MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 4 of 13

Andy Wiechmann: Sure, sure. Yes. Thanks, Manav. So Baer noted this in his prepared remarks, but the cancels weren’t so much reflective of a higher frequency of cancels across the board in the segment but rather a concentration of a few large ones. On those few large ones, there were some competitive dynamics and some client event-related dynamics at play. And as we’ve mentioned in the past, we do expect some continued lumpiness in both sales and cancels within analytics and potentially some impact from the environment. So more broadly, we are really encouraged by the momentum and improving competitive position. We continue to see in the strategic focus areas that we’re focused on in analytics like equity and fixed income portfolio management tools or climate tools or enhancements to content and capabilities.

And we are committed to the long-term growth targets that we’ve got for the segment of high single digits, which, actually, we’re quite close to in the fourth quarter, the subscription run rate growth on an organic basis, close to 7%. And the revenue was 9.5%, excluding FX. So it was a quarter that demonstrated some of the lumpiness. But overall, we continue to be encouraged by the momentum we see in the segment.

Manav Patnaik: Got it. Thank you. And then Henry or Baer, I guess just a broader question. Just trying to – I mean I think as someone – it, but I thought I’d take the opportunity. Just trying to understand the cloud and technology strategy here, the recent Google announcement versus your key partnerships you already have with Microsoft. Just trying to appreciate the differences in each of those agreements and what to look forward to.

Henry Fernandez: Thank you, Manav. So the – first of all, I mean, one of the major impetus and investment in our firm is in our data and technology platforms. MSCI, in the past – in the recent past was a very large data processing company. We took third-party data and run it through risk models, factor models, indices and the like, mix methodologies and the like, where MSCI has become, starting with the ESG business, now with climate and private assets and so on and so forth is a large data building in our company in addition to data processing company. So we are now the original source of a lot of data in addition to sourcing data from third parties. And all of that needs to be distributed to our clients in a very effective way.

So we have basically three partnerships that we’re trying to work and expand and specialize on. The first one clearly has been the Microsoft partnership in Azure, in which they’re helping us with the data processing part, processing large amounts of data, especially in our risk systems and all of that, index systems, et cetera. And the partnership there also will help helping us on their software and how do we use their software to build products like in power behind. Obviously, we announced the MSCI One is a partnership with them. So that is Microsoft, and that continues to deepen and strengthen. The second one that we announced is Google and the Google Cloud. That partnership is about Google helping on build data, collect data, organize data, index data in this data building transformation that we’re going through and then run all of that data through their cloud as well.

So that is definitely – there’s always a component of cloud computing, but the push here is data building. As you know, Google is one of the largest data building and data processing companies in the world. Everyone focuses on the search engine, but there’s a search engine won’t be as good at all without the – data. And the third partnership is South Lake which is in the distribution of our content, our beta in a very effective way with our clients. So we’re trying to strengthen and deepen that in our relationship with now.

Manav Patnaik: Thank you very much.

Page 4 of 13