MSCI Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the MSCI first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session where we will limit participants to one question and one follow-up. Further instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would like to now turn the call over to Mr. Jay Penn, interim head of investor relations. You may be in.

Thank you, operator. Good day, and welcome to the MSCI first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release announcing our results for the first quarter, which is available on our website, along with our earnings presentation and a first quarter update. A copy of the release, first quarter update, and the slide presentation that we have prepared for this call may be viewed at msci.com under the investor relations tab. Let me remind you that this call contains 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 the second slide of today's presentation. For discussion of additional risk and uncertainties, please see the risk factors and forward-looking statements disclaimer in our most recent Form 10-K and our other SEC filings. During today's call, in addition to results presented on the basis of US GAAP, We also refer to non-GAAP measures, including but not limited to organic operating revenue growth rates, adjusted EBITDA expenses, adjusted EPS, and free cash flow. We believe our non-GAAP measures facilitate meaningful period-to-period comparisons and provide insight into our core operating performance. You'll find a reconciliation to the equivalent gap measure in the earnings materials and an explanation of why we deem this information to be meaningful, as well as how management uses these measures on pages 21 to 27 of the earnings presentation. We will also discuss organic run rate growth figures, which exclude the impact of changes in foreign currency and the impact of any acquisitions or divestitures. On the call today are Henry Fernandez, our Chairman and CEO, Bear Pettit, our President, Andy Wishman, our Interim Chief Financial Officer, and Linda Huber, who will be joining MSCI as our new Chief Financial Officer officially this Monday, May 6th. With that, let me now turn the call over to Mr. Henry Fernandez. Henry?

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Before I provide my comments for the quarter, I would like to take a minute and welcome Linda Huber to the MSCI family. As many of you know, Linda previously served as the Chief Financial Officer of Moody's Corporation for 13 years. We're very excited to have her join MSCI and help us continue to build this incredible franchise. I would also like to take a moment to thank Andy for his leadership within our finance organization. and congratulate him for his appointment as our Chief Strategy Officer. 2019 is off to a great start. We delivered our sixth straight quarter of 10 plus percent organic subscription run rate growth, demonstrating the resiliency of our franchise and the strength of our business model. In Q1, we also hosted our first investor day in five years. It was a great success, and we had a very significant turnout. I want to thank all of you that were able to join us. We appreciate your participation and your strong support. We had over 250 people join us in person or via webcast. We hosted this investor day to provide you with a deeper understanding of our key strategic initiatives, to highlight the achievement of our financial performance over the last several years, and to provide you with an update of our long-term financial outlook. This event also gave us the opportunity to highlight more succinctly who we are, how we view ourselves, what is the role that we played in the investment process, and what is it that we're building in this great franchise. Our mission at MSCI is to provide content and tools to help global investors build better portfolios for a better world. We are provided of investment solutions designed to help institutional investors better understand both the market in which they operate and their portfolios. Through our unique data, analytical tools, and research, investors can compare investments in a US public credit stock, a high-yield bond from an emerging market like Argentina, and an office tower in Japan as a way of an example. Therefore, investors can have a much better understanding how these seemingly disparate assets relate to their portfolio. Our solutions help investors evaluate their asset allocation and portfolio construction decisions, bringing increased transparency to the opaque and complex nature of their investments from all over the world. The investor day also gave us the chance to showcase several key areas of our company and our long-term growth potential, including our value proposition, which is built around actionable client solutions, differentiated content, and flexible technology. Our key pillars of our strategy, which include growing our core, executing on in-flight opportunities, and capturing the next wave of opportunities so that we can put additional layers of growth in our company. Our enormous growth potential in the market of professionally managed assets around the world, which currently stand around $100 trillion, and we're only scratching the surface of servicing the owners and the managers of those assets. Our go-to strategy, our go-to market strategy, an ability to provide solutions to our clients to help them make better investment decisions. Investor Day also allow us to illustrate key industry trends that are creating enormous opportunities for us, including the growth of global investing, whether it's developed markets or emerging markets or different asset classes. The increase in passive management of assets. The incorporation and integration of factors and ESG into their investment processes. The need for investment differentiation and operational efficiency of our clients. And of course, the shift of the asset allocation towards private assets, including private equity, private real estate. These are just a few of the trends that are propelling our growth in the company. Finally, on Investor Day, we updated our long-term company targets, which include low double-digit revenue growth, excluding asset-based fees, which obviously vary depending on the market cycle, high single-digit adjusted EBITDA expense growth, mid-teens adjusted EBITDA growth, and mid to high 50s adjusted EBITDA margin rate. This financial target underscores our belief in the significant opportunities in front of us at MSCI. and our confidence in our ability to generate long-term growth for the benefit of our clients and for the benefit of creating shareholder value. If you did not get a chance to join us during Investor Day, please listen to the replay of the webcast, which is available in the Investor Relations section of our website. Our franchise remains strong. incredibly strong as evidence to the performance that we had in Q1. And we feel confident about our prospects in 2019 and beyond. With that introduction and a review of what we cover in Investor Day to remind us all of what we did and where we are and where we're headed, let me now turn the call over to Bear.