Morningstar Announces Availability of Proxy Materials for 2012 Annual Shareholders' Meeting

CHICAGO, April 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today announced that the proxy materials for its 2012 Annual Shareholders' Meeting are now available electronically under the Securities and Exchange Commission's Notice and Access rule.

The proxy statement for Morningstar's 2012 annual meeting and the 2011 annual report to shareholders are available in the investor relations area of the company's corporate website at the following links:

http://corporate.morningstar.com/us/documents/PR/2012ProxyStatement.pdf

http://corporate.morningstar.com/us/documents/PR/2011AnnualReport.pdf

Morningstar shareholders may also obtain printed copies of the proxy materials for the 2012 annual meeting and elect to receive printed copies for all future meetings by following the instructions provided in the Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials that was mailed to shareholders on April 5, 2012.

Morningstar's 2012 Annual Shareholders' Meeting will be held at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at its corporate headquarters at 22 W. Washington Street in Chicago. If you are interested in attending, please register at http://corporate.morningstar.com/US/asp/meetingregistration.aspx.

About Morningstar, Inc.

Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individuals, financial advisors, and institutions. Morningstar provides data on approximately 375,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 8 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 advisor subsidiaries and has more than $180 billion in assets under advisement and management as of Dec. 31, 2011. The company has operations in 27 countries.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current expectations about future events or future financial performance. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain, and often contain words such as "may," "could," "expect," "intend," "plan," "seek," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," or "continue." These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause the events we discuss not to occur or to differ significantly from what we expect. For us, these risks and uncertainties include, among others, general industry conditions and competition, including ongoing economic weakness and uncertainty; the effect of market volatility on revenue from asset-based fees; damage to our reputation resulting from claims made about possible conflicts of interest; liability for any losses that result from an actual or claimed breach of our fiduciary duties; the increasing concentration of data and development work carried out at our offshore facilities in China and India; failing to differentiate our products and continuously create innovative, proprietary research tools; failing to successfully integrate acquisitions; challenges faced by our non-U.S. operations; and a prolonged outage of our database and network facilities. A more complete description of these risks and uncertainties can be found in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011. If any of these risks and uncertainties materialize, our actual future results may vary significantly from what we expect. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events.

©2012 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Media Contact: Nadine Youssef, 312-696-6601 or [email protected]

Investors: Please submit questions to [email protected] or by fax to 312-696-6009.

SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.