MSCI Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the MSCI Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session where participants are requested to ask one question at a time, then add themselves back to the queue for any additional questions. We will have further instructions for you later on. I would like to turn the call over to Jeremy Ulan, Head of Investor Relations and Treasurer. You may begin.

Thank you. Good day and welcome to the MSCI fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release announcing our results for the fourth quarter 2024. This press release, along with an earnings presentation and brief quarterly update, are available on our website, msci.com, under the investor relations tab. Let me remind you that this call contains forward-looking statements which are governed by the language on the second slide of today's presentation. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date on which they are made are based on current expectations and current economic conditions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements. For discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, please see the risk factors and forward-looking statements disclaimer in our most recent Form 10-K and in our other SEC filings. During today's call, in addition to results presented on the basis of U.S. GAAP, we also refer to non-GAAP measures. You'll find a reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures to the equivalent GAAP measures in the appendix of the earnings presentation. We will also discuss operating metrics, such as run rate and retention rate. Important information regarding our use of operating metrics, such as run rate and retention rate, are available in the earnings presentation. On the call today are Henry Fernandez, our chairman and CEO, Darrell Pettit, our president and COO, and Andy Wishman, our chief financial officer. Lastly, we wanted to remind our analysts to ask one question at a time during the Q&A portion of our call. We do encourage you to ask more questions by adding yourselves back to the queue. With that, let me now turn the call over to Henry Fernandez. Henry?

Thank you, Jeremy. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us. In 2024, MSCI delivered strong financial metrics that once again demonstrated our skill and leadership in servicing the global investment ecosystem. For the full year, We achieved organic revenue growth of almost 10 percent, adjusted earnings per share growth of 12.4 percent, and free cash flow growth of 21 percent. We also repurchased $810 million worth of MSCI shares for the full year. During the fourth quarter and through yesterday, we repurchased over $425 million worth of MSCI shares in alignment with our shareholder-centric capital allocation policy. In the fourth quarter, our operating metrics included organic subscription run rate growth of 8%, excluding FX hell wins, and 7% on a reported basis. asset-based fee run rate growth of 15% and a retention rate of 93%. Our ABF run rate growth was driven by higher average AUM aided by the highest quarterly cash inflows into equity ETFs linked to MSCI indices since the end of 2021. at more than $48 billion. Among client segments, we also had a strong quarter with hedge funds and wealth managers as we grew our firm-wide subscription run rate growth by 15% and 12%, respectively, excluding FX. While active asset managers continue to face cyclical pressures, We posted 5% growth in subscription run rate, excluding FX, and a 94% retention rate with this segment. In my remarks today, I will focus on three areas in particular that demonstrate the success of our strategy, index, wealth, and fixed income. In index products, the ecosystem linked to MSCI indices remains central to global investing. And in Q4, we saw a number of milestones. Last month, for example, one of our large asset manager clients launched a new ETF linked to an MSCI climate index with a record-breaking seeded investment of $2.4 billion dollars from one of our large pension fund clients. This highlights the prominence of our indices, the network effect among our clients, and the continuing demand for climate-related investment products. Clients increasingly want specialized portfolio construction tools while aligning with the frameworks classification systems and rules-based methodologies that MSEI has established as standards. This has fueled demand for MSEI's custom index capabilities, including the FoxBerry F9 platform, which is now being fully integrated into our product suite. We also completed large index deals with two of the world's top investment banks, which Bear will discuss shortly. In the wealth segment in Q4, we achieved 12% subscription run rate growth with wealth managers, excluding FX, with a total wealth subscription run rate of $116 million. We also saw direct indexing AUM based on MSCI indices increased by 31% to nearly $130 billion. MSCI Wealth, a new MSCI brand, is helping wealth managers attract AUM by enabling them to build scalable, personalized, and outcome-oriented portfolios. Our client engagement levels with wealth managers are now higher than ever, as I have seen firsthand in meetings across Europe over the past month. MSCI's progress in wealth also reflects the benefits of our long-term investments, including in our data and technology and a laser focus on evolving client needs. In fixed income products, during the fourth quarter, we drove fixed income run rate growth of 15% across all of our product lines, which is now $104 million. Most notably, we completed a large seven-figure fixed income portfolio management analytics deal with a U.S.-based asset manager displacing a major incumbent provider. We also secure a first-of-its-kind federal government contract in which the client will use our agency mortgage-backed security analytics to better understand the performance and risk of this huge market. Both of these wins stem from the work we have done to enhance our fixed income capabilities, including investing in hard-to-model assets like securitized products and mortgage-backed securities. Putting it all together, MSCI continues to benefit from the depth, diversification, and resilience of our client, product, and revenue base. To the extent market levels and fund inflows remain supportive, we believe this will support active asset manager client budgets this year. MSCI is increasingly well positioned to expand our footprint among established and newer client segments alike, thanks to our data, models, and technology. We believe disadvantages can help us drive compounding growth across the years and across market cycles. And with that, let me turn the call over to Bear.