted online advertising and co-branding initiatives with some of our major clients.

Sales and Client Support

As of December 31, 2015, our client coverage offices included approximately 280 salespeople and 300 client-support personnel worldwide. Of these, over 85 were located in New York and 100 were located in London.

We have expanded our sales efforts to increase our revenues and our client service efforts to further ensure client satisfaction and develop client loyalty. For example, over the last few years, we opened sales and client coverage offices in Santiago, Chile and Seoul, Korea and expanded our sales presence in China and the Middle East. In 2015, we also significantly increased the number of client coverage employees in Mumbai, India and Monterrey, Mexico.

We also have sales and client support teams that are dedicated to specific client segments in order to increase our impact in each such segment, including with respect to asset managers, hedge funds, asset owners, financial advisors, private wealth managers and broker dealers. In the Americas, we also increased our focus on smaller asset managers and hedge funds, financial advisors and insurance firms. Our sales and client support staff are based around the world to enable us to provide valuable face-to-face client service and focus efforts on developing new clients in more locations.

The sophisticated nature of our products and their uses demand a sales and client support staff with strong academic and financial backgrounds. Most new sales require several face-to-face meetings with the prospective client and the sales process for large and complex sales is likely to involve a team comprising sales, client support, product management and research. For example, for Barra and RiskMetrics branded products, sales and client support personnel are available to onboard new clients and new users, which includes providing intensive on-site training in the use of the models, data and software applications underlying each product. Client support also provides ongoing support, which may include on-site visits, telephone and email, and routine support needed in connection with the use of the product or how it can help clients improve their processes, all of which are included in the recurring subscription fee. We believe that the size, quality, knowledge and experience of our sales and client support staff, as well as their proximity to clients, differentiate us from our competitors.

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Product Development and Production

We take a coordinated team approach to product development and production. Our product management, research, data operations and technology and application development departments are at the center of this process.

Drawing on decades of experience with the investment process worldwide, our research department develops, reviews and enhances our various methodologies and models. Our global data operations and technology team designs and manages our processes and systems for market data procurement, proprietary data production and quality control. Our application development team builds our sophisticated software applications. As part of our product development process, we also commonly consult with clients and other market participants to understand their specific needs and investment process requirements. Our product management team facilitates this collaborative product development and production approach. The roles and functions of our product development and production teams include:

	•		Research. Our models are developed by a cross-functional research team of mathematicians, economists, statisticians, financial engineers and investment industry experts. Our index and risk and analytics research departments combine advanced academic credentials with broad financial and investment industry experience. They work on both developing new models and methodologies and enhancing existing ones. We monitor investment trends and their drivers globally; analyze product-specific needs in areas such as capitalization-weighted, factor and specialized indexes; and examine instrument valuation, risk modeling, portfolio construction, asset allocation and VaR simulation. An important way we monitor global investment trends and their implications for our business is through the forum provided by our Editorial Advisory Board (“EAB”). Our EAB, which was established in 1999, meets twice a year and is comprised of senior investment professionals from around the world and senior members of our performance and risk research team. In 2015, our index and portfolio and risk analytics researchers participated in numerous industry events and conferences, and their papers have been published in leading academic and industry journals. They also play a leading role in many of the seminars, workshops and webinars we host throughout the year, presenting and discussing their latest research findings with both existing and prospective clients.

	•		Data Operations and Information Technology. Our data operations and technology teams consist of a combination of operations and information technology specialists. We licensed a large volume and variety of market data for every major market in the world, including fundamental and return data, from more than 200 third-party sources in 2015. We apply our models and methodologies to this market data to produce our proprietary risk and index data. Our data operations team oversees this complex process. Our experienced information technology staff builds proprietary software and databases that house all of the data we license or produce in order for our data operations team to perform data quality checks and run our data production systems. Our software and data resides on servers, networks and databases engineered and managed by our IT Infrastructure team, and operated and monitored by our IT Operations team. This technology suite resides in our global data centers in Nevada, U.S. and Geneva, Switzerland. Our data factory produces our proprietary index data such as end-of-day and real time equity indexes, real estate benchmarks, and our proprietary risk data such as daily and monthly equity risk forecasts, real estate performance and risk reporting and MSCI ESG Research reports. We have data operations and technology offices in North America, Europe and Asia.

	•		Application Development. Certain of our proprietary risk data are made available to clients through our proprietary software applications, such as Barra Aegis, BarraOne, RiskManager, HedgePlatform, WealthBench, Credit Manager and ESG Manager. Our application development team consists of individuals with experience in both the finance and software industries. Our staff has an extensive skill set, including expertise in both the Java-based technologies used in our web-based, on-demand software application tool for multi-asset class risk analysis and reporting and Microsoft-based technologies used in our desktop equity and fixed income analytics software products. We also have extensive experience with database technologies, computational programming techniques, scalability and performance analysis and quality assurance. We use a customized code base and software

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development methodology that leverages best practices from the software industry, including agile programming, test-driven development, parallel tracking, iterative cycles, prototyping and beta releases. We build our software applications by compiling multiple components, which enables us to reuse designs and codes in multiple products. Our software development projects involve extensive collaboration with our product management team and directly with clients. We have application development offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Competition

Many industry participants compete with us by offering one or more similar index products. Such products vary widely in scope, including by geographic region, business sector and risk category.

Our Index products compete with offerings from FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of The London Stock Exchange Group PLC; S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC (a joint venture company owned 27% by CME Group, Inc. and CME Group Services LLC and 73% by The McGraw-Hill Financial, Inc.); the Center for Research in Securities Prices (CRSP); EDHEC-Risk Institute; DAX; STOXX Ltd.; BM&FBovespa; the Korea Stock Exchange; China Securities Index Co., Ltd.; the Hang Seng Index (a strategic partnership between CME Group, Inc. and Singapore Exchange Limited); Research Affiliates LLC; Morningstar, Inc.; Nikkei Inc.; Nomura Securities, Ltd.; the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc.; Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.; Nasdaq, Inc.; and Solactive AG.

There is also growing competition among asset managers and investment banks that create their own range of indexes in cooperation with index providers, which provide some form of calculation agent service. This is especially true for factor indexes, often referred to as “smart beta indexes.” Asset managers, such as WisdomTree and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, manage funds or ETF indexes based on their own proprietary indexes; and many investment banks have launched structured products or entered into OTC derivatives based on their own proprietary indexes.

Our Analytics products compete with offerings from a range of competitors, including Algorithmics (a unit of IBM), Axioma, Inc., BlackRock Solutions, Bloomberg Finance L.P., Capital IQ’s ClariFI (a Standard & Poor’s business), FactSet Research Systems Inc., Imagine Software, KMV (a unit of Moody’s Corporation), Northfield Information Services, Inc., State Street Analytics, SunGard (a unit of FIS) and Wilshire Analytics. Additionally, many of the larger broker-dealers have developed proprietary analytics tools for their clients. Similarly, many investment institutions, particularly the larger global organizations, have developed their own internal risk management analytics tools. We also have a variety of competitors for our other products that comprise a smaller portion of our revenues.

Intellectual Property and other Proprietary Rights

We consider many aspects of our products, processes and services to be proprietary. We have registered, among others, “MSCI,” “Barra,” “RiskMetrics,” “RiskManager,” “InvestorForce,” and “IPD” as trademarks or service marks in the United States and in certain foreign countries. We will continue to evaluate the registration of additional trademarks, service marks and copyrights as appropriate. From time to time, we also file patent applications to protect our proprietary rights. We currently hold 23 U.S. and foreign patents and have three U.S. patents pending. Additionally, many of our products, processes and services require the use of intellectual property obtained from third parties. It may be necessary in the future to seek or renew licenses relating to various aspects of our products, processes and services.

Although we believe the ownership of such patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, the implementation of certain measures to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights and our ability to obtain the rights to use intellectual property of third parties are important to our business and contribute in part to our overall success, we do not believe we are dependent on any one of our intellectual property rights or any one license to use third-party intellectual property. For a description of the risks associated with legal protection of

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our intellectual property and other rights, infringement claims and the ability to obtain or renew licenses for third-party intellectual property, see Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors—Legal Protections for our intellectual property rights and other rights may not be sufficient or available to protect our competitive advantages. Third parties may infringe on our intellectual property rights, and third-party litigation may materially adversely affect our ability to protect our intellectual property rights_”_ below.

Company History

The following is a summary of the Company’s history since its inception:

MSCI Timeline

1969		•		MSCI began as a pioneer in developing the market for global equity indexes.
		•		We began licensing our first equity index products in 1969.
1998		•		We were incorporated in 1998 and, until we became a public company in November 2007, our only two shareholders were Morgan Stanley and Capital Group International.
2004		•		In June 2004, we acquired Barra, LLC (formerly Barra, Inc., “Barra”), a provider of portfolio risk analytics tools that launched its first risk analytics products in 1975. This broadened our product range beyond index products.
2007		•		In November 2007, we completed our initial public offering. Simultaneously, we reclassified our outstanding common stock into class A and class B shares.
2008		•		In April 2008, Capital Group International divested its ownership position.
2009		•		In May 2009, Morgan Stanley divested its ownership position and we became a fully independent, stand-alone public company.
2010		•		In June 2010, we acquired RiskMetrics Group, Inc. (“RiskMetrics”), a leading provider of risk management and governance products and services. In addition to this core product line, RiskMetrics owned Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”), a pioneer in the development of policy-based proxy voting recommendations.
		•		RiskMetrics also owned the Center for Financial Research and Analysis (“CFRA”), Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc. (“Innovest”) and KLD Research and Analytics (“KLD Research”). Innovest and KLD Research are now known as MSCI ESG Research Inc. (“MSCI ESG Research”).
		•		In July 2010, we acquired Measurisk, LLC (“Measurisk”), a provider of risk transparency and risk measurement tools for hedge fund investors. With our clients demanding increasing levels of transparency from their hedge fund managers, this acquisition helped us develop a broad platform and set the standard for analyzing and reporting hedge fund risk. Measurisk’s products are now part of our hedge fund risk transparency offerings.
2012		•		In November 2012, we acquired real estate performance measurement group IPD Group Limited (“IPD”). The acquisition of IPD expanded MSCI’s multi-asset class offerings by facilitating the integration of private real estate assets into our models, as well as adding a family of real estate indexes to MSCI’s suite of equity indexes.
2013		•		In January 2013, we acquired Investor Force Holdings, Inc. (“InvestorForce”), a leading provider of performance reporting tools to the institutional investment community in the U.S. The InvestorForce offering enables us to provide consultants with integrated, daily monitoring, analysis of and reporting on institutional assets.
		•		In March 2013, we completed the sale of the CFRA product line.

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2014		•		In April 2014, we completed the sale of ISS.
		•		In August 2014, we acquired Governance Holdings Co. (“GMI Ratings”), a provider of corporate governance research and ratings to institutional investors, banks, insurers, auditors, regulators and corporations seeking to incorporate ESG factors into risk assessment and decision-making. This acquisition enhanced our existing platform of ESG research and tools, allowing us to deliver a more comprehensive suite of ESG products and services to our clients.
2015		•		In October 2015, we acquired all of the assets of Insignis, Inc. (“Insignis”), a leading provider of daily automated collection, aggregation and management of financial data. We believe this acquisition will help us further automate the collection and integration of data across our risk and performance management platforms.

For more information about our acquisitions and dispositions, see Note 3, “Dispositions and Discontinued Operations,” and Note 12, “Acquisitions,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included herein.

Employees

We had 2,754 and 2,926 employees as of December 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively. As of December 31, 2015 and 2014, 52.8% and 50.5% of our employees, respectively, were located in emerging market centers.

Government Regulation

The Company is subject to reporting, disclosure and recordkeeping obligations pursuant to SEC requirements. MSCI ESG Research is a registered investment adviser and must comply with the requirements of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and related SEC regulations. Such requirements relate to, among other things, disclosure obligations, recordkeeping and reporting requirements, marketing restrictions and general anti-fraud prohibitions. MSCI registered in 2012 with the State Council Information Office of the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in China as a foreign institution supplying financial information services in China. See Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors—Changes in government regulations, including the implementation of new or pending financial regulations, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.”

Executive Officers

Name		Age		Position
Henry A. Fernandez		57		Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Robert Qutub		54		Chief Financial Officer
Scott A. Crum		59		Chief Human Resources Officer
Richard J. Napolitano		49		Principal Accounting Officer and Global Controller
C.D. Baer Pettit		51		Chief Operating Officer
Laurent Seyer		51		Global Head of Client Coverage
Diana H. Tidd		46		Head of Index
Peter J. Zangari		48		Head of Analytics

Henry A. Fernandez

Mr. Fernandez has served as the Chairman since October 2007 and as the Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”), President and a director since 1998. Before leading MSCI’s transition to becoming a fully independent, standalone public company in 2009, he was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where he worked in emerging markets product strategy, equity derivative sales and trading, mergers and acquisitions, worldwide corporate finance and mortgage finance for U.S. financial institutions. Mr. Fernandez worked for Morgan Stanley from 1983 to 1991 and from 1994 to 2009. Mr. Fernandez serves on the boards of Georgetown University, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Foreign Policy Association, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer

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Center, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York and the American Nicaraguan Foundation. Mr. Fernandez is the former Chair of the Advisory Council of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Georgetown University, an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and pursued doctoral studies in economics at Princeton University.

Robert Qutub

Mr. Qutub has served as the Chief Financial Officer (the “CFO”) since August 2012. Prior to joining MSCI, Mr. Qutub worked for Bank of America from 1994 to 2012 in several senior finance positions, most recently as the CFO of Consumer and Business Banking. During his career at Bank of America, Mr. Qutub also served as the CFO of other major segments, including Global Banking and Markets and Global Wealth Investment Management. Prior to joining Bank of America, he was a Manager in the Financial Services Group for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP from 1988 to 1994. Mr. Qutub served in the U.S. Marine Corps on active duty from 1981 to 1984. Since June 2014, Mr. Qutub has been a member of the board of directors and finance and audit committee of the USAA Federal Savings Bank. Mr. Qutub earned a Bachelor of Science in accounting from the University of North Carolina—Charlotte. He is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. As previously announced, Mr. Qutub will retire from MSCI on the earlier of May 6, 2016 and the effective date of the appointment of his successor.

Scott A. Crum

Mr. Crum has served as the Chief Human Resources Officer since April 2014. Prior to joining MSCI, Mr. Crum served as Head of Global Human Resources for four publicly traded companies. Mr. Crum worked for Avon Products, Inc. as Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Chief People Officer from September 2012 to May 2013. From July 2010 to June 2012, Mr. Crum served as Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc., one of two publicly traded companies formally created when Motorola Inc. split in January 2011. Prior to that, he served as the Senior Vice President and Director of Human Resources of ITT Corporation from September 2002 to July 2010 and Head of Administration and Employee Relations at General Instruments Corp. from 1997 to 2000. Mr. Crum holds a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in industrial relations from Southern Methodist University.

Richard J. Napolitano

Mr. Napolitano has served as the Principal Accounting Officer since February 2014 and Global Controller since June 2011. Prior to joining MSCI, Mr. Napolitano worked at Morgan Stanley from 2005 to 2011, J.P. Morgan Chase from 1996 to 2005 and Ernst & Young from 1988 to 1996. At these firms, he held various positions including, among others, Business Unit or Product Chief Financial Officer or Controller, Head of External Reporting and Accounting Policies and Audit Senior Manager. Mr. Napolitano earned his Bachelor of Science in accounting and an M.B.A. in finance from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. He is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

C.D. Baer Pettit

Mr. Pettit has served as the Chief Operating Officer since September 2015. As such, Mr. Pettit oversees the firm’s operations, technology and product lines and reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer. Before taking on his current role, Mr. Pettit served as Head of the Product Group from February 2015 to September 2015, Head of Client Coverage from 2001 to August 2012, Head of Marketing from 2005 to August 2012 and Head of Index Products from September 2011 to September 2015. Prior to joining MSCI, Mr. Pettit worked for Bloomberg L.P. from 1992 to 1999, most recently as Deputy Head of European Sales. He holds a Master of Arts degree in history from Cambridge University and a Master of Science degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

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Laurent Seyer

Mr. Seyer has served as the Global Head of Client Coverage since December 2014. Prior to joining MSCI, Mr. Seyer worked for AXA Investment Managers LLC in Paris, most recently as Global Head of the Client Group. Prior to that, he spent 24 years at Societe Generale in a number of leadership positions, including as CEO of Lyxor Asset Management from 2006 to 2012, and held senior roles in equity derivatives and structured product sales, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and corporate development and business strategy. Mr. Seyer graduated from Institut d’Etudes Politiques, where he studied law and economics.

Diana H. Tidd

Ms. Tidd has served as the Head of Index since February 2016 when her role was expanded from Head of Equity Index Products, a role she had held since October 2015. In such capacity, she is responsible for all aspects of product management and business strategy for the MSCI indexes. During her tenure at MSCI, Ms. Tidd has served in a variety of roles, including Head of Americas Client Coverage for six years. Prior to joining MSCI in 1999, Ms. Tidd worked at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in Boston for five years where she had roles in the Risk and Europe teams, before becoming Head of the Asia Team in the global custody division. She started her career in the Trust and Estates division of the Private Bank at Bankers Trust Co. Ms. Tidd serves on the board of Women in ETFs, as well as WAVE, West Africa Village Education. Ms. Tidd graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Colgate University and received a Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies from Stanford University.

Peter J. Zangari

Mr. Zangari has served as the Head of Analytics since February 2015, which includes the formerly separately managed risk management analytics product line and portfolio management analytics product line, the latter of which Mr. Zangari had served as the Head of since August 2011. Prior to joining MSCI, Mr. Zangari held progressively senior-level positions at Goldman Sachs since 1998, most recently as the Head of Risk and a member of the leadership team for the Quantitative Investment Strategies (“QIS”) business of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (“GSAM”). Prior to joining QIS, Mr. Zangari was responsible for building out and managing GSAM’s proprietary equity risk and attribution platform. Mr. Zangari has a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Fordham University and a PhD in economics, with a specialization in applied econometrics and computational statistics, from Rutgers University.

Available Information

Our corporate headquarters are located at 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich Street, New York, New York, 10007, and our telephone number is (212) 804-3900. We maintain a website on the Internet at www.msci.com. The contents of our website are not a part of or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. You may read and copy any materials we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. You may obtain information about the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC maintains an Internet website that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information that we file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov. We also make available free of charge, on or through our website, these reports, proxy statements and other information as soon as reasonably practicable following the time they are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. To access these, click on the “SEC Filings” link found on our Investor Relations homepage (http://ir.msci.com).

We also use our Investor Relations homepage and corporate Twitter account (@MSCI_Inc) as channels of distribution of Company information. The information we post through these channels may be deemed material.

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Accordingly, investors should monitor these channels, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts. In addition, you may automatically receive email alerts and other information about us when you enroll your email address by visiting the “Email Alert Subscription” section of our Investor Relations homepage at http://ir.msci.com/alerts.cfm?. The contents of our website, including our Investor Relations homepage, and social media channels are not, however, a part of or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.