MSCI Achieves Historic Growth, Solidifies Position as Leader in Global Investing
MSCI, a leading provider of critical investment decision support tools and solutions, has reported historic growth in its third quarter 2026 earnings. The company's strong financial and operating metrics demonstrate its expanding mission-critical role in global investing, even as it transforms its business to an AI-first company.
MSCI Chairman and CEO Henry Fernandez highlighted the company's impressive momentum across its three product lines: index, analytics, and Private Capital Solutions (PCS). The company delivered strong financial results, including a 12.4% total revenue growth, a 25% ABF revenue growth, and an adjusted EBITDA growth of 12%. Adjusted EPS also grew by 14%.
The company's acquisition of First Street is expected to accelerate a return to higher growth in climate, despite the current challenges faced by sustainability and climate. Fernandez emphasized that MSCI has built a strong foundation since its IPO 19 years ago, positioning it well to capture expanding opportunities across client segments and growing solutions.
Operationally, MSCI achieved total run rate growth of 12%, fueled by a record ABF run rate of almost $1 billion. The company's ABF performance reflected record AUM levels in ETFs and non-ETF products linked to MSCI indexes, including inflows of $76 billion. This represents nearly $23 trillion of AUM benchmarked to MSCI indices.
MSCI also delivered a subscription run rate growth of 9%, after adding nearly $55 million in recurring net new sales. The company's retention rate improved by 30 basis points from Q3 last year, reaching 95%. Fernandez noted that MSCI is a long-term compounder driven by both annual fee sales (AFS) and subscription growth.
In addition to its financial results, MSCI has been actively repurchasing shares. The company repurchased $627 million of shares at an average price of $562 per share from July 1st through October 19th. Since the beginning of 2024, MSCI has opportunistically repurchased nearly 8 million shares for $4.4 billion.
Fernandez also highlighted his personal commitment to the company's potential, having purchased an additional 57,000 shares for $30.1 million since the start of 2024. This unequivocally demonstrates the company's strong belief in its franchise.
