Earlier in March this year, it was reported that Morningstar has asked Praemium employees to increase their working hours for no extra pay as they moved onto new contracts under Morningstar.
A source with knowledge of the company told FTAdviser at the time that some Praemium employees were already applying for new jobs as a result.
But Morningstar said the package of benefits under the Morningstar contract was significantly better than the original Praemium contract and was therefore within the bounds of UK law, adding that the change in agreement was not detrimental to the employee.
The platform has also been previously described by Morningstar as a challenger in the UK market, with a strong growth trajectory.
Kapoor says: “We now have a really robust wealth platform and so if you are a financial adviser, our offering for you is as strong as ever.”
The continued development of the Praemium proposition is just one of a number of areas Morningstar is focused on this year.
“In the managed products area, we are investing heavily in areas like managed portfolios because more investors are using packaged products as opposed to single strategies,” Kapoor explains.
“We are investing in ESG meaningfully. You are going to see a lot from us on climate. We are going to bring our indexing capabilities to the UK.
"We think index providers are charging too much for what they are providing clients today and we think we have an equally good yet cheaper proposition than some of the larger incumbents.
Morningstar arms
Other areas that Morningstar is looking to expand further include its credit rating capability, private equity, venture capital and private debt.
The various sections within Morningstar are divided into product areas.
The subscription areas include Morningstar Data and Morningstar Direct, which includes its managed products data, our research and ratings.
Morningstar Sustainalytics is focused on ESG, then there is PitchBook, which tracks every aspect of the public and private equity markets, including venture capital, private equity, and M&A.
The transactional business includes DBRS Morningstar and ad sales on Morningstar.com.
Meanwhile, Morningstar's assets-based product areas are Morningstar Investment Management, Morningstar Indexes and Workplace, a US-focused business.
With all the different arms to the Morningstar business, Kapoor says this means the company does not have a direct competitor.
Asked if Morningstar has the scale to compete with the large UK investment managers, Kapoor says Morningstar is not necessarily trying to compete with them.
