We are a leading provider of mission-critical, sophisticated software products
and software-enabled services that allow financial services providers to automate
complex business processes and effectively manage their information processing
requirements. Our portfolio of software products and rapidly deployable software-enabled
services allows our clients to automate and integrate front-office functions
such as trading and modeling, middle-office functions such as portfolio management
and reporting, and back-office functions such as accounting, performance measurement,
reconciliation, reporting, processing and clearing. Our solutions enable our
clients to focus on core operations, better monitor and manage investment performance
and risk, improve operating efficiency and reduce operating costs. We provide
our solutions globally to approximately 11,000 clients, principally within the
institutional asset and wealth management, alternative investment management,
financial advisory and financial institutions vertical markets. In addition,
our clients include commercial lenders, real estate investment trusts (“REITs”),
corporate treasury groups, insurance and pension funds, municipal finance groups
and real estate property managers.
We provide the global financial services industry with a broad range of software-enabled
services, which consist of software-enabled outsourcing services and subscription-based
on-demand software that are managed and hosted at our facilities, and specialized
software products, which are deployed at our clients’ facilities. Our
software-enabled services, which combine the strengths of our proprietary software
with our domain expertise, enable our clients to contract with us to provide
many of their mission-critical and complex business processes. For example,
we utilize our software to offer comprehensive fund administration services
for alternative investment managers, including fund manager services, transfer
agency services, funds-of-funds services, tax processing and accounting. We
offer clients the flexibility to choose from multiple software delivery options,
including on-premise applications and hosted, multi-tenant or dedicated applications.
Additionally, we provide certain clients with targeted, blended solutions based
on a combination of our various software and software-enabled services. We believe
that our software-enabled services provide superior client support and an attractive
alternative to clients that do not wish to install, manage and maintain complicated
financial software.
Our business model is characterized by substantial contractually recurring
revenues, high operating margins and significant cash flow. We generate revenues
primarily through our high-value software-enabled services, which are typically
sold on a long-term subscription basis and integrated into our clients’
business processes. Our software-enabled services are generally provided under
contracts with initial terms of one to five years that require monthly or quarterly
payments and are subject to automatic annual renewal at the end of the initial
term unless terminated by either party. We also generate revenues by licensing
our software to clients through either perpetual or term licenses and by selling
maintenance services. Maintenance services are generally provided under annually
renewable contracts. As a consequence, a significant portion of our revenues
consists of subscription payments and maintenance fees and is contractually
recurring in nature. Our pricing typically scales as a function of our clients’
assets under management, the complexity of asset classes managed, the volume
of transactions, and the level of service the client requires.
Our contractually recurring revenue model helps us minimize the fluctuations
in revenues and cash flows typically associated with up-front, perpetual software
license revenues and enhances our ability to manage costs. Our contractually
recurring revenues, which include our software-enabled services and maintenance
and term licenses revenues, represented 94% of total revenues in the year ended
December 31, 2017. We have experienced average revenue retention rates in each
of the last five years of greater than 90% on our software-enabled services
and maintenance and term licenses contracts for our core enterprise products.
We believe that the high value-added nature of our products and services has
enabled us to maintain our high revenue retention rates and significant operating
margins.
We serve a number of vertical markets within the financial services industry,
including alternative investment funds, investment management firms, insurance
companies, registered investment advisors (“RIAs”), wealth managers,
banks and brokerage firms. We believe that financial services providers will
increasingly turn to information technology (“IT”) solutions, provided
by an independent vendor, as a result of economic challenges and heightened
regulatory requirements. Financial service firms are in a search for more risk-averse
business strategies, simplified regulatory compliance, and full service solutions
provided by a single vendor. As a result, we believe the financial services
industry will continue to invest in IT and outsourcing solutions in 2018.