Morningstar, Inc. MORN

The business

Morningstar sells investment information to the people who allocate other people's money. The products are subscriptions: a data feed of fund, equity, and fixed-income fundamentals; the Morningstar Direct analysis platform; Advisor Workstation for financial advisors; PitchBook for private-capital intelligence; Sustainalytics for sustainability ratings; a growing index business; retirement managed accounts; and a credit-ratings arm that grades structured finance and corporate issuers. Buyers are asset managers, financial advisors, retirement plan sponsors, banks, and institutional investors. Revenue splits three ways, and the concentration is not close. License-based revenue is the engine: $1,719.2 million of $2,445.5 million in 2025, or 70.3% of the total. Transaction-based revenue, mostly credit ratings, was $383.3 million (15.7%) and grew 21.0% in 2025. Asset-based revenue, tied to assets under management in Morningstar-linked products, was $343.0 million (14.0%) and grew 2.9%. The moat, named once and handed off, is switching cost: the data is wired into client reporting, compliance, and product literature, and the index and ratings pieces add an acceptance layer on top.

Two things the statements do not show. First, on February 2, 2026 the company closed its $363.0 million cash acquisition of the Center for Research in Security Prices from the University of Chicago, whose indexes benchmark more than $3 trillion of US equities, and extended its relationship with Vanguard alongside it. It was funded largely under the 2025 credit agreement, which is why goodwill and intangibles jumped from $1,990.1 million at year end to $2,338.6 million three months later and why net debt roughly tripled from $401.3 million at the end of 2024 to $1,413.7 million. Second, Morningstar does not hold analyst conference calls and issues no formal guidance, a policy it restated in its June 29, 2026 results-date announcement. Investors submit written questions instead. That is unusual, it thins the information flow around the name, and it plausibly contributes to how far the multiple has traveled. Within the mix, the first-quarter tell was that credit grew 38.4% while PitchBook growth softened.