MSCI Inc MSCI

MSCI Inc. (MSCI), incorporated on July 2, 1998, offers products and services to support the needs of institutional investors throughout their investment processes. The Company's segments include Index, Analytics and All Other segment. All Other segment comprises environmental, social and governance (ESG) and Real Estate segments. The Company's products and services include the development and production of indexes and analytical models; the provision of ratings and analysis that identify environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities and the analysis of real estate in both privately and publicly owned portfolios.

Index Segment

The Company's indexes are used in various areas of the investment process, including index-linked product creation and performance benchmarking, as well as portfolio construction and rebalancing, and asset allocation. As of December 31, 2016, it calculated over 190,000 global equity indexes, which included approximately 7,300 custom indexes. Products in MSCI's Index segment include MSCI Global Equity Indexes, MSCI Custom Indexes, MSCI Factor Indexes, MSCI ESG Indexes, MSCI Real Estate Indexes and Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). The MSCI Global Equity Indexes include the MSCI ACWI, MSCI World, MSCI EAFE, MSCI ACWI IMI, MSCI Emerging Market and MSCI USA Indexes. MSCI Global Equity Indexes include indexes and are designed to measure returns across various equity markets, sizes, and industries. As of December 31, 2016, it calculated indexes that covered more than 80 countries in developed, emerging and frontier markets, as well as various regional indexes built from the component country indexes.

MSCI Custom Indexes can reflect specific investment criteria, such as socially responsible investment requirements or regulatory constraints. MSCI offers a suite of factor index families, including the high-exposure factor indexes (the MSCI Minimum Volatility Index), high capacity factor indexes (MSCI Value Weighted Indexes), combinations of single factor indexes (MSCI Quality Mix Index) and multi-factor indexes (MSCI Diversified Multiple-Factor Indexes). MSCI ESG Indexes are designed to meet the demand for indexes that integrate ESG criteria 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 SCI ACWI Sustainable Impact Index; Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Indexes; Environmental Indexes, and custom indexes. Its Real Estate indexes cover sectors, factors, liquid real estate and custom indexes that span the real estate market. GICS is an industry analysis framework for investment research, portfolio management and asset allocation. It offers GICS Direct, a joint product of MSCI and Standard & Poor's.

Analytics Segment

The Analytics segment uses analytical content to create products and services, which offer institutional investors an integrated view of risk and return. Analytics products and services include RiskMetrics RiskManager, BarraOne, Barra Portfolio Manager, Barra Equity Models Direct, Barra Integrated Model, Barra Aegis, HedgePlatform, WealthBench, InvestorForce and CreditManager. RiskMetrics RiskManager is engaged in in Value at risk (VaR) simulation, stress testing and single security analytics. 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, counterparty credit exposure and regulatory risk reporting. RiskManager is a scalable platform accessed by clients via a license to a Web-based application service. RiskManager is also offered as an outsourced risk reporting service or as a Web service in which a client's systems access RiskManager's core risk elements by connecting directly to its systems. 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 budgeting, manager monitoring, performance attribution and regulatory risk reporting. 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 their investment process more systematically and make faster, more informed investment decisions.

Barra Equity Models Direct includes Barra Global Total Market Models, Barra Regional Equity Models and Barra Single Country Equity Models. The risk data in Barra Equity Models Direct is also available via third-party providers. BIM provides a detailed view of risk across markets and asset classes, including currencies, equities, fixed income, commodities, mutual funds and hedge funds. Barra Aegis is an application for equity risk management and portfolio analysis that is powered by its equity risk data. 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. 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 of, analysis of and reporting on institutional assets. WealthBench is an investment planning platform for private banks, financial advisors, brokerages and trust companies. 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.

All Other Segment

All Other segment comprises ESG products and Real Estate products. MSCI's ESG products include MSCI ESG Ratings, MSCI ESG Business Involvement Screening Research and MSCI ESG Governance Metrics. MSCI ESG Ratings are designed to identify ESG risks or opportunities that may not be captured through conventional analyses. MSCI ESG Business Involvement Screening Research is a screening service that is designed to enable institutional investors to manage ESG standards and restrictions. Managers, advisors and asset owners can access screening research through the online MSCI ESG Manager platform or a data feed to satisfy their clients' investment guidelines, implement client mandates and manage potential ESG portfolio risks. MSCI ESG Governance Metrics provides institutional investors with corporate governance research and data on public companies.

MSCI's Real Estate products provide real estate performance analysis for funds, investors, managers and lenders. The Company provides products and offers services, including research, reporting and benchmarking. MSCI's Real Estate products comprise private real estate benchmarks and indexes branded IPD Group Limited (IPD) and include Portfolio Analysis Service (PAS), IPD Rental Information Service (IRIS) and IPD Global Intel. 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 real estate portfolios, allowing users to gain additional portfolio insight to help them make informed investment decisions. IPD Global Intel is a databank that equips asset owners, researchers, strategists and portfolio and risk managers with data analytics to manage their understanding of local, regional and global real estate performance and risks. IPD Global Intel comprises a consolidated set 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. IRIS is a platform for managing real estate income risk based on the profile of a portfolio's contractual income. IRIS provides insight into the absolute and relative impact of four main income risk factors: lease term, embedded gain or loss from the contractual lease of each tenant based on the market rent for such lease, creditworthiness of tenant and concentrations of income across tenants, assets, markets and industry sectors.

The Company competes with The London Stock Exchange Group PLC, CME Group, Inc., CME Group Services LLC, S&P Global Inc., WisdomTree and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Axioma, Inc., BlackRock Solutions, Bloomberg Finance L.P. and FactSet Research Systems Inc.