Originally founded upon a measurement of market risk in a portfolio, RiskMetrics Group is now the recognized standard in financial risk management.
But our capabilities don’t end there. We extend our view of financial risk to include consideration of corporate governance, compliance, accounting, legal, transactional and sustainability risks.
As a proven leader in risk management, corporate governance and financial research & analysis, RiskMetrics Group works to continuously innovate around these disciplines to address a broad spectrum of risk for financial institutions and corporations worldwide.
At RiskMetrics Group, we work every day to make risk transparent and we leverage our expertise, our people and our passion to connect the world’s financial community.
RiskMetrics was “born” in 1994 as an internal function within JP Morgan that developed a VAR model, producing the “4:15 report” that measured end of day portfolio risk. The RiskMetrics methodology was then published, became a standard and was developed into a software product in 1996. Two years later, RiskMetrics was spun out of JP Morgan as a separate company.
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) was founded in 1985 with the goal to promote good corporate governance in the private sector and raise the level of responsible proxy voting among institutional investors and pension fund fiduciaries. In 1986, ISS launched its Proxy Advisory Service to assist institutional investors in fulfilling their fiduciary obligations with comprehensive proxy analysis. RiskMetrics Group acquired ISS in January 2007.
CFRA was founded in 1994 to provide institutional investors with early warning signs of business deterioration within portfolio companies. CFRA built a rigorous and proprietary forensic accounting research process for assessing the quality and sustainability of companies’ reported financial results and expanded into specialty legal, regulatory and due diligence research. RiskMetrics Group acquired CFRA in August 2007.
Today, RiskMetrics Group consists of three primary business units – risk management, governance services and financial research & analysis, all of which help investors assess risk in one form or another. Through our various areas of expertise, we serve over 3300 of the most important institutions and corporations around the world.
