MSCI Inc. (MSCI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to MSCI's 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting. I will now turn the call over to MSCI's CEO and Chairman of the Board, Henry Fernandez. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining MSCI's 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting. My name is Henry Fernandez, and I am the CEO and the Chairman of the Board of MSCI Inc. I hope that you all have remained safe and healthy over the past year. I am pleased to report that the polls are now open, and you may submit your vote online until we officially close the polls following the formal presentation of the proposals. Please remember that if you have already submitted a proxy, it is not necessary to submit your vote online unless you wish to change your vote. Slide 2 sets forth the agenda for our meeting. In our session today, I will present the proposals that you're voting on. If you have any questions about the proposals, you may submit them through the web portal. Following the presentation of all proposals, any questions about them will be addressed. Then we will hear the preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections and adjourn the formal annual meeting. I will then proceed with a brief description of our financial results for full year 2020. Following this discussion, you will be given another opportunity to ask questions not related to the proposals. Our meeting rules require shareholders wishing to raise questions on topics other than the proposals to wait until that time. Slide 3 presents each of our Director nominees. I am pleased to announce that all members of our Board of Directors are with us on the webcast this afternoon. Alison McNerney, who is a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, our independent auditor, is also participating and is available to answer your questions. American Election Services, the Inspector of Elections for this meeting is represented on the webcast today by Christopher Woods. Mr. Woods has executed his inspector's oath. The Board fixed March 2, 2021, as the record date for determining the shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting. An affidavit is with the Inspector of Elections attesting to the fact that the notice meeting -- the notice of meeting, the proxy statement and the 2020 annual report to shareholders were made available to shareholders of record on or about March 17, 2021. We had 82,751,461 shares outstanding and entitled to vote on the record date. It has been confirmed that we have a quorum present today represented by proxy or virtually. The annual shareholders meeting is, therefore, now formally called to order. I will begin by presenting the 3 items to be voted upon. As a reminder, we will acknowledge any comments or questions submitted by shareholders on the proposals themselves after all proposals have been presented. Item 1 is the election of directors. The current Board has nominated 9 directors: Myself, Henry Fernandez; Rob Ashe, who is our current independent Lead Director; Wayne Edmunds; Cathy Kinney; Jacques Perold; Sandy Rattray; Linda Riefler; Marcus Smith; and Paula Volent. Before moving on to the next item, I would like to thank Ben DuPont for over -- Ben Dupont for his invaluable contributions and services to our company and our shareholders for over 13 years since the first few months of our life as a public company. Ben retired from our Board and did not run for reelection at this meeting. We will surely and greatly miss his insight and counsel. Moving on to Slide 4. Slide 2 (sic) [ Item 2 ] is the advisory vote to approve the compensation of our named executive officers, as described in our 2021 proxy statement. Even though this vote, which is often called a say-on-pay vote, is a nonbinding vote, the Compensation & Talent Management Committee and the full Board will take the results of the vote into account when making future compensation decisions. Item 3 is the ratification of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP as MSCI's independent auditor for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. All of the proposals on the agenda are now before the meeting. If any shareholder has a question, or would like to make a comment regarding any of the proposals, and you have not done so already, please submit your question through the web portal. Since there are no questions or additional proposals to come before the meeting relating to the business of the meeting as set forth in the agenda, this is your final opportunity to vote. Any shareholder who has not voted or who wishes to change his or her vote may do so by following the instructions on the web portal. We will now pause to allow for such votes. [Voting]

The voting is now ended, and the polls are now closed. The next agenda item is the preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections. Cecilia Aza, our Corporate Secretary, will summarize the report.

Thank you, Henry. The preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections indicates that a minimum of approximately 94.82% of the votes of common stock represented at this meeting have voted for each of our director nominees, representing a majority of votes cast for or against. Approximately 96.75% of the votes of common stock represented at this meeting have voted on an advisory basis for the approval of the executive compensation of our named Executive Officers. Approximately 97.65% of the votes of common stock represented at this meeting have voted for the ratification of our Audit Committee selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent auditor for 2021. Any ballots cast before the polls closed but not reflected in the preliminary report will be included in the final vote tally. We will file a report with the SEC containing the final tally no later than 4 days following this meeting. That summarizes the preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections. I will now turn it back over to Henry.

Thank you, Cecilia. This concludes the formal part of our Annual Meeting. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of MSCI is now adjourned. And now I will give a brief report on the company's 2020 financial results. Before I move on to discuss the 2020 financial results, I would like to remind you that my remarks contain forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made and are governed by the language on Slide 5. For a discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, please see the risk factors and forward-looking statements disclaimer in our most recent Form 10-K and our other SEC filings. In addition to results presented on the basis of U.S. GAAP, we also refer to non-GAAP measures. We believe our non-GAAP measures facilitate meaningful period-to-period comparisons and provide insight into our core operating performance. On Slide 10 through 13, you will find a reconciliation to the equivalent GAAP measure in the presentation and an explanation of why within this information to be meaningful as well as to how management uses these measures. Slide 6 provides a quick summary of our financial results for 2020. Following on the momentum of recent years, we delivered very strong financial performance for 2020. Specifically, operating revenue was approximately USD 1.7 billion, which has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 10% since 2016. Adjusted EBITDA was $972 million, which has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 14% since 2006 -- 2016. Our business generated free cash flow of $760 million, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 17% since 2016 again. And finally, we reported adjusted earnings per share of $7.83. Since 2016, MSCI has delivered a compound annual growth rate of 27% in adjusted EPS. Earlier this morning, we reported our financial results for the first quarter of 2021 and hosted our earnings call where we also share our latest outlook for the full year. A copy of the earnings release and earnings presentation as well as a webcast of the earnings call are available on the Investor Relations section of msci.com. Slide 7 highlights the key pillars of our growth strategy. From our beginnings, 50-plus years ago, our mission has always been to help clients build better portfolios for a better world by leveraging the power of a state-of-the-art models and analytics, technology and data. Our strategy to achieve our mission is to meet investors' needs with unique and highly differentiated solutions supported by best-in-class capabilities. In summary, our 2020 full year results demonstrates our ongoing strong track record of execution and our ability to deliver shareholder value. We continue our disciplined approach to investments and of managing your capital. Above all, we remain highly focused on driving value for our clients, our partners, employees, shareholders in 2021 and beyond. We believe we are well positioned as an all-weather franchise, and we look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. We will now proceed to our question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please enter it into the appropriate box on your screen. There are no questions on the screen that are relevant to the business of the company. Thank you for your interest in MSCI, and please stay well and safe during this pandemic.

This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.