company . for the food company see morningstar farms . morningstar inc. type public traded as nasdaq morn industry investment research investment management founded 1984 founder joe mansueto headquarters chicago illinois united states key people joe mansueto chairman ceo revenue us 198.2 million q2 2016 1 operating income us 44.4 million q2 2016 2 net income us 31.8 million q2 2016 2 number of employees 4 070 june 30 2016 3 website www.global.morningstar.com www.morningstar.com morningstar inc. is an investment research and investment management firm headquartered in chicago illinois united states . contents 1 history 2 operations 3 corporate identity 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit founder joe mansueto initially had the idea for morningstar in 1982 while reviewing mutual fund annual reports he had requested from several prominent fund managers . 4 however it was only after a year working as a stock analyst for harris associates seeing the fund industry and potential competitors up close that he was convinced that the opportunity was there . 4 5 morningstar was subsequently founded in 1984 from his one bedroom chicago apartment with an initial investment of us 80 000 . 6 the name morningstar is taken from the last sentence in walden a book by henry david thoreau ; the sun is but a morning star . 6 7 in july 1999 morningstar accepted an investment of us 91 million from softbank in return for a 20 % stake in the company . the two companies had formed a joint venture in japan the previous year . 7 8 morningstar s initial public offering occurred on may 3 2005 with 7 612 500 shares at 18.50 each . 9 the manner in which morningstar went public is notable . they elected to follow google s footsteps and use the openipo method rather than the traditional method . this allowed individual investors to bid on the price of the stock and allowed all investors equal access . as of february 2015 joe mansueto owned approximately 55 % of the outstanding shares in morningstar . 10 operations edit morningstar provides data on approximately 525 000 investment offerings including stocks mutual funds and similar vehicles along with real time global market data on nearly 18 million equities indexes futures options commodities and precious metals in addition to foreign exchange and treasury markets . morningstar also offers investment management services through its registered investment advisory subsidiaries with more than 180 billion in assets under advisement and management as of march 31 2016 . the company has operations in 27 countries . 11 corporate identity edit morningstar s current logo is notable in that it was designed by paul rand . mansueto sought rand out in 1989 after deciding that the company s design standards needed to be improved and that the first step would be a redesign of its logo . 12 after several phone calls letters and finally a trip to meet rand in person mansueto convinced him to work on the logo which was completed within four months . 12 the new design features the o in morningstar appearing as a rising sun which is a nod to the quote that inspired the company s name . 6 while the fee for this work 50 000 was a significant amount at the time for the company mansueto considers it one of our most valuable assets . 12 see also edit a. m. best american association of individual investors bloomberg l.p. dominion bond rating service fitch ratings kroll bond rating agency moody s analytics nationally recognized statistical rating organizations reuters standard & poor s value line references edit morningstar press release . retrieved july 21 2016 . a b cite error the named reference q22016findetails was invoked but never defined see the help page . morningstar press release . retrieved july 21 2016 . a b everything i know i learned from warren buffett corporate culture article inc. article . retrieved may 3 2007 . joe mansueto and bill nygren the importance of having conviction . retrieved may 3 2007 . a b c fetterman mindy november 14 2005 . usatoday.com can he turn magazine bust into a boom . usa today . retrieved may 3 2007 . a b a star is reborn after shake up . usa today . february 12 2001 . retrieved may 21 2007 . company news ; softbank says it will invest 91 million in morningstar . the new york times . july 9 1999 . retrieved may 3 2007 . morningstar press release . retrieved may 3 2007 . morn insider activity . retrieved february 27 2015 . morningstar press release . retrieved april 22 2016 . a b c corporate design foundation issue journal . retrieved may 21 2007 . external links edit official website corporate website understanding the morningstar rating and fund analyst picks from www.morningstar.com don phillips senate testimony retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title morningstar inc. & oldid 743867808 categories financial data vendorscompanies based in chicagocompanies listed on nasdaqresearch and analysis firmsresearch and analysis firms of the united stateshidden categories pages with reference errorspages with broken reference names navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran ais piemont is edit links this page was last modified on 11 october 2016 at 18 40 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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