Our strategy is to deliver insights and experiences essential to investing. Our proprietary data, independent research, effective investment strategies, and meaningful analytics power the digital solutions that investors across client segments have come to rely upon in their investment processes.

our mision

Empowering investor success

our mision

Delivering insights and experiences essential to investing

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Our values

  • Investors First
  • Great Products
  • Great People
  • Uncompromising ethics
  • Entrepreneurial spirit
  • Sustainable responsibility
  • Financial Success
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Our work

  • Proprietary data
  • Forward-looking research
  • Effective investment strategies
  • Meaningful analytics
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Our clients

  • Individuals
  • Advisors & wealth managers
  • Asset managers
  • Institutional asset owners
  • Private market investors
  • Fixed-income market participants
  • Retirement participants
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Our brand

  • Investor advocacy
  • Independence
  • Transparency
  • Long-term focus

Our Customer Groups

Advisor

Financial advisors are professionals who offer guidance on different aspects of personal finance, aiding individuals and businesses in making more informed investment decisions to reach their financial goals. This customer group includes independent advisors at registered investment advisor (RIA) firms, advisors affiliated with independent broker/deals, dually registered advisors, and advisors who are employees of a broker/dealer.

Our main products for financial advisors include Morningstar Advisor Workstation, Morningstar Office, Morningstar Managed Portfolios, and Advisor Managed Accounts. Our main products for wealth managers include Morningstar Data and Morningstar Direct.

Asset Manager

Asset management firms manufacture financial products and manage and distribute investment portfolios. This customer group includes individuals involved in sales, marketing, product development, business intelligence, and distribution, as well as in investment management (often referred to as the “buy side”), which includes portfolio management and research.

The main products we offer for asset management firms include Morningstar Direct, Morningstar Data, and Morningstar Indexes. For the buy side, the main products include Morningstar Research, Morningstar DBRS, Morningstar Data, Morningstar Direct, and Morningstar Sustainalytics.

Institutional Asset Owner

Institutional asset owners operate in a fiduciary capacity on behalf of their beneficiaries, overseeing large pools of capital. Investment consultants serve these organizations in an advisory capacity, aiding in the development of investment policy, conducting manager due diligence, risk management and performance reporting.

We offer a range of solutions to this diverse set of sponsoring entities, investors, and advisors across multiple geographies. Our primary products for this customer group include Morningstar Direct, Morningstar Indexes, Morningstar Sustainalytics, and PitchBook.

Fixed-income Market Participant

Morningstar DBRS typically issues credit ratings in response to requests from issuers, intermediaries, or investors. Morningstar DBRS credit ratings are requested for corporate short and long-term fixed income obligations, sovereign debt, single project financings, and structured finance programs.

Retirement/Workplace

In the U.S., 401(k) and other types of defined-contribution (DC) retirement plans are the dominant retirement saving vehicles offered by employers.

Our services are designed to help improve the DC retirement system by offering highly personalized savings and investment advice at the employee level, scalable investment and risk mitigation services at the plan and advisor level, and industry research at the policy and institutional level. Our core retirement products (managed retirement accounts, advisor managed accounts, Morningstar Plan Advantage, fiduciary services, and custom models) primarily reach individual investors through employers that offer DC plans for their employees.

Our main product offerings for the workplace/retirement customer group include managed retirement accounts, fiduciary services, and custom models.

Individual

We offer tools and content for individual investors who invest to build wealth and save for other goals, such as retirement or college tuition.

We offer three products for individual investors. Our largest based on engagement is our investing media site Morningstar.com, which offers data, editorial, and research content available for free to registered customers and visitors. Our second product is Morningstar Investor (Morningstar Premium outside of the U.S. and Australia), which provides access to Morningstar’s research, advancing screening tools, and portfolio management tools. The third product is a set of investment newsletters based on different investment types and investing strategies.

Private Market Investor

PitchBook covers the full lifecycle of venture capital, private equity, private credit, and M&A activities, including the limited partners, investment funds, lenders, and service providers involved.

Our main product for this customer group is the PitchBook Platform, an all-in-one research and analysis web-hosted solution that gives clients the ability to access data, discover new connections, and conduct research on potential investment opportunities.

Business Model

License-based

The majority of our research, data, and proprietary platforms are accessed via subscriptions or contract-based licensing arrangements that grant access on either a per user or enterprise-basis for a specified period of time.

Licensed-based revenue includes Morningstar Data, Morningstar Direct, Morningstar Advisor Workstation, Morningstar Office, PitchBook Data, Premium Memberships on Morningstar.com, and other similar products.

Asset-based

We charge basis points and other fees for assets under management or advisement. Our Morningstar Investment Management, Workplace Solutions, and Morningstar Indexes products all fall under asset-based revenue.

Transaction-based

Ad sales on Morningstar.com and our Credit Ratings products comprise the majority of the products that are transactional, or one-time, in nature, versus the recurring revenue streams represented by our licensed and asset-based products.

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