MSCI - Equity Data Specialist - Equity Data Management Division

About MSCI

For more than 40 years, MSCI's research-based indexes and analytics have helped the world's leading investors build and manage better portfolios. Clients rely on our offerings for deeper insights into the drivers of performance and risk in their portfolios, broad asset class coverage and innovative research. Our line of products and services includes indexes, analytical models, data, real estate benchmarks and ESG research. MSCI serves 98 of the top 100 largest money managers, according to the most recent P&I ranking.

For more information, visit us at www.msci.com.

Position overview:

Equity Data Management Division of MSCI (EDM) is responsible for the collection, maintenance, and quality control of certain non-price related data points that in turn serve as inputs to its various products related to Equity Index Series. In a nutshell, EDM performs six critical functions for the construction and maintenance of its indices:

- Universe Management: defining the equity universe to facilitate index size segmentation by market

- Fundamental Data Update: processing the company's financial statements on an ongoing basis to facilitate the computation of valuation ratios used in certain MSCI products

- Float Review: processing the company's shareholding structure to determine the free float of securities on an annual basis

- Number of Shares Review : processing the company's latest number of shares to account for certain corporate events

- Global Industry Classification Standards (GICS - ) Review: GICS Direct is a product that MSCI manages jointly with Standard and Poor's (S&P). CDAM is responsible for reviewing the industry classification of companies jointly with S&P in order to help maintain the product. MSCI uses GICS to create sectored indices

- Economic Exposure Review: processing the company's geographic segmentation to determine the country exposure of the company

- Market Neutral Corporate Events: processing corporate events that do not have a trading impact for clients

Responsibilities:

- The roles and responsibilities are structured geographically. Each FA will be assigned certain countries and will gain functional expertise for the assigned countries. The FA would typically perform the following functions for his coverage:

- Universe Management

- Defining the equity universe by:

- Identifying eligible equity securities, and

- Classifying these eligible securities into the appropriate country

- Fundamental Data Update

- Collection, quality control and maintenance of fundamental data. The fundamental data points that we update include revenues, earnings, cash earnings, book value, dividends and number of shares. This function involves:

- Normalization of the profit and loss statement

- Normalization of balance sheet Understanding the impact of fundamental data updates on index level aggregates

- Performing quality control procedures to ensure the accuracy of fundamental data updates

- Ongoing review of accounting trends

- Float Review

- Reviewing the free float of various securities. Free float of a security is defined as the proportion of shares outstanding that is deemed to be available for purchase in the public equity markets by international investors. This function involves:

- Collecting information on the shareholding structures of various companies on an annual basis and analyzing the nature of each shareholder in order to determine whether or not the latter is strategic.

- Reviewing the foreign ownership restrictions applicable to individual securities, sectors or countries.

- Determining if there are any other restrictions on foreign investors that impede their ability to invest in individual securities, sectors or countries.

- Number of Shares Review

- While the number of shares mentioned under the Fundamental Data Update section refers to the outstanding shares as at the date of financial statements being updated, the number of shares mentioned here refers to the number of shares after a corporate event. While tracking major corporate events is the responsibility of the Events Analyst covering the respective country, tracking minor corporate events is still the responsibility of the FA covering the country in question. This function involves:

- Confirming the latest number of shares and determining the reasons for changes in the number of shares, where the change exceeds certain thresholds on a quarterly basis.

- Determining whether the change in the number of shares requires a float review.

- GICS- Review

- GICS- Review is done based on various factors such as product segmentation, market perception, competitors' classification, and so on. This function involves:

- Reviewing the appropriateness of the current GICS- of various companies in the Equity Universe on an annual basis

- Determining the GICS- of companies newly added to the Equity Universe under the section Universe Management

- Assisting on projects related to improvement in industry classification structure on a bi-annual basis

- Economic Exposure Review

- Collecting, quality controlling and maintenance of geographic segmentation data of companies. The MSCI Economic Exposure Indices aim to reflect the performance of companies with significant exposure to target regions or countries, regardless of their domicile. Here, an analyst is required to review the exposure that a company is deriving from a specific region and analyze causes of variations.

- Market Neutral Corporate Events Review

- Tracking processing and quality controlling corporate events that do not have a trading impact for clients.

Desired experience and qualifications:

- Good analytical skills

- Self-starter and high level of motivation and commitment to hard work

- Open mind with a taste for improving processes

- Should be a team player

- High level of focus on work quality/attention to detail and accuracy

- Excellent communication skills in English

- Proficiency in MS Office applications

- Ability to articulate clearly and concisely

- Desire to effectively work with diverse cultures on a global team

- Candidate should have 3 to 6 years of work experience

- CA/CFA/MBA