Morgan's MSCI scores some IPO riches

MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MXB), which is a division of Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), is now an independent public company. The company bumped the price range on its offering twice – from $14-$16 to $16-$18. The final price came to $18. In today's trading, the stock reached $27.36.

MSCI is a leader in decision support tools for the financial services industry. These include things like indices, portfolio analytics, and risk management systems. There are more than 2,800 clients across 63 countries. Although, the company still has a small portion of its base from hedge funds. In other words, this could be a nice source of future business.

As an indication of MSCI's scale, the firm operates more than 100,000 indices for equities, real estate, investment trusts and hedge funds.

For the first half of this year, operating revenues increased 18% to $175.8 million and operating income was up 13% to $56.2 million. In fact, MSCI has a customer retention rate of about 93%.

The lead underwriter on the deal was Morgan Stanley.

You can find the prospectus at the SEC website. Also, if you want to find more information on recent IPOs, visit DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.