Morningstar, Inc. Reports Second-Quarter 2016 Financial Results

CHICAGO, July 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. MORN, a leading provider of independent investment research, today announced its second-quarter 2016 financial results. The company reported net income of $31.8 million, or 73 cents per diluted share, compared with $32.2 million, or 72 cents per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2015.

Key Operating Metrics

• Revenue for the quarter was $198.2 million, a decrease of 1.9% compared with the same period in 2015. Organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures, and the effect of foreign currency translations, was down 1.3%, or $2.6 million.
• Operating income decreased 10.7% to $44.4 million, and operating margin was 22.4%, a decline from 24.6% in the same period in 2015.
• Cash provided by operating activities of $71.4 million and capital expenditures of $15.9 million resulted in free cash flow of $55.5 million, a decrease of $8.2 million compared with the same period in 2015.

Joe Mansueto, chairman and chief executive officer of Morningstar, said, "While we're facing a few headwinds this year, we're continuing to focus on our five key investment areas and see many opportunities for long-term growth. Negative trends in industry-wide issuance volume for commercial mortgage-backed securities—a sharp reversal from last year's positive trends—continued to weigh down revenue for our credit ratings business. Revenue also declined for our investment management products and Internet advertising sales, though to a lesser extent. Because our clients have been cautious during this year's market volatility, we also experienced more moderate growth rates for license-based products such as Morningstar Data and Morningstar Direct."

Mansueto added, "On the positive side, revenue for Morningstar Research was up more than 20% thanks to new client wins in both equity and manager research. We've also been having many positive discussions with potential clients for our research, software, and data solutions as financial advisors and asset managers are adapting to new fiduciary regulations.

"We've continued making important enhancements to our core research and data capabilities. We recently introduced our first Global Risk Model, which helps investors understand the underlying factors that can drive the risk of a stock or portfolio and goes beyond standard models to project vulnerability to extreme market events. In May, we acquired InvestSoft Technology, which will enhance our fixed-income capabilities and help us provide better transparency into bond funds."

Update on Key Investment Areas

As part of its long-term strategy, Morningstar has five major areas of focus for investment—Workplace Solutions, Morningstar Direct, Morningstar Managed Portfolios, Morningstar Credit Ratings, and Morningstar Indexes. The highlights below summarize key operating metrics in these areas as of June 30, 2016 compared with the same date in 2015:

• Total assets under management and advisement for Workplace Solutions, the company's retirement business, rose 11.6% to $95.0 billion as of the end of the quarter.
• Licenses for Morningstar Direct rose 11.3% to 12,064 as of June 30, 2016.
• Assets under management and advisement for Morningstar Managed Portfolios (including Morningstar's turnkey asset management platform as well as equity portfolios and third-party platform assets) totaled $27.5 billion as of the end of the quarter, compared with $25.6 billion as of June 30, 2015.
• Morningstar Credit Ratings completed four new-issue ratings for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) during the second quarter of 2016, compared with 16 in the same period a year ago. Industry-wide issuance volume for CMBS in the first half of 2016 was down about 45% compared with the first half of 2015, based on data from Commercial Mortgage Alert.
• Assets in investable products that track Morningstar Indexes reached $21.6 billion as of the end of the quarter, compared with $17.5 billion as of June 30, 2015. Two new exchange-traded funds linked to Morningstar's strategic beta indexes launched in the United States and the Netherlands, bringing the total number of investable products tracking Morningstar Indexes to 55.

Balance Sheet and Capital Allocation

• As of June 30, 2016, the company had cash, cash equivalents, and investments totaling $246.2 million and $75.0 million of short-term debt, compared with cash, cash equivalents, and investments of $248.6 million and $35.0 million of short-term debt as of Dec. 31, 2015.
• The company expects to pay approximately $9.5 million for its regular quarterly dividend on July 29, 2016.
• The company did not make any share repurchases during the second quarter of 2016. As of June 30, 2016, the company had $337.7 million remaining for future repurchases under its share repurchase authorization and 43.1 million shares outstanding.

Comparability of Year-Over-Year Results

• Foreign currency translations increased operating income by $0.3 million during the quarter, reducing revenue by $1.6 million and operating expense by $1.9 million.
• Acquisitions reduced operating income by $0.6 million during the quarter, contributing revenue of $0.3 million and additional operating expense of $0.9 million.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures
The table at the end of this press release includes a reconciliation of organic revenue and free cash flow to comparable GAAP measures and an explanation of why the company uses these non-GAAP financial measures.

Investor Communication
Morningstar encourages all interested parties—including securities analysts, current shareholders, potential shareholders, and others—to submit questions in writing. Investors and others may send questions about Morningstar's business to investors@morningstar.com or write to the company at:

Morningstar, Inc.
Investor Relations
22 W. Washington Street
Chicago, IL 60602

Morningstar will make written responses to selected inquiries available to all investors at the same time in Form 8-Ks furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission, generally on the first Friday of every month.

About Morningstar, Inc.
Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, and retirement plan providers and sponsors. Morningstar provides data on approximately 530,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on nearly 18 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries, with more than $185 billion in assets under advisement and management as of June 30, 2016. The company has operations in 27 countries.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current expectations about future events or future financial performance. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain, and often contain words such as "may," "could," "expect," "intend," "plan," "seek," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," or "continue." These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause the events we discuss not to occur or to differ significantly from what we expect. For us, these risks and uncertainties include, among others, liability for any losses that result from an actual or claimed breach of our fiduciary duties; failing to maintain and protect our brand, independence, and reputation; failing to differentiate our products and continuously create innovative, proprietary research tools; failing to respond to technological change, keep pace with new technology developments, or adopt a successful technology strategy; liability related to our storage of personal information related to individuals as well as portfolio and account-level information; compliance failures, regulatory action, or changes in laws applicable to our investment advisory or credit rating operations; downturns in the financial sector, global financial markets, and global economy; the effect of market volatility on revenue from asset-based fees; the effect of changes in industry-wide issuance volume from commercial mortgage-backed securities; a prolonged outage of our database, technology-based products and services, or network facilities; challenges faced by our non-U.S. operations, including the concentration of data and development work at our offshore facilities in China and India; and trends in the mutual fund industry, including the increasing popularity of passively managed investment vehicles. A more complete description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015. If any of these risks and uncertainties materialize, our actual future results may vary significantly from what we expected. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures
To supplement Morningstar's condensed consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Morningstar uses the following measures considered as non-GAAP by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: consolidated revenue excluding acquisitions, divestitures, and the effect of foreign currency translations (organic revenue) and free cash flow. These non-GAAP measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies.

Morningstar presents consolidated revenue excluding acquisitions, divestitures, and the effect of foreign currency translations (organic revenue) because the company believes this non-GAAP measure helps investors better compare period-over-period results.

In addition, Morningstar presents free cash flow solely as supplemental disclosure to help investors better understand how much cash is available after making capital expenditures. Morningstar uses free cash flow to evaluate its business. Free cash flow should not be considered an alternative to any measure required to be reported under GAAP (such as cash provided by (used for) operating, investing, and financing activities).

For more information about these non-GAAP measures, please see the reconciliations provided in the accompanying financial tables.

All dollar and percentage comparisons, which are often accompanied by words such as "increase," "decrease," "grew," "declined, " or "was similar" refer to a comparison with the same period in the previous year unless otherwise stated.

©2016 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

MORN-E

Contacts:
Media: Nadine Youssef, +1 312 696 6601 or nadine.youssef@morningstar.com
Investors may submit questions to investors@morningstar.com.

 

 

 

 

 

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SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.