The discussion included in this section, as well as other sections of this
Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (this Quarterly Report), 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, including the impacts of COVID-19.
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:

• the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic;




•            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;




•            liability related to cybersecurity and the protection of
             confidential information, including personal information about
             individuals;


•            failing to differentiate our products and continuously create
             innovative, proprietary research tools and financial advisor
             software;


•            inadequacy of our operational risk management and business
             continuity programs in the event of a material disruptive event;


•            failing to respond to technological change, keep pace with new
             technology developments, or adopt a successful technology strategy;


•            compliance failures, regulatory action, or changes in laws
             applicable to our investment advisory or credit ratings

operations;


•            volatility in the financial sector, global financial markets, and

             global economy and its effect on our revenue from asset-based fees
             and credit ratings business;


•            trends in the asset management industry, including the

increasing


             adoption of investment strategies and portfolios relying on
             passively managed investment vehicles and increased industry
             consolidation;


•            liability relating to the collection or distribution of

information


             and data we collect and produce, or errors included therein;


•            an outage of our database, technology-based products and

services,


             or network facilities or the movement of parts of our

technology and


             data infrastructure to the public cloud and other outsourced
             providers;


•            the failure of acquisitions and other investments to be efficiently
             integrated and produce the results we anticipate;

• the failure to recruit, develop, and retain qualified employees;




•            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


•            the failure to protect our intellectual property rights or claims of
             intellectual property infringement against us.



A more complete description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in our
other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our
Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 (our Annual
Report). 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.

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



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Understanding our Company

Our Business

Our mission is to empower investor success. The investing ecosystem is complex
and navigating it with confidence requires a trusted, independent voice. Our
perspective is delivered to institutions, advisors, and individuals with a
single-minded purpose: to empower every investor with the conviction that he or
she can make better-informed decisions and realize success on his or her own
terms.

We deliver insights and experiences to clients that are essential to investing.
Proprietary data sets, meaningful analytics, independent research and effective
investment strategies are at the core of the powerful digital solutions that
investors across client segments rely on. We generate revenue through products
and services in three major categories:

• Subscriptions and license agreements, which typically generate recurring

revenue;

• Asset-based fees for our investment management business; and

• Transaction-based revenue for products that involve primarily one-time,

non-recurring revenue.

COVID-19 Update

We are closely monitoring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all aspects of our business and geographies, including how it will impact team members, customers, suppliers, and global markets.



Given the dynamic nature of these circumstances, the full impact of the COVID-19
pandemic on our ongoing business, results of operations, and overall future
financial performance cannot be reasonably estimated at this time. While our
licensed-based revenue is generally more recurring in nature, the uncertainty
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could lead clients to delay purchasing decisions
or product and service implementations, or may cause them to cancel or reduce
spending with us. Our asset-based revenue is subject to global market conditions
and client investment decisions. Due to certain lags in client reporting in this
area, the impact of the market volatility in the first quarter of 2020 on asset
values will generally not be realized in our results until future reporting
periods. Transaction-based revenue primarily includes DBRS Morningstar, which is
dependent on overall credit market conditions and debt issuance levels. The
recent tightening of global credit markets and volatility in interest rates
began to have an adverse impact on the volume of new issue ratings toward the
end of the first quarter, which could persist into future periods.

Our operations also have been affected by a range of external factors related to
the COVID-19 pandemic that are not within our control. For example, many
jurisdictions imposed a wide range of restrictions on the physical movement of
our employees and vendors to limit the spread of COVID-19. We have taken
numerous steps, and will continue to take further actions, in our approach to
addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. We implemented our business continuity plans
and our incident management team is in place to respond to changes in our global
environment quickly and effectively. To protect the health and safety of our
team members, we successfully transitioned our global workforce to remote work
environments. We are also working closely with our clients to support them as
they implement their own contingency plans, helping them access our products and
services remotely.

The situation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic remains fluid, and we are
actively managing our response and assessing potential impacts to our financial
position and operating results. This includes the evaluation and implementation
of certain cost control efforts to help us mitigate the impact that reduced
revenues may have on our 2020 financial results. We are focusing on maintaining
a strong balance sheet and liquidity position. Our cash and investments totaled
$348.8 million at the end of the first quarter of 2020 and we had $210.0 million
of availability under our $300.0 million revolving credit facility.

On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security ("CARES")
Act was signed into law. The CARES Act provides a substantial stimulus and
assistance package intended to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,
including tax relief and government loans, grants and investments. The CARES Act
had no impact on our consolidated financial statements for the three months
ended March 31, 2020. We continue to monitor any effects that may result from
the CARES Act and other similar legislation or actions in geographies in which
our business operates.


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For more information, see Item 1A. Risk Factors for further discussion of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business.


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Supplemental Operating Metrics (Unaudited) The tables below summarize our key product metrics and other supplemental data.


                                                                  Three

months ended March 31,


                                                                                                  Organic
                                                       2020             2019        Change        Change (1)
Revenue by Type
License-based (2)                                $     216.0         $   195.5       10.5  %        10.8  %
Asset-based (3)                                         57.2              48.8       17.2  %        18.0  %
Transaction-based (4)                                   50.8              14.6      247.9  %       (17.2 )%

Key product area revenue
Morningstar Data                                 $      51.4         $    47.7        7.8  %         8.9  %
DBRS Morningstar (5)                                    46.7               9.5      391.6  %           -  %     (6)
PitchBook                                               45.3              32.3       40.2  %        40.2  %
Morningstar Direct                                      38.3              36.3        5.5  %         6.5  %
Investment Management                                   30.5              26.7       14.2  %        16.0  %
Morningstar Advisor Workstation                         21.8              22.4       (2.7 )%        (2.4 )%
Workplace Solutions                                     21.2              18.5       14.6  %        14.6  %
                                                               As of March 31,
                                                       2020             2019        Change
Select business metrics
Morningstar Direct licenses                           15,998            15,401        3.9  %
PitchBook Platform licenses                           41,308            24,655       67.5  %
Advisor Workstation clients (U.S.)                       155               171       (9.4 )%
Morningstar.com Premium Membership
subscriptions (U.S.)                                 111,354

113,408 (1.8 )%



Assets under management and advisement
(approximate) ($bil)
      Workplace Solutions
      Managed Accounts                           $      65.3         $    64.9        0.6  %
      Fiduciary Services                                41.5              45.3       (8.4 )%
      Custom Models                                     28.2              33.0      (14.5 )%
      Workplace Solutions (total)                $     135.0         $

143.2 (5.7 )%

Investment Management (7)


      Morningstar Managed Portfolios             $      23.1         $

44.3 (47.9 )% (8)


      Institutional Asset Management                    14.0

16.1 (13.0 )%


      Asset Allocation Services                          6.4

6.7 (4.5 )%


      Investment Management (total)              $      43.5         $

67.1 (35.2 )%



Asset value linked to Morningstar Indexes
($bil)                                           $      47.2         $    54.4      (13.2 )%
                                                        Three months ended March 31,
                                                       2020             2019        Change
Average assets under management and advisement
($bil)                                           $     205.1         $

201.7 1.7 %

_________________________________________________________________________

(1) Organic revenue excludes acquisitions, divestitures, adoption of new accounting changes, and the effect of foreign currency translations. (2) License-based revenue includes Morningstar Data, Morningstar Direct, Morningstar Advisor Workstation, PitchBook, and other similar products.


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(3) Asset-based revenue includes Investment Management, Workplace Solutions, and
Morningstar Indexes.
(4) Transaction-based revenue includes DBRS Morningstar, Internet advertising,
and conferences.
(5) Revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2019 reflects Morningstar
Credit Ratings. Revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2020 reflects DBRS
Morningstar, the combined credit ratings operations. For the three months ended
March 31, 2020, transaction-based revenue, derived primarily from one-time
ratings fees was 58.1% while recurring revenue from surveillance, research, and
other services comprised the remainder for the period.
(6) The combination of DBRS and Morningstar's U.S.-based credit ratings
operation in 2019 makes it difficult to ascribe the origin of revenue growth to
either entity. As such, revenue from the combined credit ratings operation is
excluded from the reporting of organic revenue growth through the second quarter
of 2020.
(7) Revenue for Investment Management includes Morningstar Managed Portfolios,
Institutional Asset Management, and Asset Allocation Services.
(8) The decline in Morningstar Managed Portfolios was largely attributed to a
client contract change from a variable to fixed-fee arrangement. Excluding the
assets from this client contract in the prior year, Morningstar Managed
Portfolios declined 6.1%. The increase in revenue for Investment Management
diverged from the decline in assets under management and advisement due the
aforementioned contract change, the impact of average asset calculations on
Morningstar Managed Portfolios billing, and increased assets in the Morningstar
Funds Trust.

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