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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 20172020

For the transition period from ______ to _______

Commission file number:  001-34675

SS&C TECHNOLOGIES HOLDINGS, INC.

(Exact name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

80 Lamberton Road

Windsor, CT 06095

(Address of Principal Executive Offices, Including Zip Code)

860-298-4500

(Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area Code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.   ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report.  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

As of June 30, 2017,2020, the aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates was $6,638,369,265$12,728,401,143 based on the closing sale price per share of the registrant’s common stock on The Nasdaq Global Select Market on such date.

There were 206,631,365257,696,131 shares of the registrant’s common stock outstanding as of February 16, 2018.17, 2021.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE:

Part III of this annual report on Form 10-K incorporates by reference certain information from the registrant’s definitive proxy statement for the 20182021 annual meeting of stockholders, which the registrant intends to file pursuant to Regulation 14A with the Securities and Exchange Commission not later than 120 days after the registrant’s fiscal year end of December 31, 2017.2020. With the exception of the sections of the definitive proxy statement specifically incorporated herein by reference, the definitive proxy statement is not deemed to be filed as part of this annual report on Form 10-K.

SS&C TECHNOLOGIES HOLDINGS, INC.

ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K

For the Fiscal Year EndedFOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED December 31, 20172020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Explanatory Note

On June 24, 2016, SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. completed a two-for-one stock split, effected in the form of a stock dividend. All share and per share amounts (other than for the Company’s Class A non-voting common stock which, as described herein, had been converted to shares of our common stock prior to the two-for-one stock split) have been retroactively restated for all periods presented to reflect the stock split.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

Certain statements contained in this annual report constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  AllForward-looking statements contained hereininclude statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, expectations, intentions, projections, developments, future events, performance, underlying assumptions, and other statements that are notother than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial performance, funding requirements and liquidity; management’s plans and strategies for future operations, including statements relating to anticipated operating performance, cost reductions, competitive strengths or market position, acquisitions and related synergies; growth, declines and other trends in markets we sell into; the anticipated impact of adopting new accounting pronouncements; the anticipated outcome of outstanding claims, legal proceedings, tax audits and other contingent liabilities; foreign currency exchange rates and fluctuations in those rates; general economic conditions; assumptions underlying any of the foregoing; and any other statements that address events or developments that we intend or believe will or may occur in the future. The forward-looking statements contained herein also include statements about the expected effects on the Company of the proposed acquisition of DST Systems, Inc. (“DST”), the expected timing and conditions precedent relating to the proposed acquisition of DST, anticipated earnings enhancements, synergies, and other strategic options.facts. Without limiting the foregoing, the words “believes”, “anticipates”, “plans”, “expects”, “estimates”, “projects”, “forecasts”, “may”, “assume”, “intend”, “will”, “continue”, “opportunity”, “predict”, “potential”, “future”, “guarantee”, “likely”, “target”, “indicate”, “would”, “could” and “should” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements are accompanied by such words. Forward-lookingSuch statements reflect management’s best judgment based on factors currently known but are not guarantees of future performancesubject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results mayto differ materially from those envisaged by such forward-looking statements.anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the state of the economy and the financial services industry and other industries in which our clients operate, our ability to realize anticipated benefits from its acquisitions, including Captricity, Innovest and Millennium, the effect of customer consolidation on demand for our products and services, the increasing focus of our business on the hedge fund industry, the variability of revenue as a result of activity in the securities markets, the ability to retain and attract clients, fluctuations in customer demand for our products and services, the intensity of competition with respect to our products and services, the exposure to litigation and other claims, terrorist activities and other catastrophic events, disruptions, attacks or failures affecting our software-enabled services, risks associated with our foreign operations, privacy concerns relating to the collection and storage of personal information, evolving regulations and increased scrutiny from regulators, our ability to protect intellectual property assets and litigation regarding intellectual property rights, delays in product development, investment decisions concerning cash balances, regulatory and tax risks, risks associated with our joint ventures, changes in accounting standards, risks related to our substantial indebtedness, and the market price of our stock prevailing from time to time. The factors discussed under “Item 1A. Risk Factors”, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements made herein and presented elsewhere by management from time to time.  You should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements.  Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of the report, document, press release, webcast, call or other communication inon which they are made. We expressly disclaim anymade and, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to update ouror revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances, or otherwise, except as required by law.statements.

The following are some of our registered trademarks and/or service marks in the U.S. and/or in other countries: ADVENT, ADVENT CORPORATE ACTIONS, ADVENT CUSTODIAL DATA, ADVENT ONDEMAND, ADVENT PORTFOLIO EXCHANGE, ALGO, ALGO CREDIT, ALGO MARKET, ALGO ONE, ALGO RISK, ALGORITHMICS, BLUEDOOR, ADVENT REVENUE CENTER, ADVISORWARE, ALL-STAR FUNDS, ALPS, AWD, AXYS, BENEFIX, BLACK DIAMOND, CAREANALYZER, CARESTEPP, DBC, DEAL MACROS, DEAL WORKSHEETS,DST, DSTHS, DST HEALTH SOLUTIONS, DST PHARMACY SOLUTIONS, DST SYSTEMS, EXETER, EZE, EZE CASTLE, EZE ECLIPSE, FAN, FAN MAIL, FIXLINK, FUNDRUNNER, GENEVA, GLOBEOP, GLOBEOP HEDGE FUND INDEX,  GOREC, GORISK, HiTRUST, INFOSTEPP, INTRALINKS, KNOW YOUR RISK, LIBERTY ALL-STAR FUNDS, MARGINMAN, MARK-TO-FUTURE, MAXIMIS, MOXY, PACER, PAGES, PAS, PORTIA, PORTPRO, PRO-JECT,POWERSTEPP, REALTICK, RECON, ROLLOVER CENTRAL, RISKWATCH, RXFOCUS, SKYLINE, SS&C, SYNCOVA, SYLVAN, TA2000, TAMALE, TAMALE RMS, TRAC, TRADETHRU, TRADEWARE, VISION, WALLETSHARE, and ZOOLOGIC. SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or in other countries have trademark or service mark rights to certain other names and marks other than those referred to in this annual report.

SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc., or “SS&C Holdings,” is our top-level holding company.  SS&C Technologies, Inc., or “SS&C,” is our primary operating company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc.  “We,” “us,” “our” and the “Company” mean SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries, including SS&C.

Unless context otherwise requires, references to our “common stock” includes both shares of our common stock and shares of our Class A non-voting common stock.

PART

PART I

Overview

We are a leading provider of mission-critical, sophisticated software productsSS&C Technologies Holdings (NASDAQ: SSNC) is the world’s largest hedge fund and software-enabled services that allowprivate equity administrator, as well as the largest mutual fund transfer agent. SS&C’s unique business model combines end-to-end expertise across financial services providersoperations with software and solutions to automate complex business processesservice even the most demanding customers in the financial services and effectively manage their information processing requirements. Our portfolio of software productshealthcare industries. SS&C owns and rapidly deployable software-enabled services allows our clients to automate and integrate front-office functions such as trading and modeling, middle-office functions such as portfolio management and reporting, and back-office functions such asoperates the full technology stack across securities accounting, performance measurement, reconciliation, reporting, processing and clearing. Our solutions enable our clients to focus on corefront-to-back-office operations, better monitor and manage investment performance and risk improve operating efficiencyanalytics, regulatory reporting and reduce operating costs. We provide our solutions globallyhealthcare information processes.

SS&C’s trusted and proven technology delivers an unparalleled level of scalable capabilities for the most complex portfolios, the most sophisticated strategies, and the highest volumes of transactions.  Through a series of carefully selected acquisitions and organic growth, the breadth and depth of SS&C’s expertise in financial services and healthcare technology are unmatched.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Windsor, Connecticut, the company is home to approximately 11,00024,000+ employees in more than 100 cities across 35 countries globally.  With 18,000+ clients principally withinspanning the institutional asset and wealth management, alternative investment management, financial advisoryhealth and financial institutions vertical markets. In addition,services industries, our clients include commercial lenders, real estate investment trusts (“REITs”), corporate treasury groups, insurancecustomers’ needs and pension funds, municipal finance groups and real estate property managers.

requirements are always at the forefront of our strategy. We provide the global financial services industry with a broad range of software-enabled services, which consist of software-enabled outsourcing services and subscription-based on-demand softwarecloud solutions that are managed and hosted at our facilities, and specialized software products, which are deployed at our clients’ facilities.  Our software-enabled services, which combine the strengths of our proprietary software with our domain expertise, enable our clients to contract with us to provide many of their mission-critical and complex business processes.  For example, we utilize our software to offerdeliver comprehensive fund administration services forto alternative investmentand traditional asset managers, including fund manager services, transfer agency services, funds-of-funds services, tax processing and accounting.  We offer clients the flexibility to choose from multiple software delivery options, including on-premiseon premise applications and hosted, multi-tenant or dedicated applications.  Additionally, we provide certain clients with targeted, blended solutions based on a combination of our various software and software-enabled services.  We believe that our software-enabled services provide superior client support and an attractive alternative to clients that do not wish to install, manage and maintain complicated financial software.

SS&C Health is a services and technology enabled business dedicated to serving the healthcare industry.   The core purpose of our health business is to enable our clients to provide better health services, including improved quality, cost, experience and outcomes to their members. We do this by applying modern technology to medical and pharmacy claims processing, data and analytics and simplifying and improving the experience for our client users and their members. SS&C Health’s chosen market segments are Health Plans and pharmacy benefit managers, specifically, those who serve government-funded member segments and those who are seeking alternatives to the big three integrated health plans.  As a total health partner, our suite of solutions spans across health plan operations.  These options include core claims processing, operational software and high value applications for Value-Based Payment, Encounters, Risk-Adjustment and Total Cost management. Unique in the market, we are prepared to support our clients in their transition to interoperability: storing, securely transporting and leveraging claims and clinical information to drive value for their clients and members.  These solutions enable us to serve a large population of payer clients across the market segments.

Our business model is characterized by substantial contractually recurring revenues, high operating marginsrevenue retention rates and significant cash flow.  We generate revenues primarily through our high-value software-enabled services, which are typically sold on a long-term subscription basis and integrated into our clients’ business processes.services.  Our software-enabled services are generally provided under contracts with initial terms of one to five years that require monthly or quarterly payments and are subject to automatic annual renewal at the end of the initial term unless terminated by either party.  We also generate revenues by licensing our software to clients through either perpetual or term licenses and by selling maintenance services.  Maintenance services are generally provided under annually renewable contracts. As a consequence, a significant portion ofPricing in our revenues consists of subscription payments and maintenance fees and is contractually recurring in nature. Our pricing typicallysoftware-enabled services businesses scales as a function ofbased on several factors which can include our clients’ assets under management, the complexity of asset classes managed, the number of accounts serviced, the volume of transactions, trading volume, medical claims and pharmacy claims volume and the level of service the client requires.

Our contractually recurring revenue model helps us minimize the fluctuations in revenues and cash flows typically associated with up-front, perpetual software license revenues and enhances our ability to manage costs. Our contractually recurring revenues, which include our software-enabled services and maintenance and term licenses revenues, represented 94% of total revenues in the year ended December 31, 2017. We have experienced average revenue retention rates in each of the last five years of greater than 90% on our software-enabled services and maintenance and term licenses contracts for our core enterprise products.  We believe that the high value-added nature of our products and services has enabled us to maintain our high revenue retention rates and significant operating margins.rates.

We generated revenues of $1,675.3$4,667.9 million for the year ended December 31, 20172020 as compared to revenues of $1,481.4$4,632.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2016.2019.  In 2017,2020, we generated 78%77% of our revenues from clients in North America and 22%23% from clients outside North America.  Our revenues are highly diversified, with our largest client in 20172020 accounting for less than 2%5% of our

revenues.  Additional financial information, including geographic information, is available in our Consolidated Financial Statements and Note 1312 to our Consolidated Financial Statements.

Our Industry

We serve a number of vertical markets within the financial services industry, includingand healthcare industries.  Our financial services clients include alternative investment funds, investment management firms, institutional and retail asset managers, insurance companies, registered investment advisors (“RIAs”), wealth managers, banks and brokerage firms.  Our healthcare clients include individual and government sponsored health plans and healthcare providers. We believe that financial services and healthcare providers will increasingly turn to information technology (“IT”)IT solutions, provided by an independent vendor, as a result of economic challenges and heightened regulatory requirements.  Financial serviceservices firms are in a search for more

risk-averse business strategies, simplified regulatory compliance, and full service solutions provided by a single vendor. Healthcare providers are looking to improve their customers’ experience through better access to data and an enhanced user interface.  As a result, we believe the financial services industrythese industries will continue to invest in IT and outsourcing solutions in 2018.solutions.

Market Trends

The demand for our products and services comes from a number of distinct sources: new hedge fund, private equity, real assets,formations in asset and RIA formation,wealth management and healthcare, new business lines and combinations of business lines at existing clients, replacement of legacy in-house operations and competitor systems and expansion of our existing client relationships.  Underlying these demand drivers are several industry trends, including:

Competitive Strengths

The following are our core strengths that we believe enable us to differentiate ourselves in the markets we serve:

Enhanced capability through software ownership.

We use our proprietary software products and infrastructure to provide our software-enabled services, strengthening our overall operating margins and providing a competitive advantage.  Because we primarily use our own proprietary software in the execution of our software-enabled services and generally own and control our products’ source code, we can quickly identifyenable continuous updates in a highly scalable, reliable and deploy product improvementssecure manner and respond to client feedback, enhancing the competitiveness of our software and software-enabled service offerings.feedback. This continuous feedback process provides us with a significant advantage over many of our competitors, specifically those software competitors that do not provide a comparable model and therefore do not have the same level of hands-on experience with their products.

Global industry leader with strong market position focused on software and software-enabled services for the financial industry.services industries.

We are a global business providing a broad portfolio of approximately 90 software products and software-enabled services and have 81approximately 140 offices worldwide.  As of December 31, 2017,2020, we had 7,448over 22,000 development, service and support professionals with significant expertise across the industries that we serve and a deep working knowledge of our clients’ businesses.  We provide highly flexible, scalable and cost-effective solutions that enable our financial services clients to track complex securities, better employ sophisticated investment strategies, scale efficiently and meet evolving regulatory requirements.  Our products and services allow our clients to automate and integrate their front-office, middle-office and back-office functions, thus enabling straight-through processing that increases productivity and reduces costs. We believe our product and service offerings position us as a leader within the specific verticals of the financial services software and services market in which we compete.  Our products and services allow our clients to automate and integrate their front-office, middle-office and back-office functions, thus enabling straight-through processing that increases productivity and reduces costs.

Trusted provider to our highly diversified and growing client base.

By providing mission-critical, reliable software products and services for over 30 years, we have become a trusted provider to the financial services industry.  We have developed a large and growing installed base within multiple segments of the financial services industry.  Our clients include some of the largest and most well-recognized firms in the financial services industry.  We believe that our high-quality products and superior services have led to long-term client relationships, some of which date from our earliest days of operations.  Our strong client relationships, coupled with the fact that many of our current clients use our products for a relatively small portion of their total funds and investment vehicles under management, provide us with a significant opportunity to sell additional solutions to our existing clients and drive future revenue growth at lower cost.

#1, Publically-traded,Largest independent alternative fund administration services.services provider and mutual fund transfer agent.

The third-party service providers that participate in the alternative investment market include fund managers, auditors, fund administrators, attorneys, custodians and prime brokers.  Each provider performs a valuable function with the intention of providing transparency of the fund’s assets and the valuation of those assets.  Conflicts of interest may arise when the above parties attempt to provide more than one of these services.  The industry is increasingly recognizing these conflicts and, as a result, seeking independent fund administrators such as SS&C.  

SS&C is currently the largest fund administrator for alternative investment managers, including hedge funds, private equity, real assets and fund of funds. We are the largest third-party mutual fund transfer agent, and through our Global Investor and Distribution Solutions (“GIDS”) business, we deliver global transfer agency and investor servicing powered by a single global servicing platform. Investor servicing is offered in many different countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Luxembourg, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. SS&C also services mutual fund structures in many other fund domiciles. GIDS leverages SS&C’s global

regulatory expertise to provide a consistent global approach to regulatory compliance, which enables providers to lower risk and improve client service. Our highly tenured staff of industry experts allow us to deliver consistent service excellence to the asset management customers we service.  The fact that we are operating our own proprietary software to deliver these services allows us to ensure all aspects of our offering are optimized to deliver cost effective, accurate solutions.

As a publicallypublicly traded company, our clients and prospects have access to our 10-Qs and 10-Ks filed with the SEC, giving them transparency into our overall financial strength.

Experienced management team with strong integrating and operating track record.

Our senior management team has a track record of operational excellence and an average of more than 20 years of experience in the softwarefinancial services and financial serviceshealthcare industries and a proven ability to acquire and integrate complementary businesses, as demonstrated by the 4958 businesses we have acquired since 1995.  By leveraging our domain expertise and knowledge, we have developed, and continue to improve, our mission-critical software products and services to enable our clients to overcome the complexities inherent in their businesses.  All of our senior executives are compensated based upon the Company’sour financial success.

Business Strategies

Our strategy is to continue to deliver compelling solutions and value propositions to our customers in the softwarefinancial services and software-enabled services market.healthcare industries.  The following are key elements to our strategy for achieving this objective:

Build upon and extend our leadership position in software and software-enabled services in the financial services industry.

Since our founding in 1986, we have focused on building substantial financial services domain expertise through close working relationships with our clients.  We have developed a deep knowledge base that enables us to respond to our clients’ most complex financial, accounting, actuarial, tax and regulatory needs.  We intend to maintain and enhance our technological leadership by using our domain expertise to build valuable new software-enabled services and solutions, continuing to invest in internal development and opportunistically acquiring products and services that address the highly specialized needs of the financial services industry.

Our internal product development team works closely with marketing, sales and client service personnel to ensure that product evolution reflects developments in the marketplace and trends in client requirements.  In addition, we intend to continue to develop our products in a cost-effective manner by leveraging common components across product families.  We believe that we enjoy a competitive advantage because we can address the investment and financial management needs of high-end clients by providing industry-tested products and services, including cloud-based services and related mobility platforms that meet global market demands and enable our clients to automate and integrate their front-, middle- and back-office functions for improved productivity, compliance, reduced manual intervention and bottom-line savings.

SS&C’s products are sold to a diverse group of clients from niche players in the financial services industryand healthcare industries to the largest institutions in the world.  Furthermore, we believe our client base of approximately 11,000 clients represents a fraction of the total number of financial services providers globally.  We believe there is opportunity to grow our client

base over time as our products become more widely adopted.  We believe we also have an opportunity to capitalize on the increasing adoption of outsourcing mission-critical operations by financial services and healthcare providers as they continue to replace inadequate legacy solutions and custom in-house solutions that are inflexible and costly to maintain. We also believe we have an opportunity to expand our footprint within existing clients. We will continue to focus on cross-selling our products and bundling solutions. Our software-enabled services revenues increased from $670.2$2,798.9 million for the year ended December 31, 20152018 to $1,114.0$3,891.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2017, representing a compound annual growth rate of 28.9%.2020.

Capitalize on longer-term secular growth trends.trends in financial services and healthcare industries.

With our global footprint and best-in-class product offerings, we aim to capture a significant share of theIT spend of alternative asset, institutional and retail asset andmanagers, wealth managers and the healthcare industry through leveraging the deeply embeddedservice offering we provide and outdistancing the competition.  We expect regulatory changes to increase thecomplexity of compliance and the demand for our products and services, as well as motivate clients to developinfrastructure and research management processes to mitigate regulatory exposure.  We plan to benefit from the growing software spend in the increasingly complex and more highly regulated financial services and healthcare landscape.

Continue to capitalize on acquisitions of complementary businesses and technologies.

We intend to continue to employ a highly disciplined and focused acquisition strategy to broaden and enhance our product and service offerings, expand our intellectual property portfolio, add new clients and supplement our internal development efforts.  We believe our acquisitions have been an extension of our research and development effort that has enabled us to purchase proven products and remove the uncertainties associated with software development projects.  We will seek to opportunistically acquire, at

reasonable valuations, businesses, products and technologies in our existing or complementary vertical markets that will enable us to better satisfy our clients’ rigorous and evolving needs.  We have a proven ability to integrate complementary businesses as demonstrated by the 4958 businesses we have acquired since 1995.  Our experienced senior management team leads a rigorous evaluation of our targets to ensure that they satisfy our product or service needs and will successfully integrate with our business while meeting our targeted financial goals.  As a result, our acquisitions have contributed marketable products or services that have added to our revenues.  Through the broad reach of our direct sales force and our large installed client base, we believe we can market these acquired products and services to a large number of prospective clients.  Additionally, we have been able to improve the operational performance and profitability of our acquired businesses, creating significant value for our stockholders.

Strengthen our international presence.

We believe that there is a significant market opportunity to provide software and services to financial services providers outside North America.  In the year ended December 31, 2017,2020, we generated 22%23% of our revenues from clients outside North America.  We are building our international operations in order to increase our sales outside North America.  We plan to continue to expand our international market presence by leveraging our existing software products and software-enabled services.  We also plan to leverage our growing presence in the Asia Pacific region as a result of recent acquisitions.  Over the last three years, revenue from the Asia Pacific region has increased 32.6% to $193.3 million. We believe this region presents a compelling growth opportunity.

Increase profitability through margin expansion.

We have a proven track record of increasing operating margins both organically and inorganically. We expect to continue to improve margins through cost reductions, operating efficiencies, and realization of cost synergies. We also expect to drive increased margins through delivering innovative end-to-end solutions that provide significant value to customers and warrant premium pricing.  We have significant scale with best-in-class solutions and software-enabled services across the delivery spectrum, which we believe, combined with a diversified service offering and client base, drives stable revenues and increased operating leverage.  Our operating flexibility allows us to scale our costs based on client demands. Additionally,We are also able to increase our low capital expenditure and working capital requirements further drive strong cash flow conversions.margins by implementing more technology in our services business, including automating traditionally manual accounting functions.

Our Acquisitions

As mentioned above, we intend to continue to employ a highly disciplined and focused acquisition strategy.  Our past acquisitions have enabled us to expand our product and service offerings into new markets or client bases within the financial services industry.  The addition of new products and services has also enabled us to market other products and services to acquired client bases.  We believe our acquisitions have been an extension of our research and development effort and have enabled us to add to our product and service offerings without incurring the uncertainties sometimes associated with software development projects.

Since 1995, we have acquired 4958 businesses within our industry.  These acquisitions have contributed marketable products and services, which have added to our revenues and earnings.  We have generally been able to improve the operating performance and profitability of our acquired businesses.  We seek to reduce the costs of the acquired businesses by consolidating sales and marketing

efforts and by eliminating redundant administrative tasks and research and development expenses.  In many cases, we have also been able to increase revenues generated by acquired products and services by leveraging our existing products and services, larger sales capabilities and client base.

We generally seek to acquire companies that satisfy our financial metrics, including expected return on investment.  Through our acquisitions, we seek companies that:

We believe, based on our experience, that there are numerous solution providers addressing highly particularized financial services needs or providing specialized services that would meet our disciplined acquisition criteria.

Acquisitions are discussed further in Liquidity and Capital Resources and in Note 118 to our Consolidated Financial Statements. The following table provides a list of the most substantial acquisitions we have made since 19952010 (in thousands)millions):

On January 11, 2018, the Company and DST Systems, Inc. (“DST”) announced that they had entered into a definitive agreement wherein the Company will acquire DST.  Under the terms of the agreement, the Company will acquire DST for an enterprise value of approximately $5.4 billion, comprising $84 per share of DST common stock in cash plus the assumption of debt.  The closing, which is expected to occur by the third quarter of 2018, remains subject to DST stockholder approval, clearances by relevant regulatory authorities and satisfaction of customary closing conditions.  The Company plans to fund the acquisition and refinance certain of the Company’s existing debt and all of DST’s existing debt with a combination of debt and equity.  DST is a global provider of specialized technology, strategic advisory and business operations outsourcing to the financial services and healthcare industries.

Products and Services

Our products and services allow professionals in the financial services industryand healthcare industries to automate complex business processes within financial services providers and are instrumental in helping our clients manage significant information processing requirements.  Our solutions enable our clients to focus on core operations, better monitor and manage investmentbusiness performance and risk, improve operating efficiency and reduce operating costs.  Our portfolio of approximately 90 products and software-enabled services allows our financial services clients to automate and integrate front-office functions such as trading and modeling, middle-office functions such as portfolio management and reporting, and back-office functions such as accounting, performance measurement, reconciliation, reporting, processing and clearing.clearing, and compliance and tax reporting.  Our healthcare solutions include claims adjudication, benefit management, care management and business intelligence solutions.

Software-enabled Outsourcing Services

SS&C provides a range of software-enabled outsourcing services that include fund administration, managed services with our world-class data centers, and technology and operations outsourcing.

SS&C GlobeOp. We provide comprehensive on- and offshore fund administration services to hedge fund and other alternative investment managers using our proprietary software products. SS&C GlobeOp offers fund manager services, transfer agency services, funds-of-funds services, tax processing, compliance services and accounting processing. SS&C GlobeOp supports all fund types and investment strategies. Our proprietary modules, “Go-Apps” including GoTrade+ and GoRisk, target specific processes in the post-trade investment cycle and are fully integrated within the SS&C GlobeOp service. Market segments served include hedge funds, funds-of-funds, private equity, and real assets firms.

Black Diamond. Black Diamond offers independent advisors and wealth managers a cloud-based portfolio management platform with aggregation, customizable reporting and rebalancing, and daily reconciliation features. As a cloud-based product offering, advisors can access Black Diamond’s customizable portfolio management and reporting online from anywhere, anytime without the need to maintain costly technology infrastructures. Black Diamond also provides outsourced daily reconciliation and data management services so firms can focus their efforts on servicing clients and growing their business rather than managing complex back office functions.

Advent OnDemand. SS&C Advent OnDemand is the SaaS delivery of SS&C Advent’s suite of asset management solutions, which are hosted either by Advent or a third-party and are offered with or without data management services. Data management services include full account aggregation, daily portfolio reconciliation, corporate actions processing and reference data management.

SS&C Direct. We provide comprehensive software-enabled services through our SS&C Direct operating unit for portfolio accounting, reporting and analysis functions. Since 1997, SS&C Direct has offered ASP, business process outsourcing (“BPO”) and blended outsourcing services to institutional asset managers, insurance companies, hedge funds and financial institutions. The SS&C Direct service includes full BPO investment accounting and operations services, the hosting of a company’s application software, automated workflow integration and quality control mechanisms, and extensive interface and connectivity services to custodian banks, data service providers, depositories, and other external entities.

Evare. Evare is a leader in financial data acquisition, transformation and delivery services. Global managed services connect our clients and their counterparties using each firm’s preferred method of connectivity, custom data formats, and industry standards. All parties utilize their existing systems and protocols without having to upgrade or install software.

e-Investor. SS&C’s e-Investor provides an end-to-end investor transaction processing platform designed to automate the delivery, completion, submission, and tracking of all investor transactions. When coupled with SS&C’s e-Fulfillment, the solution can deliver targeted marketing material and subscription documents through a secure web interface to potential investors, with detailed activity tracking. Once delivered, the prospect (or financial advisor) can complete the subscription document online, leveraging e-Investor’s extensive and flexible data validation and dependency rules.

SSCNet.SSCNet is a global trade network linking investment managers, broker-dealers, clearing agencies, custodians and interested parties. SSCNet’s real-time trade matching utility and delivery instruction database facilitate integration of front-, middle- and back-office functions, reducing operational risk and costs.

SVC. SVC is a single source for securities data that consolidates data from leading global sources to provide clients with the convenience of one customized data feed. SVC provides clients with seamless, timely and accurate data for pricing, corporate actions, dividends, interest payments, foreign exchange rates and security master for global financial instruments.

FIXLink. FIXLink is a large, multi-asset FIX connectivity network for IOIs, trades, orders, and allocations, providing a reliable broker-neutral and platform-neutral FIX connectivity service to broker-dealers and institutions.

Portfolio management/accounting software

Our products and services for portfolio management span most of our vertical markets and offer our clients a wide range of investment management solutions. Some of our portfolio management products include:

Geneva. Geneva is a global portfolio management platform designed to meet the real-time needs of global asset managers, hedge funds, prime brokers, fund administrators, private equity firms and family offices worldwide. Geneva integrates all phases of the investment management process – portfolio management, reconciliation and light trade capture and risk capabilities. Its “main memory” database offers more accurate and flexible reporting, and eliminates batch processing and time-consuming error corrections. Geneva enables firms to grow into new markets, deliver greater operational efficiencies, enhance investor service, process high trade volumes across multiple securities, improve compliance and security, and lower operating costs and risks.

Advent Portfolio Exchange. Advent Portfolio Exchange (“APX”) is a comprehensive portfolio management solution for asset managers and wealth managers worldwide, which integrates the front-office functions of prospecting, marketing, customer relationship management and internal business management with the back office operations of portfolio accounting, performance measurement and reporting. It allows firms to manage both high-net-worth and institutional clients through a comprehensive range of capabilities, including customized reporting, automated report packaging, and performance analytics. APX can be deployed locally as well as the cloud.

Global Wealth Platform. A web-based service, Global Wealth Platform combines our core asset management product functions with an innovative, easy-to-use interface. Global Wealth Platform provides an integrated suite with key components — modeling, trading, portfolio accounting, client communications and other mission critical workflows — as an on-demand, software-enabled service.

PORTIA. PORTIA is a comprehensive middle-to-back-office software solution designed to streamline the operations of global investment managers. PORTIA’s functionality supports a broad range of global asset types, fixed income analytics & analysis, multi-currency transaction processing, corporate actions and presentation-quality reporting implemented with flexible deployment options. Built on an open architecture, PORTIA enables real-time integration with other systems, applications, data providers and counterparties to run operations more efficiently and effectively.

HiPortfolio. HiPortfolio is an investment accounting and asset servicing solution. It provides full life cycle processing including comprehensive investment and fund accounting capabilities, flexible transaction processing from order capture to post-trade activity, and proven support for middle- and back-office operations.

CAMRA. CAMRA (Complete Asset Management, Reporting and Accounting) software supports the integrated management of asset portfolios by investment professionals operating across a wide range of institutional investment entities. CAMRA is a multi-user, integrated solution tailored to support the entire portfolio management function and includes features to execute, account for and report on all typical securities transactions.

Pacer. Pacer is a portfolio management and accounting system designed to manage diversified global portfolios and meet the unique management and accounting needs of all business streams, from institutional and pension management, to separately managed accounts, private client portfolios, mutual funds and unit trusts.

TNR Solution. TNR Solution is a software product for private equity, hedge funds, funds of hedge funds and family offices. Built around Microsoft’s .NET platform, the product gives end users the flexibility to manage all aspects of their operations from contact management, fund raising, investor relations, fund, portfolio and deal management, general ledger and reporting.

Total Return.Total Return is a portfolio management and partnership accounting system directed toward the hedge fund and family office markets. It is a multi-currency system, designed to provide financial and tax accounting and reporting for businesses with high transaction volumes.

AdvisorWare. AdvisorWare software supports hedge funds, funds-of-funds and family offices with sophisticated global investment, trading and management concerns, and/or complex financial, tax, partnership and allocation reporting requirements. It delivers comprehensive multicurrency investment management, financial reporting, performance fee calculations, net asset value calculations, contact management and partnership accounting in a straight-through processing environment.

Axys. Axys is a turnkey portfolio management and reporting system for small to mid-size investment management organizations. Axys provides investment professionals with broad portfolio accounting functionality on a variety of investment instruments, including equities, fixed income, mutual funds and cash. By using Axys, clients have a timely decision support tool with immediate access to portfolio holdings, asset allocation, realized and unrealized gains and losses, actual and projected income and other data including performance measurement and flexible reporting.

Debt & Derivatives. Debt & Derivatives is a comprehensive financial application software package designed to process and analyze all activities relating to derivative and debt portfolios, including pricing, valuation and risk analysis, derivative processing, accounting, management reporting and regulatory reporting. Debt & Derivatives delivers real-time transaction processing to treasury and investment professionals, including traders, operations staff, accountants and auditors.

MAXIMIS. MAXIMIS is a real-time intranet-enabled portfolio management solution for insurance companies, pension funds and institutional asset managers. Its key product functions include portfolio analysis, investment management, trade processing, cash processing, multi-currency accounting, regulatory reporting, operations and analysis and management reporting.

Recon. Recon is a transaction, position and cash reconciliation system that streamlines reconciliation by identifying exceptions and providing effective workflow tools to resolve issues faster, thereby reducing operational risk. Recon automatically reconciles transactions, holdings and cash from multiple sources.

Performance measurement and attribution

Our performance measurement and attribution solutions calculate rates of return, attribution, composite returns, and ex-post risk measures. These solutions better explain investment strategies and performance to our clients’ investors, giving them greater transparency into their portfolios.

Sylvan. Sylvan is a performance measurement, attribution and composite management platform that is designed to streamline the calculation and reporting of performance measurement requirements.

Insight. Insight is a web-based performance measurement and attribution solution that combines in-depth analytical capabilities with cutting-edge visualization technology. Insight brings clarity to alternative investment firm’s performance analytic with interactive visual displays, benchmark customization, presentation formation, and fulfills GIPs compositing, reporting, and compliance requirements.

Anova. SS&C Anova acts as a central data hub, consolidating and aggregating critical holding, position and transaction data in near real time. Its robust performance and attribution engine provides a detailed breakdown of the sources of risk and return from portfolio holdings, enabling clients to understand and react to their portfolio performance.

Banking and Lending Solutions

SS&C offers end-to-end banking and lending solutions to support the full range of types, including commercial and syndicated, consumer direct, auto, mortgage and lines of credit. Our solutions help streamline and modernize loan operations, bringing “future-proof” flexibility, scalability and transparency to the management of loan assets.

Precision LM. Precision LM is a single database application that provides comprehensive commercial loan management from initial request to final disposition. It is a fully integrated system that supports both loan origination and servicing, and offers a single point of entry that increases efficiency by eliminating redundant data, reducing errors and loweringSoftware license, maintenance and operating costs. Precision LM offers a centralized loan portfolio that maintains a detailed loan history and audit trail from inception and generate comprehensive loan portfolio reporting from a single database, giving the client ability to proactively measure and mitigate riskrelated

through the integrated portfolio analytics. Precision LM is fully integrated with commercial mortgage-backed securities (“CMBS”), including complete CMBS pooling, servicing, advances, recoveries and Commercial Mortgage Securities Association reporting.

SS&C Primatics. SS&C Primatics automates processes, enables compliance with changing regulations, and accurate data analysis that is aimed to improve real-time decision-making. The SS&C Primatics Evolv product eliminates the manual processes and spreadsheets by automating all of the loan accounting functions (data, calculations, processes, workflows and reporting) that are not being addressed by core banking systems.

Global Debt Manager (“GDM”). GDM is a suite of industry-leading solutions, seamlessly integrated under a common core with single-sign on. GDM enables global banks and securities firms to streamline global registrar and transfer and paying agency operations, providing a full range of corporate trust support, encompassing money market issuance, long-term debt and common depository, with multi-currency and local market support world-wide. The GDM suite includes Long-term debt manager, Common Depository Manager, GDM Match, and Money Market Manager.

Global Treasury Manager (“GTM”). GTM is a suite of industry-leading solutions designed specifically to meet the needs of broker/dealers, credit unions, and banks. SS&C’s solutions for financial institutions include fixed-income securities trading, safekeeping, money market processing, collateral management, repo processing, portfolio accounting and analytics as well as asset/liability management. GTM’s suite of products include TradeThru, MarginMan, Lightning, and PortPro.

Trading and Treasury operations

Our comprehensive real-time trading systems offer a wide range of trade order management solutions that support both buy-side and sell-side trading. Our full-service trade processing systems deliver comprehensive processing for global treasury and derivative operations. Solutions are available to clients either through a license or as a software-enabled service. Some of our trading and treasury operations products include:

Moxy. Moxy automates and streamlines the portfolio construction, trading and order management process for the investment management community. Moxy also provides internet-ready electronic order routing based on the industry standard FIX messaging protocol so that users can route trades electronically to any FIX-compliant broker, crossing networks, and various dark pools of liquidity that supports the internet or other TCP/IP connections. Trades are executed, processed, settled and accounted for without manual intervention.

Antares. Antares is a comprehensive, real-time, event-driven trading and profit and loss reporting system designed to integrate trade modeling with trade order management. Antares enables clients to trade and report fixed-income, equities, foreign exchange, futures, options, repos and many other instruments across different asset classes. Antares also offers an add-on option of integrating Heatmaps’ data visualization technology to browse and navigate holdings information.

Client Reporting

Our  powerful client communications solutions serve investment managers, wealth managers, insurance companies, and alternative investors and allow our customers to create on-demand, custom reports.    

SS&C VisionFI. VisionFI (Financial Insights) is a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for designing, producing and distributing client communications content for the financial services industry. It enables firms to deliver high-end, customized reports and deliver via print, email, or online portal.

Pages. Pages is a powerful client communications solution for investment managers, insurance companies, and banks that generate distinctive client statements and slide presentations for print, electronic or face-to-face meetings. Features include desktop publishing-quality statements, personalized and multilingual capabilities, automated processes and a simplified workflow, and complex business logic, including "if-then-else" capabilities to handle one-off situations or other special cases.

Financial modeling

We offer several powerful analytical software and financial modeling applications for the insurance industry. We also provide analytical software and services to the municipal finance groups market. Some of our financial modeling products include:

DBC Debt Structuring Solutions. The DBC family of solutions provides technology for structuring and reporting on municipal finance, general obligation and revenue bond issues, including asset-backed housing and student loan securitization. Underwriters,

investment banks, municipal issuers and financial advisors use DBC solutions for structuring new issues, securitizations, strategic planning and asset/liability management. The DBC suite includes DBC Finance, DBC Debt Manager, DBC PortOpt, DBC Housing, DBC Multi-Family/Healthcare, and DBC Student Loan.

Global Markets Risk. Global Markets Risk provides a comprehensive view of risk across all asset classes for banks, hedge funds, asset managers, insurance companies and pension funds. Risk Analytics is designed for risk managers who need better tracking, managing and reporting of value-at-risk and ex-ante risk measures across all asset classes.

Property management

We provide technology solutions for commercial and multifamily property management firms, as well as timeshare and resort operators. Our solutions automate and streamline daily accounting and administrative functions, and give clear insights into our clients’ assets.

SKYLINE. SKYLINE Property Management Software Solutions and Services is a comprehensive property management system that integrates all aspects of real estate property management, from prospect management to lease administration, work order management, accounting and reporting. By providing a single-source view of all real estate holdings, SKYLINE functions as an integrated lease administration system, a historical property/portfolio knowledge base and a robust accounting and financial reporting system, enabling users to track each property managed, including data on specific units and tenants.

TimeShareWare. TimeShareWare Enterprise incorporates a Service Oriented Architecture and provides the tools, structure, and performance needed to accommodate management of complex and demanding resort operations, including sales and marketing, management, contract processing, loan servicing and property management.

Professional services

We offer a range of professional services to assist clients.  Professional services consist of consulting and implementation services, including the initial installation of systems, conversion of historical data and ongoing training and support.  Our in-house consulting teams work closely with the client to ensure the smooth transition and operation of our systems.  Our consulting teams have a broad range of experience in the financial services industry and include certified public accountants, chartered financial analysts, mathematicians and IT professionals from the asset management, real estate, investment, insurance, hedge fund, municipal finance, banking and bankinghealthcare industries.  We believe our commitment to professional services facilitates the adoption of our software products across our target markets.  For the year ended December 31, 2017,2020, revenues from professional services represented 5%2% of total revenues.

Product support

We believe a close and active service and support relationship is important to enhancing client satisfaction and furnishes an important source of information regarding evolving client issues.  We provide our larger clients with a dedicated client support team whose primary responsibility is to answer questions and provide solutions to address ongoing needs.  Direct telephone support is provided during extended business hours and additional hours are available during peak periods.  Approximately every two weeks, weWe distribute content-rich, periodic blogs and thought leadership targeted at clients and prospects in each of our softwarevertical and services eBriefings, which are industry-specific newsletters available for key geographic regions around the world.markets.  We supplement our service and support activities with comprehensive training.  Training options include regularly hosted classroom and online instruction, ZoologicSS&C Learning AcademyInstitute, and online client seminars, or “webinars,” that address current, often technical, issues in the financial services industry.and healthcare industries.

We periodically make maintenance releases of licensed software available to our clients, as well as regulatory updates (generally during the fourth quarter, on a when and if available basis), to meet industry reporting obligations and other processing requirements.

Clients

We have approximately 11,000 clients globally in theOur global financial services industry thatand healthcare clients require a full range of information management and analysis accounting, actuarial, reporting and compliance software on a timely and flexible basis.  Our financial services clients include multinational banks, retail banks and credit unions, hedge funds, private equity funds, funds of funds and family offices, institutional and retail asset managers, insurance companies and pension funds, municipal finance groups, brokers/dealers, financial exchanges, commercial lenders, real estate lenders and property managers.  Our healthcare clients include health insurance companies, health plans and benefits administrators. Our clients include many of the largest and most well-recognized firms in the financial services industry.and healthcare industries.  During the year ended December 31, 2017,2020, our top 10 clients represented approximately 10%15% of total revenues, with no single client accounting for more than 2%5% of total revenues.

Sales and Marketing

We believe a direct sales organization is essential to the successful implementation of our business strategy, given the complexity and importance of the operations and information managed by our products, the extensive regulatory and reporting requirements of each industry, and the unique dynamics of each vertical market.  Our dedicated direct sales and support personnel are

located in various sales offices worldwide and routinely undergo product and sales training.  We also use telemarketing to support sales of our real estate property management products and work through alliance partners that sell our software-enabled services to their correspondent banking clients.

Our marketing personnel have extensive experience in marketing to the financial services industryand healthcare industries and are responsible for identifying market trends, evaluating and developing marketing opportunities, generating client leads and providing sales support.  Our marketing activities focus on cost-effective means of reaching current and potential clients, including:

This strategy achieves lower marketing costs, more direct contacts with actual and potential clients, increased marketing leads, distribution of more up-to-date marketing information and an improved ability to measure marketing initiatives.

The marketing department also supports the sales force with appropriate and relevant materials, including brochures and fact sheets, for use during the sales process.

Product Development and Engineering

We believe we must introduce new products and offer product innovation on a regular basis to maintain our competitive advantage.  To meet these goals, we use multidisciplinary teams of highly trained personnel and leverage this expertise across all product lines.  We have invested heavily in developing a comprehensive product analysis process to ensure a high degree of product functionality and quality.  Maintaining and improving the integrity, quality and functionality of existing products is the responsibility of individual product managers.  Product engineering management efforts focus on enterprise-wide strategies, implementing best-practice technology regimens, maximizing resources and mapping out an integration plan for our entire umbrella of products as well as third-party products.  For the years ended December 31, 2017, 20162020, 2019 and 2015,2018, our research and development expenses were $153.3$399.4 million, $152.7$383.7 million and $110.4$318.2 million, respectively.  In addition, we have made significant investments in intellectual property through our acquisitions.

Our research and development engineers work closely with our marketing and support personnel to ensure that product evolution reflects developments in the marketplace and trends in client requirements.  We have generally issued a major release of our core products during the second or third quarter of each fiscal year, which includes both functional and technical enhancements.  We also provide an annual release typically in the fourth quarter to reflect evolving regulatory changes in time to meet clients’ year-end reporting requirements.

Competition

The market for financial servicesthe software and services we provide is competitive, rapidly evolving and highly sensitive to new product introductions and marketing efforts by industry participants, although high conversion costs can create barriers to adoption of new products or technologies.  The market is fragmented and served by both large-scale firms with broad offerings as well as firms that target only local markets or specific types of clients.  We also face competition from information systems developed and serviced internally by the IT departments of large financial services and healthcare firms.  We believe that we generally compete effectively as to the factors identified for each market below, although some of our existing competitors and potential competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, distribution and marketing resources than we have and may offer products with different functions or features that are more attractive to potential customers than our offerings.

Alternative Investments:  In our alternative investments market, we compete with multiple vendors that may be categorized into two groups, the first consists of independent specialized administration providers, which are generally smaller than us, and the second

includes prime brokerage and other financial services firms offering fund administration services.  Major competitors in this market include CITCO Group andlarge custodian banks, such as State Street, Bank. BNY Mellon and Northern Trust, as well as CITCO Group. The key competitive factors in marketing software and services to the alternative investment industry are the need for independent fund administration, features and adaptability of the software, level and quality of customer support and onboarding, level of software development

expertise and total cost of ownership.  Our strengths in this market are our expertise, our independence, our transparency, our ability to deliver functionality by multiple methods and our technology, including the ownership of our own software.

Asset Management:  In our asset management market, we compete with a variety of other vendors depending on client characteristics such as size, type, location, computing environment and functionality requirements.  Competitors in this market range from larger providers of integrated portfolio management systems and outsourcing services, such as BNY Mellon Financial (Eagle Investment Systems), to smaller providers of specialized applications and technologies such as StatPro, Charles River DevelopmentSimCorp, Empower and others.  We also compete with internal processing and information technologyIT departments of our clients and prospective clients.  The key competitive factors in marketing asset management solutions are the reliability, accuracy, timeliness and reporting of processed information to internal and external customers, features and adaptability of the software, level and quality of customer support, level of software development expertise and return on investment.  Our strengths in this market are our technology, our ability to deliver functionality by multiple delivery methods and our ability to provide cost-effective solutions for clients.

Healthcare:  In our healthcare markets, we compete with providers of pharmacy and medical claims processing, benefit management, care management, business process outsourcing, business intelligence and analytics.  We compete with other third-party providers such as United Health, CVS Health, Cigna/Express Scripts, and companies that perform their services in-house with licensed or internally developed systems and processes.  SS&C Health is not integrated, owned, controlled, or merged with any specific health plan. This structure allows us to demonstrate we do not have business model or channel conflicts that drive membership to a particular channel (such as retail, mail, or specialty pharmacies), nor do we compete with our health plan clients. Our independent model enables us to be a client’s strategic partner versus a potential competitor. Our competitors’ healthcare administration and health outcomes optimization solutions are primarily based on complete replacement of a payer’s core system. With a component-based approach, health payer clients can choose core application replacement, or adopt component applications to address areas that offer the most opportunity for improvement, with minimal disruption to business operations.

Insurance and Pension Funds:  In our insurance and pension funds market, we compete with a variety of vendors depending on client characteristics such as size, type, location, computing environment and functionality requirements.  Competitors in this market range from large providers of portfolio managementinvestment operations, accounting and analytics systems, such as State Street Bank (Princeton Financial Systems), Clearwater Analytics and FIS, to smaller providers of specialized applications and services.

We also compete with outsourcers, as well as the internal processing and information technology departments of our clients and prospective clients.  The key competitive factors in marketing insurance and pension plan systems are the accuracy, timeliness and reporting of processed information provided to internal and external clients, features and adaptability of the software, level and quality of customer support, economies of scale and return on investment.  Our strengths in this market are our years of experience, our top-tier clients, ourthe ability to provide solutions by multiple delivery methods, our cost-effective and customizable solutions and our expertise.

Financial Advisor: Advisory:  We define the advisory market as independent and regional broker-dealers, wealth managers, trust companies, advisory firms and registered investment advisers.  We compete with a variety of vendors, which are generally smaller firms focused solely on the advisory market.  Our competitors include Envestnet, Orion, Addepar, SEI’s wealth management platform and custodians such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Raymond James.  Our strengths in this market are our premier platforms with flexible and on-demand delivery models and approximately 90 complementary products and services.

Real Estate Property Management:  In our real estate property management market, we compete with numerous software vendors consisting of smaller specialized real estate property management solution providers and larger property management software vendors with more dedicated resources than our real estate property management business, such as Yardi Systems.  The key competitive factors in marketing property management and timeshare systems are the features and adaptability of the software, level of quality and customer support, degree of responsiveness and overall net cost.  Our strengths in this market are the quality of our software and our reputation with our clients.

Financial Institutions:  In our financial institutions market, there are multiple software and services vendors that are either smaller providers of specialized applications and technologies or larger providers of enterprise systems, such as FIS and Misys.  We also compete with outsourcers as well as the internal processing and information technologyIT departments of our clients and prospective clients.  The key competitive factors in marketing financial institution software and services include accuracy and timeliness of processed information provided to clients, features and adaptability of the software, level and quality of customer support, level of software development expertise, total cost of ownership and return on investment.  Our strengths in this market areinclude our flexible technology platform and our ability to provide integrated solutions for our clients.

Commercial Lending:  In our commercial lending market, we compete with a variety of other vendors depending on client characteristics such as size, type, location and functional requirements.  Competitors in this market range from large competitors

whose principal businesses are not in the loan management business, such as PNC Financial Services (Midland Loan Services), and McCracken Financial Solutions Corporation, to smaller providers of specialized applications and technologies.  The key competitive factors in marketing commercial lending solutions are the accuracy, timeliness and reporting of processed information provided to customers, level of software development expertise, level and quality of customer support and features and adaptability of the software.  Our strength in this market is our ability to provide both broadly diversified and customizable solutions to our clients.

Financial Markets:In our financial markets, our competition falls into two categories — the internal development organizations within financial enterprises and specialized financial vendors.  The key competitive factors in marketing financial markets technology solutions are a proven track record of delivering high quality solutions, level of responsiveness and overall net cost.  Our strengths in this market are a successful track record of delivering solutions and our reputation with our clients.

Proprietary Rights

We rely on a combination of trade secret, copyright, trademark and patent law, nondisclosure agreements and technical measures to protect our proprietary technology.  We have registered trademarks for many of our products and will continue to evaluate the registration of additional trademarks as appropriate.  We generally enter into confidentiality and/or license agreements with our employees, distributors, clients and potential clients.  We seek to protect our software, documentation and other written materials under trade secret and copyright laws, which afford limited protection.  These efforts may be insufficient to prevent third-parties from asserting intellectual property rights in our technology.  Furthermore, it may be possible for unauthorized third-parties to copy portions of our products or to reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use proprietary information, and third-parties may assert ownership rights in our proprietary technology.  For additional risks relating to our proprietary technology, please see “Risk Factors — Risks “Relating to Our Business” —.  If we are unable to protect our proprietary technology and other confidential information, our success and our ability to compete will be subject to various risks, such as third-party infringement claims, unauthorized use of our technology, disclosure of our proprietary information or inability to license technology from third-parties.

Rapid technological change characterizes the software development industry.  We believe factors such as the technological and creative skills of our personnel, new product developments, frequent product enhancements, name recognition and reliable service and support are more important to establishing and maintaining a leadership position than legal protections of our technology.

EmployeesHuman Capital

As of December 31, 2017,2020, we had 8,287over 24,600 full-time employees, including approximately 13,600 in our international operations, consisting of:of approximately:

As of December 31, 2017, 4,350Our ability to attract, train and retain highly skilled employees is a critical component of our success. We value a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, made up of smart people and superb technology. We believe strong collaboration and innovation allows us to be successful. As a global organization, we view diversity as one of our biggest strengths and advantages. Our employees were inhave widely diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences. We value individualism, distinct viewpoints and that we can all learn something from each other. We are committed to being an organization that welcomes, celebrates and thrives on diversity. The breadth of our international operations.products and services, our global office network and our clientele affords opportunities for mobility and advancement within the Company for people who make a positive impact. We monitor and evaluate various turnover and attrition metrics throughout our management teams. No employee is covered by any collective bargaining agreement.

We believehave a well-designed rewards program, which benefits both us and our employees, by ensuring alignment of rewards with goals and expectations. Our compensation program is designed to promote a performance-driven work culture that we have good relations withdrives our employees.growth and provides competitive compensation opportunities to attract and retain top performers.  We provide benefits programs that are flexible, comprehensive and competitive. We encourage employees to take time off when they need it to maintain a healthy work/life balance.  We offer professional development and tuition reimbursement for degree programs and job-related coursework.

Additional Information

We were incorporated in Delaware in July 2005, as the successor to a corporation originally formed in Connecticut in March 1986.  Our principal executive offices are located at 80 Lamberton Road, Windsor, Connecticut 06095, and the telephone number of our principal executive offices is (860) 298-4500.

Our website address is www.ssctech.com.  We make available, free of charge, on our website our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, Proxy Statements for the annual stockholder meetings and amendments thereto that we have filed or furnished with the SEC, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file them with the SEC.  The same information is available in print to any stockholder who submits a written request to the Company’sour Investor Relations department.  We are not, however, including the information contained on our website, or information that may be accessed through links on our website, as part of, or incorporating such information by reference into, this annual report on Form 10-K.  The SEC maintains an internet site at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The public may also read and copy any materials we file with the SEC at the SEC's Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Washington DC, 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330.

You should carefully consider the following risk factors, in addition to other information included in this annual report on Form 10-K and the other reports we submit to the SEC. If any of the following risks occur,materialize, it could materially affect our business, operating results, cash flows and financial condition and possibly lead to a decline in our stock price. The risks and uncertainties described below are those that we have identified as material, but are not the only risks and uncertainties facing us.that we face. Our business is also subject to general risks and uncertainties that affect many other companies. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we have not currently believe are notidentified as being material may also impair our business, operating results, cash flows and financial condition.

Summary of Risk Factors

The following is a summary of the material risks and uncertainties that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. You should read this summary together with the more detailed description of each risk factor contained below.

Risks Relating to Our Business

Our business is greatly affected by changes in the state of the general economy and the financial markets, and uncertainty in the general economy or the financial services industry could disproportionately affect the demand for our products and services.

In recent years, the global economy has experienced a significant recession, severe disruptions in the credit markets, increased uncertainty about economic, political and market conditions, and periods of heightened volatility in a variety of financial and other markets, including commodity prices and currency rates, all of which have had at times a material and adverse effect on the financial markets and the activity levels of our clients. While the U.S. economy may technically have come out of the recession, the recovery is fragile and may not be sustainable for any specific period of time, and the economy could slip back into an even more significant recession. Our clients include a range of organizations in the financial services industry whose success is linked to the health of the economy generally and of the financial markets specifically. Unfavorable or uncertain economic conditions, economic instability or economic downturns could: (i) cause our clients or prospective clients to cancel, reduce or delay planned expenditures for our products and services; (ii) impair our clients’ ability to pay for products they have purchased; or (iii) cause our clients to process fewer transactions through our software-enabled services, renegotiate their contracts with us, move their IT solutions in-house, switch to lower-priced solutions offered by our competitors or exit the industry. Fluctuations in the value of assets under our clients’ management could also adversely affect our revenues because pricing in many of our agreements is adjusted based on assets under management. We cannot predict the occurrence, timing or duration of any economic downturn, generally, or in the markets in which our businesses operate. Turbulence in the U.S. and international markets, renewed concern about the strength and sustainability of a recovery and prolonged declines in business consumer spending could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition, and the liquidity and financial condition of our clients.

We may not achieve the anticipated benefits from our acquisitions and may face difficulties in integrating our acquisitions.

We have acquired and intend in the future to acquire companies, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our business, augment our market coverage, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. For example, on January 11, 2018, we entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DST.  However, acquisitions could subject us to contingent or unknown liabilities, and we may have to incur debt or severance liabilities or write off investments, infrastructure costs or other assets. Our success is also dependent on our ability to complete the integration of the operations of acquired businesses in an efficient and effective manner, which may be difficult to accomplish in the rapidly changing financial services software and services industry. We may not realize the benefits we anticipate from acquisitions, such as lower costs, increased revenues, synergies and growth opportunities, or we may realize such benefits more slowly than anticipated, due to our inability to:

The process of integrating the operations of acquired companies could disrupt our ongoing operations, divert management from day-to-day responsibilities, increase our expenses and harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Acquisitions may also place a significant strain on our administrative, operational, financial and other resources. In addition, certain of our acquisitions have generated disputes with stockholders or management of acquired companies that have required the expenditure of our resources to address or have led to litigation; any such disputes may reduce the value we hope to realize from our acquisitions, either by increasing our costs of the acquisition, reducing our opportunities to realize revenues from the acquisition or imposing litigation costs or adverse judgments on us. Acquisitions may also expose us to litigation from our stockholders arising out of the

acquisition, which, even if unsuccessful, could be costly to defend and serve as a distraction to management.  See also “—Risks Relating to Our Pending Acquisition of DST Systems, Inc.”

Consolidations and failures in the financial services industry could adversely affect us by causing a decline in demand for our products and services.

If banks and financial services firms fail or consolidate, there could be a decline in demand for our products and services. Failures, mergers and consolidations of banks and financial institutions reduce the number of our clients and potential clients, which could adversely affect our revenues even if these events do not reduce the aggregate activities of the consolidated entities. Further, if our clients fail and/or merge with or are acquired by other entities that are not our clients, or that use fewer of our products and services, they may discontinue or reduce their use of our products and services. It is also possible that the larger financial institutions resulting from mergers or consolidations would have greater leverage in negotiating terms with us. In addition, these larger financial institutions could decide to perform in-house some or all of the services that we currently provide or could provide or to consolidate their processing on a non-SS&C system. The resulting decline in demand for our products and services could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our business has become increasingly focused on the hedge fund industry, and we are subject to the variations and fluctuations of that industry.

As a result of our acquisitions of CommonWealth Fund Services Ltd. (“CommonWealth”) in October 2017, Conifer Financial Services (“Conifer”) and Wells Fargo’s Global Fund Services business (“GFS”) in December 2016, Citigroup Alternative Investor Services business (“Citigroup AIS”) in March 2016, Advent Software, Inc. (“Advent”) in July 2015 and GlobeOp Financial Services S.A. (“GlobeOp”) in May 2012, a higher percentage of our clients are hedge funds or funds of hedge funds. These clients and our business relating to them are affected by trends, developments and risks associated with the global hedge fund industry. The market environment for hedge funds involves risk and has suffered significant turmoil, including as a result of substantial changes in global economies, political uncertainty, stock market declines and new regulatory initiatives. Even in the absence of such factors, the global hedge fund industry is subject to fluctuations in assets under management that are impossible to predict or anticipate. Further, investor demand for hedge funds has experienced recent declines and increased withdrawals as a result of poor performance relative to benchmark indices and increased negative investor sentiment on fees.  These risks and trends could significantly and adversely affect some or all of our hedge fund clients, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, market forces have negatively impacted liquidity for many of the financial instruments in which hedge fund client’s trade, which, in turn, could negatively impact our ability to access independent pricing sources for valuing those instruments.

If we are unable to retain and attract clients, our revenues and net income would remain stagnant or decline.

If we are unable to keep existing clients satisfied, sell additional products and services to existing clients or attract new clients, then our revenues and net income would remain stagnant or decline. A variety of factors could affect our ability to successfully retain and attract clients, including:

We face significant competition with respect to our products and services, which may result in price reductions, reduced gross margins or loss of market share.

The market for financial services software and services is competitive, rapidly evolving and highly sensitive to new product and service introductions and marketing efforts by industry participants. The market is also highly fragmented and served by numerous firms that target only local markets or specific client types. We also face competition from information systems developed and serviced internally by the IT departments of financial services firms.

Some of our current and potential competitors may have significantly greater financial, technical, distribution and marketing resources, generate higher revenues and have greater name recognition. Our current or potential competitors may develop products comparable or superior to those developed by us, or adapt more quickly to new technologies, evolving industry trends or changing client or regulatory requirements. It is also possible that our competitors may enter into alliances with each other or other third-parties, and through such alliances, acquire increased market share. Increased competition may result in price reductions, reduced gross margins and loss of market share. Accordingly, our business may not grow as expected and may decline.

Our role as a fund administrator has in the past, and may in the future, expose us to claims and litigation from clients, their investors, regulators or other third-parties.

As a service provider, we have been, and may in the future be, subject to claims and lawsuits from investors, regulators, liquidators, other third-parties and our clients, some of which pursue high-risk investment strategies and all of which are subject to substantial market risk, in the event that the underlying fund suffers investment losses, incurs instances of fraud, becomes insolvent, files for bankruptcy or otherwise becomes defunct. Even if we are not ultimately found to be liable, defending such claims or lawsuits could be time-consuming, divert management resources, harm our reputation and cause us to incur significant expenses. These claims or lawsuits could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Catastrophic events may adversely affect our business.

A war, terrorist attack, natural disaster, pandemic or other catastrophe may adversely affect our business. A catastrophic event could have a direct negative impact on us or an indirect impact on us by, for example, affecting our clients, the financial markets or the overall economy and reducing our ability to provide, our clients’ ability to use, and the demand for, our products and services. The potential for a direct effect on our business operations is due primarily to our significant investment in infrastructure. Although we maintain redundant facilities and have contingency plans in place to protect against both man-made and natural threats, it is impossible to fully anticipate and protect against all potential catastrophes. A computer virus, physical or cyber security breach, criminal act, military action, power or communication failure, flood, severe storm or the like could lead to service interruptions and data losses for clients, disruptions to our operations, or damage to important facilities. In addition, such an event may cause clients to cancel their agreements with us for our products or services. Any of these events could adversely affect our business, results of operation and financial condition.

Our software-enabled services may be subject to disruptions, attacks or failures that could adversely affect our reputation and our business.

Our software-enabled services maintain and process confidential data and process trades and perform other back-office functions, including wiring funds, on behalf of our clients, some of which is critical to their business operations. For example, our trading systems maintain account and trading information for our clients and their customers. Our internal technology infrastructure on which our software-enabled services depend may be subject to disruptions or may otherwise fail to operate properly or become disabled or damaged as a result of a number of factors, including events that are wholly or partially beyond our control and that could adversely affect our ability to process transactions, provide services or otherwise appropriately conduct our business activities. Such events include IT attacks or failures, threats to physical security, sudden increases in transaction volumes, electrical or telecommunications outages, damaging weather or other acts of nature, or employee or contractor error or malfeasance. In particular, cybersecurity threats have become prevalent in our industry as well as for many firms that process information. Cybersecurity threats are evolving and our security measures, and those of our service providers, may not detect or prevent all attempts to hack our systems, denial-of-service attacks, viruses, malicious software, attempts to gain unauthorized access to data, phishing attacks, social engineering, security breaches or employee or contractor malfeasance and other electronic security breaches that may jeopardize the security of information stored in or transmitted by our sites, networks and systems or that we or our third-party service providers otherwise maintain.  Such cyber security incidents could lead to disruptions in our systems, the unauthorized release or destruction of our or our clients’ or other parties’ confidential or otherwise protected information and corruption of data. We and our service providers may not have the resources or technical sophistication to anticipate or prevent all types of attacks, and techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to or sabotage systems change frequently and may not be known until launched against us or our third-party service providers.  In the last few years there have been many successful advanced cyber-attacks that have damaged several prominent companies in spite of strong information security measures, and we expect that the risks associated with cyber-attacks and the costs of preventing such attacks will continue to increase in the future. We and our clients are regularly the target of attempted cyber-attacks and we must continuously monitor and develop our systems to protect our technology infrastructure and data from misappropriation or corruption. Although we expend significant resources and oversight efforts in an attempt to ensure that we maintain appropriate safeguards with respect to cyber-attacks, there is no guarantee that our systems and procedures are adequate to protect against all security breaches.

If our software-enabled services are disrupted or fail for any reason, or if our systems or facilities are infiltrated or damaged by unauthorized persons, we and our clients could experience data loss, including confidential and personal information, financial loss, harm to their reputation and significant business interruption. If that happens, we may be exposed to significant liability, our reputation may be harmed, our clients may be dissatisfied and we may lose business. Although we maintain privacy, data breach and network security liability insurance, we cannot be certain that our coverage will be adequate or cover liabilities actually incurred, or that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all.  Given the unpredictability of the timing, nature and scope of such failures or disruptions, we could potentially experience significant costs and exposures, including production downtimes, operational delays, other detrimental impacts on our operations or ability to provide services to our customers, the compromising of confidential or otherwise protected information, misappropriation, destruction or corruption of data, security breaches, other manipulation or improper use of our systems or networks, financial losses from remedial actions, loss of business, potential liability, regulatory inquiries, enforcements, actions and fines and/or damage to our reputation, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

If third-party service providers on which we rely, or other third-parties with which we do business or which facilitate our business activities, suffer disruptions to their IT systems, our business could be harmed.

In providing our software-enabled services to our customers, we depend upon IT infrastructure that is primarily managed by our firm, but we also depend on third-party service providers to provide some of the IT infrastructure on which we rely. Although we seek to ensure that appropriate security and other standards are maintained by these third-parties, these third-parties are also subject to the risks discussed in the preceding risk factor, and there is no guarantee that they will maintain systems and procedures sufficient to protect against system failures and security breaches, including as a result of cyber-attacks.

In addition, the third-parties with which we do business or which facilitate our business activities, including financial intermediaries, are susceptible to the risks described in the preceding risk factor (including regarding the third-parties with which they are similarly interconnected), and our or their business operations and activities may therefore be adversely affected, perhaps materially, by failures, terminations, errors or malfeasance by, or attacks or constraints on, one or more financial, technology or infrastructure institutions or intermediaries with whom they are interconnected or conduct business.

We have substantial operations and a significant number of employees in India and we are therefore subject to regulatory, economic and political uncertainties in India.

We currently have approximately 2,462 employees located in India. The economy of India may differ favorably or unfavorably from the U.S. economy and our business may be adversely affected by the general economic conditions and economic and fiscal policy in India, including changes in exchange rates and controls, interest rates and taxation policies. In particular, in recent years, India’s government has adopted policies that are designed to promote foreign investment, including significant tax incentives, relaxation of regulatory restrictions, liberalized import and export duties and preferential rules on foreign investment and repatriations. These policies may not continue. In addition, we are subject to risks relating to social stability, political, economic or diplomatic developments affecting India in the future.

India faces major challenges in the years ahead sustaining the economic growth that it has experienced over the past several years. These challenges include the need for substantial infrastructure development and improving access to healthcare and education. Our ability to recruit, train and retain qualified employees and develop and operate our facilities in India could be adversely affected if India does not successfully meet these challenges, in which case we may need to relocate those facilities and that could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We expect that our operating results, including our profit margins and profitability, may fluctuate over time.

Historically, our revenues, profit margins and other operating results have fluctuated from period to period and over time primarily due to the timing, size and nature of our license and service transactions. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for further discussion on fluctuations in revenues, profit margins and other operating results. Additional factors that may lead to such fluctuation include:

We are dependent on our senior management and their continued performance and productivity.

We are dependent on the continued efforts of the members of our senior management. The loss of any of the members of our senior management may cause a significant disruption in our business, jeopardize existing customer relationships, impair our compliance efforts as a public company, and have a material adverse effect on our business objectives. We do not maintain key man life insurance policies for any senior officer or manager.

If we cannot attract, train and retain qualified employees, we may not be able to provide adequate technical expertise and customer service to our clients.

We believe that our success is due in part to our ability to attract, train and retain highly skilled employees. Competition for qualified personnel in the software and hedge fund industries is intense, and we have, at times, found it difficult to attract and retain skilled personnel for our operations. Our failure to attract and retain a sufficient number of highly skilled employees could prevent us from developing and servicing our products at the same levels as our competitors; therefore, we may lose potential clients and suffer a decline in revenues.

If we are unable to protect our proprietary technology and other confidential information, our success and our ability to compete will be subject to various risks, such as third-party infringement claims, unauthorized use of our technology, disclosure of our proprietary information or inability to license technology from third-parties.

Our success and ability to compete depends in part upon our ability to protect our proprietary technology and other confidential information. We rely on a combination of patent, trade secret, copyright and trademark law, and nondisclosure agreements, license agreements and technical measures to protect our proprietary technology and other confidential information. We have registered trademarks for some of our products and will continue to evaluate the registration of additional trademarks as appropriate. We generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, distributors, clients and potential clients.  However, these efforts may be insufficient to prevent those parties or others from infringing, misappropriating, violating or asserting rights in our intellectual property, confidential information or other technology and our proprietary technology and confidential information may be subject to embezzlement, theft, or other similar illegal behavior by our employees or third-parties.  In addition, our employees, distributors, clients and potential clients may breach our confidentiality agreements and we may not have adequate remedies for any such breach.  Furthermore, it may be possible for unauthorized third-parties to copy portions of our products or to reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use our proprietary information.  If a third-party were to gain unauthorized access to or independently develop the confidential or proprietary information we possess, we could suffer a loss of revenues, we could experience an adverse impact on our competitive position, and our relationships with our clients and our reputation could be materially adversely effected.

Existing patent and copyright laws afford only limited protection. Third-parties may develop substantially equivalent or superseding proprietary technology or may offer equivalent products in competition with our products in a manner that does not infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate our intellectual property or other proprietary rights, thereby substantially reducing the value of our proprietary rights. A number of third-parties hold patents and other intellectual property rights with application in the financial services field. Consequently, we are subject to the risk that such third-parties will claim that our products infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate their intellectual property rights, including their patent rights. Such claims, regardless of merit, could result in expensive and time-consuming litigation, divert the attention of our personnel, and impair our intellectual property rights.  Moreover, as a result of such claims, we may be required to redesign our products or services in a manner that is not infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating such third-party’s intellectual property rights, which may not be technically or commercially feasible.  We may also be required to obtain a license to such intellectual property rights, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all.  Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation, and financial condition.

We incorporate open source software into a limited number of our software products. We monitor our use of open source software in an effort to avoid subjecting our products to unfavorable conditions or conditions we do not intend. Some open source licenses require that source code subject to the license be disclosed to third-parties, grant such third-parties the right to modify and redistribute that source code and a requirement that the source code for any software derived from it be disclosed.  If we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under certain open source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software to the public.  Although we believe that we have complied with our obligations under the applicable licenses for open source software that we use, there is little or no legal precedent governing the interpretation of many of the terms of certain of these licenses. As a result, the potential impact of these terms is uncertain and may result in unanticipated obligations or restrictions regarding those of our products, technologies or solutions affected.

We have acquired and may acquire important technology rights through our acquisitions and have often incorporated and may incorporate features of these technologies across many of our products and services. As a result, we are subject to the above risks and the additional risk that the seller of the technology rights may not have appropriately protected the intellectual property rights we acquired. Indemnification and other rights under applicable acquisition documents are limited in term and scope and therefore provide us with only limited protection.

In addition, we rely on third-party software in providing some of our products and services. If we lose our licenses to use such software or if such licenses are found to infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate upon the rights of others, we will need to seek alternative means of obtaining the licensed software to continue to provide our products or services, which may not be feasible on a technical or commercial basis. Our inability to replace such software, or to replace such software in a timely manner, could significantly disrupt our business and our ability to deliver products and services to our clients, and adversely affect our business, results of operation and financial condition.

We could become subject to litigation regarding our or a third-party’s intellectual property rights or other confidential or proprietary information, which could seriously harm our business and require us to incur significant costs.

In recent years, there has been a high incidence of litigation in the U.S. involving patents and other intellectual property rights. We are from time to time a party to litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights or to protect our confidential or proprietary information, or as a result of an allegation that we infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate a third-party’s intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights. From time to time, we have received notices claiming our technology may infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate third-party intellectual property rights or otherwise threatening to assert intellectual property rights. These claims and any resulting lawsuit, if successful, could subject us to significant liability for damages and our intellectual property rights being reduced, narrowed or held unenforceable or invalid. These lawsuits, regardless of their success, could be time-consuming and expensive to resolve, adversely affect our revenues, profitability and prospects, and divert management time and attention. If we are found to infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate a third-party’s intellectual property rights, we may be required to pay the third-party substantial monetary damages and to cease the activities covered by such intellectual property rights, unless we obtain a license to such intellectual property rights, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all.  In addition, these claims and threats could also cause us to undertake to re-engineer our products or services which may not be technically or commercially feasible. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation and financial condition.

We may be unable to adapt to rapidly changing technology and evolving industry standards and regulatory requirements.

Rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and regulatory requirements and new product and service introductions characterize the market for our products and services. Our future success will depend in part upon our ability to enhance

our existing products and services and to develop and introduce new products and services to keep pace with such changes and developments and to meet changing client needs. The process of developing our software products is complex and is expected to become increasingly complex and expensive in the future due to the introduction of new platforms, operating systems and technologies. Current areas of significant technological change include mobility, cloud-based computing and the processing and analyzing of large amounts of data. Our ability to keep up with technology and business and regulatory changes is subject to a number of risks, including that:

Our failure to enhance our existing products and services and to develop and introduce new products and services to promptly address the needs of our clients and a changing marketplace could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Undetected software design defects, errors or failures, or employee errors, may result in defects, delays, loss of our clients’ data, litigation against us and harm to our reputation and business.

Our software products are highly complex and sophisticated and could contain design defects or software errors that are difficult to detect and correct. Errors or bugs in our software may affect the ability of our products to work with other hardware or software products, delay the development or release of new products or new versions of products, result in the loss of client data, damage our reputation, affect market acceptance of our products or result in the rejection of our products by the market, cause loss of revenues, divert development resources, increase product liability and warranty claims, and increase service and support costs. We cannot be certain that, despite testing by us and our clients, errors will not be found in new products or new versions of products. Moreover, our clients engage in complex trading activities and this complexity increases the likelihood that our employees may make errors. Employee errors, poor employee performance or misconduct may be difficult to detect and deter. These product defects or errors in the product operations, or employee errors, poor performance or misconduct, could cause damages to our clients for which they may assert claims or lawsuits against us. The cost of defending such a lawsuit, regardless of its merit, could be substantial and could divert management’s attention and result in reputational harm. In addition, if our business liability insurance coverage proves inadequate with respect to a claim or future coverage is unavailable on acceptable terms or at all, we may be liable for payment of substantial damages. Any or all of these potential consequences could have an adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Because our platform could be used to collect and store personal information of our customers’ employees or customers, privacy concerns could result in additional cost and liability to us or inhibit use of our platform.

Personal privacy has become a significant issue in the U.S. and in many other countries where we offer our solutions or may offer them in the future. The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is currently evolving, is not uniform and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws and regulations regarding the collection, use, disclosure, control, security and deletion of personal information. In the U.S., these include, without limitation, laws and regulations promulgated by states, as well as rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and federal financial regulatory bodies. Internationally, most of the jurisdictions in which we operate have established their own data security and privacy legal frameworks, many of which are broader in scope, more restrictive and impose greater obligations on us and our customers. For instance, effective May 2018, the European Union’s (“E.U.”) General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), a new E.U.-wide legal framework to govern data collection use and sharing and related consumer privacy rights, will strengthen and unify data protection rules for individuals within the E.U.  The GDPR also addresses export of personal data outside the E.U.  Many of these obligations are updated frequently and subject to interpretation by various regulatory bodies and thus require ongoing monitoring. In addition to government regulation, privacy advocacy and industry groups may propose new and different self-regulatory standards that either legally or contractually apply to us.

As a result of uncertainty regarding the interpretation and application of privacy and data protection-related laws, regulations, and self-regulatory requirements, it is possible that these laws, regulations, and requirements may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data handling practices or the technological features of our solutions. If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits and other claims, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our solutions, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any inability to adequately address privacy or data protection-related concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy or data protection-related laws, regulations and policies, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales and harm our business. Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, standards and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our solutions. Also, privacy concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our solutions, particularly in foreign countries.

Our business is subject to evolving regulations and increased scrutiny from regulators.

Our business is subject to evolving and increasing regulation, and our relationships with our clients may subject us to increased scrutiny from a number of regulators, including the Bermuda Monetary Authority, British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission, Centrale Bank van Curacao en Sint Maarten, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, FTC, Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Financial Conduct Authority, Central Bank of Ireland, National Futures Association, Ontario Securities Commission, SEC, Securities Commission of the Bahamas, U.S. Treasury Department and other government entities that regulate the financial services, hedge fund and hedge fund services industry in the U.S., the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) and the other jurisdictions in which we operate. These regulations may limit or curtail our activities, including activities that might be profitable, and changes to existing regulations may affect our ability to continue to offer our existing products and services, or to offer products and services we may wish to offer in the future. As a result of the changes in the global economy and the turmoil in global financial markets in recent years, the risk of additional government regulation has increased.  In addition, the final outcome of negotiations between the U.K. and the E.U. with respect to the U.K.’s exit from the E.U. is uncertain.  As a result, the impact of the U.K.’s exit on the U.K. regulatory regime is unknown, but it is possible that we will become subject to more onerous regulations in the U.K. as a result.

The European Union’s AIFMD and the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act, among other initiatives, pose significant changes to the regulatory environment in which we and our clients operate. The impact of these regulatory changes remains uncertain. If we fail to comply with any applicable laws, rules or regulations, we may be subject to censure, fines or other sanctions, including revocation of our licenses and/or registrations with various regulatory agencies, criminal penalties and civil lawsuits.

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and anti-bribery laws in other jurisdictions, including the U.K. Bribery Act (“Bribery Act”), generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business or other commercial advantage. The FCPA also imposes accounting standards and requirements on publicly traded U.S. corporations and their foreign affiliates which are intended to prevent the diversion of corporate funds to the payment of bribes and other improper payments, and to prevent the establishment of “off books” slush funds from which such improper payments can be made.  We and our clients operate in a number of jurisdictions that may pose a risk of potential FCPA or Bribery Act violations. In addition, we cannot predict the nature, scope or effect of future regulatory requirements to which our internal operations might be subject or the manner in which existing laws might be administered or interpreted.  While our policies mandate compliance with these laws, there can be no assurance that we will be completely effective in ensuring our compliance with all applicable anti-corruption laws.  A failure to comply with these laws, rules or regulations, or allegations of such noncompliance, could adversely affect our business, reputation, results of operations and financial condition.

Additional tax expense or additional tax exposures could affect our future profitability.

We are subject to income taxes in the U.S. and various international jurisdictions. Changes in tax laws and regulations, as well as changes in related interpretations and other tax guidance could materially impact our tax receivables and liabilities and our deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities. On December 22, 2017, U.S. federal tax legislation, commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“Tax Act”), was signed into law, significantly reforming the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The Tax Act, among other things, reduces the U.S. federal statutory corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, imposes significant additional limitations on the deductibility of interest and executive compensation, allows for the expensing of capital expenditures, puts into effect the migration from a “worldwide” system of taxation to a territorial system and modifies or repeals many business deductions and credits.  We recorded a net benefit to income tax expense of $88 million in 2017 related to the enactment of the Tax Act, which includes the remeasurement of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the corporate tax rate reduction, the one-time transition tax imposed on accumulated foreign earnings and deferred taxes provided for the global intangible low-taxed income (“GILTI”) minimum tax that takes effect in 2018.  The SEC Staff issued Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 118 (“SAB 118”) to provide guidance to companies on how to implement the accounting and disclosure changes required as a result of the Tax Act. The SEC staff guidance has recognized that, due to the

complexity of the Tax Act, the accounting for income tax effects of the change in law may be incomplete upon issuance of a company's financial statements for the reporting period in which the Tax Act was enacted. SAB 118 states that if a company can determine a reasonable estimate for the effects of the Tax Act then this estimate can be included in the financial statements. We have made reasonable estimates and recorded certain provisional tax benefits and charges in connection with the implementation of the Tax Act that were based on our current interpretation and understanding of the law and may change as we receive additional clarification and implementation guidance.  Changes to these provisional amounts could result in material charges or credits in future reporting periods.  We will continue to gather and analyze information on historical unrepatriated foreign earnings and to monitor state laws relating to this income to finalize both the federal and state tax impact. We will also continue to review the impact of certain limitations on deductions in our assessment of the value of our deferred tax assets as regulatory guidance is issued.  See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for additional information.  

Additionally, in the ordinary course of business we are subject to examinations by various authorities, including tax authorities. In addition to ongoing investigations, there could be additional investigations launched in the future by governmental authorities in various jurisdictions, and existing investigations could be expanded. The global and diverse nature of our operations means that these risks will continue to exist and additional investigations, proceedings and contingencies will arise from time to time. Our business, results of operations and financial condition may be affected by the outcome of investigations, proceedings and other contingencies that cannot be predicted with certainty.

A substantial portion of our revenues are derived, and a substantial portion of our operations are conducted, outside the U.S.

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 international revenues accounted for 27%, 27% and 32%, respectively, of our total revenues. We sell certain of our products, such as MarginMan and Pacer, primarily outside the U.S. On June 23, 2016, the U.K. held a referendum in which voters approved an exit from the E.U, commonly referred to as “Brexit.” Current uncertainty over the final outcome of the negotiations between the U.K. and the E.U., with respect to the terms of the U.K.’s exit, may adversely affect our operations and financial results, as we generated approximately $115.8 million in revenue from the U.K. in 2017. Our international business is also subject to a variety of other risks, including:

Legal or Regulatory Risks

Such factors could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates that could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition.

Because a significant portion of our business is conducted outside the U.S. and significant revenues are generated outside the U.S., we face exposure to adverse movements in foreign currency exchange rates. Fluctuations in currencies relative to currencies in which our earnings are generated also make it more difficult to perform period-to-period comparisons of our reported results of operations. Because our Consolidated Financial Statements are reported in U.S. dollars, translation of sales or earnings generated in other currencies into U.S. dollars can result in a significant increase or decrease in the reported amount of those sales or earnings. In addition, we incur currency transaction risk whenever we enter into either a purchase or a sales transaction using a currency other than the local currency of the transacting entity. Given the volatility of exchange rates, we cannot be assured we will be able to effectively manage our currency translation or transaction risk, and significant changes in the value of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar could adversely affect our financial statements. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for further discussion on the foreign currency translation impact on operating results and financial condition.

We do not currently engage in hedging activities. Changes in economic or political conditions globally and in any of the countries in which we operate could result in exchange rate movements, new currency or exchange controls or other restrictions being imposed on our operations.

Changes or modifications in financial accounting standards may have a material adverse impact on our reported results of operations or financial condition.

A change or modification in accounting policies can have a significant effect on our reported results and may even affect our reporting of transactions completed before the change is effective, including the potential impact of the adoption and implementation of the accounting standard update on revenue recognition issued in May 2014 by the Financial Accounting Standards Board.  Under the new standard, we will recognize term license revenues upfront at time of delivery rather than ratably over the related contract period.  Additionally, under the new standard, we will capitalize and amortize certain direct costs, such as commissions, over the expected customer life rather than expensing them as incurred.  While the adoption of the new standard does not change the cash flows received from our contracts with customers, its adoption could have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.  See Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information.  New pronouncements and varying interpretations of existing pronouncements have occurred with frequency and may occur in the future.  Changes to existing rules, or changes to the interpretations of existing rules, could lead to changes in our accounting practices, and such changes could materially adversely affect our reported financial results or the way we conduct our business.

A material weakness in our internal controls could have a material adverse effect on us.

Effective internal controls are necessary for us to provide reasonable assurance with respect to our financial reports and to effectively prevent fraud. If we cannot do so, our reputation and operating results could be harmed.  A material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting could adversely impact our ability to provide timely and accurate financial information. Even effective internal controls can provide only reasonable assurance with respect to the preparation and fair presentation of financial statements. In addition, controls can be circumvented by individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people, or by management override of the controls. Over time, controls may become inadequate because changes in conditions or deterioration in the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may occur. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.  If we are unable to report financial information timely and accurately or to maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures, our stock price could be negatively impacted and we could be subject to, among other things, regulatory or enforcement actions by the SEC, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Relating to Our Indebtedness

Our substantial indebtedness could adversely affect our financial health and operations.

We currently have a substantial amount of indebtedness. As of December 31, 2017, we had total indebtedness of $2,092.2 million and additional available borrowings of $149.1 million under our revolving credit facility. To fund our pending acquisition of DST, and to refinance certain of the Company’s and all of DST’s existing indebtedness, we expect to incur substantial indebtedness under a new senior secured credit facility and may issue new senior unsecured notes. This indebtedness could have adverse consequences. For example, it may:

In addition, the agreement governing our senior credit facility contains financial and other restrictive covenants that limit our ability to engage in activities that may be in our long-term best interests, and any additional indebtedness we incur to fund the DST acquisition or otherwise may also contain restrictive covenants. Our failure to comply with those covenants could result in an event of default which, if not cured or waived, could result in the acceleration of all of our debts.  Furthermore, any additional indebtedness we incur to fund the pending acquisition of DST or otherwise may contain similar covenants and restrictions those described above.

To service our indebtedness, we require a significant amount of cash. Our ability to generate cash depends on many factors beyond our control.

We are currently obligated to make periodic interest payments on our senior credit facility and senior notes of approximately $91.4 million annually. In connection with the pending DST acquisition, we expect debt interest payments to increase substantially.  Our ability to make payments on and to refinance our indebtedness and to fund planned capital expenditures will depend on our ability to generate cash in the future. This, to a certain extent, is subject to general economic, financial, competitive, legislative, regulatory and other factors that are beyond our control.

If our business fails to generate sufficient cash flow from operations and future borrowings are not available to us, we may not be able to pay our indebtedness or fund our other liquidity needs. We may need to refinance all or a portion of our indebtedness on or before maturity. We may not be able to refinance any of our indebtedness on commercially reasonable terms or at all. If we cannot service our indebtedness, we may have to take actions such as selling assets, seeking additional equity or reducing or delaying capital expenditures, strategic acquisitions, investments and joint ventures. We may not be able to effect such actions, if necessary, on commercially reasonable terms or at all.

Restrictive covenants in the agreements governing our indebtedness may restrict our ability to pursue our business strategies.

The agreements governing our senior credit facility and senior notes will limit our ability, among other things, to:

In addition, the agreement governing our senior credit facility also requires us to maintain compliance with specified leverage ratios. Our ability to comply with these provisions may be affected by events beyond our control, and these provisions could limit our ability to plan for or react to market conditions, meet capital needs or otherwise conduct our business activities and plans.

Our inability to comply with any of these provisions could result in a default under one or more of the agreements governing our indebtedness. If such a default occurs under one such agreement, the creditors under another debt agreement may elect to declare all borrowings outstanding, together with accrued interest and other fees, to be immediately due and payable. In addition, the lenders under our senior credit facility would have the right to terminate any commitments they have to provide further borrowings.

If we are unable to repay outstanding borrowings when due, the lenders under our senior credit facility also have the right to proceed against the collateral, including our available cash and substantially all of our domestic assets and the assets of our domestic subsidiaries, granted to them to secure the indebtedness under that facility. If the indebtedness under our senior credit facility were to be accelerated, we cannot assure you that our assets would be sufficient to repay in full that indebtedness and our other indebtedness.

Risks Relating to Our Pending Acquisition of DST Systems, Inc.

The anticipated benefits of our pending acquisition of DST may not be realized or those benefits may take longer to realize than expected.

The success of our pending acquisition of DST will depend, to a large extent, on our ability to realize the anticipated benefits and cost savings derived from this transaction and our ability to integrate the two organizations and businesses. The combination of two independent businesses is a complex, costly and time-consuming process. As a result, DST and we will devote significant management attention and resources prior to closing to prepare for integrating, and we will devote significant management attention and resources post-closing to integrate the business practices and operations of both organizations. The integration process may disrupt the businesses and, if implemented ineffectively, would impair the realization of the full expected benefits.

In addition, we continue to evaluate our estimates of synergies to be realized from the acquisition, so our actual cost-savings could differ materially from our current estimates. We cannot assure you that we will achieve the full amount of cost-savings on the schedule anticipated or at all.

A failure to meet the challenges involved in integrating the two businesses and to realize the anticipated benefits of the transaction could cause an interruption of, or a loss of momentum in, the activities of the post-acquisition company and could adversely affect its results of operations. In addition, the overall integration of the businesses may result in material unanticipated problems, expenses, liabilities, competitive responses, loss of customer and other business relationships, and diversion of management’s attention. The difficulties of combining the operations of the companies include, among others:

Many of these factors will be outside of our control and any one of them could result in increased costs, decreases in the amount of expected revenues and diversion of management’s time and energy, which could materially impact the business, financial condition and results of operations of the post-acquisition company. In addition, even if our operations are integrated successfully with DST, the full benefits of the transactions may not be realized, including the synergies, cost savings or sales or growth opportunities that are expected. These benefits may not be achieved within the anticipated time frame, or at all. Further, additional unanticipated costs may be incurred in the integration of our business with DST. An inability to realize the full extent of, or any of, the anticipated benefits of the acquisition, as well as any delays encountered in the integration process, could have an adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. All of these factors could cause dilution to our earnings per share, decrease or delay the expected accretive effect of the transaction, and negatively impact the price of our common stock.

We will incur costs as a result of our pending acquisition of DST.

We will incur substantial expenses in connection with our pending acquisition of DST and over a period of time following the completion of the acquisition. While we have assumed that a certain level of transaction expenses will be incurred, factors beyond our control could affect the total amount or the timing of these expenses. Many of the expenses that will be incurred, by their nature, are difficult to estimate accurately.  Any increase in these estimated expenses or change in the timing of these expenses could have an adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Failure to consummate the DST acquisition or termination of the acquisition agreement could negatively affect us.

We will not realize any of the anticipated benefits of our pending acquisition of DST until it is completed. Our pending acquisition of DST may not close for various reasons, including our inability to obtain regulatory approvals, satisfy other closing conditions, or because DST terminates the acquisition agreement in favor of another potential acquirer. In the event that we are unable to consummate the pending acquisition of DST, the market price of our common stock may decline.

The announcement and pendency of the DST acquisition could distract our management and adversely affect our business.

Our efforts to complete the DST acquisition could cause substantial disruptions in our business. A substantial amount of our management’s attention is being directed towards the completion of the DST acquisition and thus is being diverted from our day-to-day operations. Any such distraction could affect our management’s ability to service our existing business, pursue other business opportunities or could otherwise adversely affect our business.

We and DST must obtain required approvals and consents to consummate the pending acquisition, which if delayed or not granted or granted with unacceptable conditions, may prevent, delay or jeopardize the consummation of the transaction, result in additional expenditures of money and resources and/or reduce the anticipated benefits of the transaction.

Our pending acquisition of DST is subject to customary closing conditions. These closing conditions include, among others, the receipt of required approvals by DST shareholders, foreign regulatory approvals and the expiration or termination of applicable waiting periods under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976. The governmental authorities whose approval we need generally have broad discretion in making their decisions. We can provide no assurance that required approvals and consents will be obtained in a timely manner or at all. Further, no assurance can be given that the required DST shareholder approval will be obtained or that the other closing conditions will be satisfied, and, if all required consents and approvals are obtained and the closing conditions are satisfied, no assurance can be given as to the terms, conditions and timing of the approvals or clearances. If any such approvals or clearances are delayed or not granted, or if they are granted with unacceptable conditions, it may prevent, delay or jeopardize the consummation of the DST acquisition, result in additional expenditures of money and resources and/or reduce the anticipated benefits of the acquisition, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows and could cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

Risks Relating to Ownership of Our Common Stock

Risks Relating to Our Business

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, or the perception of its effects, on our operations and the operations of our customers, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of COVID-19, or coronavirus, which began in December 2019, a pandemic and the U.S. federal government has declared it a national emergency. Our business and operations could be materially and adversely affected by the effects of COVID-19. The global spread of COVID-19 has already created significant volatility, uncertainty and economic disruption in the markets in which we operate. Governments, public institutions, and other organizations in countries and localities where cases of COVID-19 have been detected are taking certain emergency measures to mitigate its spread, including implementing travel restrictions and closing factories, schools, public buildings, and businesses. While the full impact of this outbreak is not yet known, we are closely monitoring the spread of COVID-19 and continually assessing its potential effects on our business.

The extent to which our results are affected by COVID-19 will largely depend on future developments, which cannot be accurately predicted, including the duration and scope of the pandemic, governmental and business responses to the pandemic and the impact on the global economy, our customers’ demand for our products and services, and our ability to provide our products and services, particularly as result of our employees working remotely and/or the closure of certain offices and facilities. While these factors are uncertain, the COVID-19 pandemic or the perception of its effects could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows.

Our business is greatly affected by changes in the state of the general economy and the financial markets, and uncertainty in the general economy, the financial services industry or other industries in which our clients operate could disproportionately affect the demand for our products and services.

We derive our revenues from the delivery of products and services to clients primarily in the financial services and healthcare industries. Demand for our products and services among companies in those industries could decline for many reasons. If demand for our products or services decreases or if any of the industries we serve decline, our business and our operating results could be adversely affected.

In 2008-09, the global economy experienced a significant recession, severe disruptions in the credit markets, increased uncertainty about economic, political, global trade and market conditions, and periods of heightened volatility in a variety of financial and other markets, including commodity prices and currency rates, all of which had experienced a material and adverse effect at that time on those markets and on client activity levels. While the U.S. economy recovered from the recession, the recovery may not be sustainable for any specific period of time, and the economy could slip back into recession. Our clients include a range of organizations in the financial services industry whose success is linked to the health of the economy generally and of the financial markets specifically. Unfavorable or uncertain economic conditions, economic instability or economic downturns could: (i) cause our clients or prospective clients to cancel, reduce or delay planned expenditures for our products and services; (ii) impair our clients’ ability to pay for products they have purchased; or (iii) cause our clients to process fewer transactions through our software-enabled services, renegotiate their contracts with us, move their IT solutions in-house, switch to lower-priced solutions offered by our competitors or exit the industry. Fluctuations in the value of assets under our clients’ management could also adversely affect our revenues because pricing in many of our agreements is adjusted based on assets under management. We cannot predict the occurrence, timing or duration of any economic downturn, generally, or in the markets in which our businesses operate. Turbulence in the U.S. and international markets, renewed concern about the strength and sustainability of a recovery and prolonged declines in business consumer spending could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition, and the liquidity and financial condition of our clients.

In addition, any other events that adversely affect our clients’ businesses, rates of growth or numbers of clients they serve could decrease demand for our products and services and the number of transactions we process. Events that could adversely affect our clients’ businesses include decreased demand for our clients’ products and services, adverse conditions in our clients’ markets or adverse economic conditions generally. We may be unsuccessful in predicting the needs of changing industries and whether potential clients will accept our products or services. We also may invest in technology or infrastructure for specific clients and not realize additional revenue from such investments. If trends or events do not occur as we expect, our business could be negatively impacted.

We may not achieve the anticipated benefits from our acquisitions and may face difficulties in integrating our acquisitions.

We have acquired and intend in the future to acquire companies, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our business, augment our market coverage, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. For example, in 2020 we consummated our acquisitions of Captricity, Innovest Systems and Millennium Consulting Services and Millennium Seminar Services (“Millennium”). However, acquisitions could subject us to contingent or unknown liabilities, and we may have to incur debt or severance liabilities or write off investments, infrastructure costs or other assets. Our success is also dependent on our ability to complete the integration of the operations of acquired businesses in an efficient and effective manner, which may be difficult to accomplish in the rapidly changing financial services software and services industry. We may not realize the benefits we anticipate from acquisitions, such as lower costs, increased revenues, synergies and growth opportunities, or we may realize such benefits more slowly than anticipated, due to our inability to:

The process of integrating the operations of acquired companies could disrupt our ongoing operations, divert management from day-to-day responsibilities, increase our expenses and harm our business, results of operations and financial condition. Acquisitions may also place a significant strain on our administrative, operational, financial and other resources. In addition, certain of our acquisitions have generated disputes with stockholders or management of acquired companies or other claimants that have required the expenditure of our resources to address or have led to litigation; any such disputes may reduce the value we hope to realize from our acquisitions, either by increasing our costs of the acquisition, reducing our opportunities to realize revenues from the acquisition or imposing litigation costs or adverse judgments on us. Acquisitions may also expose us to litigation from our stockholders arising out of the acquisition, which, even if unsuccessful, could be costly to defend and serve as a distraction to management.

Consolidations or failures among our clients or within their respective industries could adversely affect us by causing a decline in demand for our products and services.

If banks and financial services firms fail or consolidate, there could be a decline in demand for our products and services. Failures, mergers and consolidations of banks and financial institutions reduce the number of our clients and potential clients, which could adversely affect our revenues even if these events do not reduce the aggregate activities of the consolidated entities. Further, if our clients fail and/or merge with or are acquired by other entities that are not our clients, or that use fewer of our products and services, they may discontinue or reduce their use of our products and services. It is also possible that the larger financial institutions resulting from mergers or consolidations would have greater leverage in negotiating terms with us. In addition, these larger financial institutions could decide to perform in-house some or all of the services that we currently provide or could provide or to consolidate their processing on a non-SS&C system. The resulting decline in demand for our products and services over time could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our revenues may decrease due to declines in the levels of participation and activity in the securities markets.

We generate significant revenues from the transaction processing fees we earn for our products and services. These revenue sources are substantially dependent on the levels of participation and activity in the securities markets. The number of unique securities positions held by investors through our clients and our clients’ customer trading volumes reflect the levels of participation and activity in the markets, which are impacted by market prices and the liquidity of the securities markets, among other factors. We could be negatively impacted by the volatile markets as certain of our fees are tied to the asset bases of our clients. The occurrence of significant market volatility or decreased levels of participation would likely result in reduced revenues and decreased profitability

from our business operations. Additionally, we may be exposed to operational or other risks in connection with any systematic failures in the markets, or the default due to market-related failures of one or more counterparties with whom we transact.

Our business has become increasingly focused on the hedge fund industry, and we are subject to the variations and fluctuations of that industry.

Certain of our acquisitions have resulted in a higher percentage of our clients being hedge funds or funds of hedge funds. We derive significant revenues from asset management, administration and distribution contracts with such clients. Under these contracts, the fees paid to us are based on a variety of factors, including the market value of assets under management, assets under administration and number of transactions processed. Assets under management, assets under administration or the number of transactions processed may decline for various reasons, causing results to vary. Factors that could decrease assets under management and assets under administration (and therefore revenues) include declines in the market value of the assets in the funds (and accounts as applicable) managed, administered and distributed, redemptions and other withdrawals from, or shifts among, the funds (and accounts as applicable) managed, administered and distributed, as well as market conditions generally.

These clients and our business relating to them are affected by trends, developments and risks associated with the global hedge fund industry. In addition, the market environment for hedge funds involves risk and has suffered significant turmoil, including as a result of substantial changes in global economies, political uncertainty, stock market declines, a trend toward passive and algorithmic investment strategies and various regulatory initiatives.  Even in the absence of such factors, the global hedge fund industry is subject to fluctuations in assets under management that are impossible to predict or anticipate. These risks and trends could significantly and adversely affect some or all of our hedge fund clients, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, market forces have negatively impacted liquidity for many of the financial instruments in which hedge fund client’s trade, which, in turn, could negatively impact our ability to access independent pricing sources for valuing those instruments.

If we are unable to retain and attract clients, our revenues and net income would remain stagnant or decline.

If we are unable to keep existing clients satisfied, sell additional products and services to existing clients or attract new clients, then our revenues and net income would remain stagnant or decline. A variety of factors could affect our ability to successfully retain and attract clients, including:

We face significant competition with respect to our products and services, which may result in price reductions, reduced gross margins or loss of market share.

In the financial and healthcare markets we serve, we compete based on a variety of factors, including investment performance, the range of products or services offered, brand recognition, business reputation, financial strength, stability and continuity of client and other intermediary relationships, quality of service, and level of fees charged for products and services.  The market for financial and healthcare services software and services is competitive, rapidly evolving and highly sensitive to new product and service introductions, technology innovations and marketing efforts by industry participants.  The markets we serve are also highly fragmented and served by numerous firms that target only local markets or specific client types.  We also face competition from information systems developed and serviced internally by the IT departments of financial services firms.  Some of our current and potential competitors may have significantly greater financial, technical, distribution and marketing resources, generate higher revenues and have greater name recognition.  Our current or potential competitors may develop products comparable or superior to those developed by us, or adapt more quickly to new technologies, evolving industry trends or changing client or regulatory requirements.  It is also possible that our competitors may enter into alliances with each other or other third-parties, and through such alliances, acquire increased market share.  Increased competition may result in price reductions, reduced gross margins and loss of market share.  Accordingly, our failure to successfully compete in any of our material businesses could have a material adverse effect

on results of operations.  Competition could also affect the revenue mix of products or services we provide, resulting in decreased revenues in lines of business with higher profit margins, and our business may not grow as expected and may decline.

Our software-enabled services may be subject to disruptions, attacks or failures that could adversely affect our reputation and our business.

Our software-enabled services maintain and process confidential data and process trades and perform other back-office functions, including wiring funds, on behalf of our clients, some of which is critical to their business operations. For example, our trading systems maintain account and trading information for our clients and their customers.  In addition, following our acquisition of Intralinks in 2018, our platforms now house sensitive, confidential client information. Our internal technology infrastructure on which our software-enabled services depend may be subject to disruptions or may otherwise fail to operate properly or become disabled or damaged as a result of a number of factors, including events that are wholly or partially beyond our control and that could adversely affect our ability to process transactions, provide services or otherwise appropriately conduct our business activities. Such events include IT attacks or failures, threats to physical security, sudden increases in transaction volumes, electrical or telecommunications outages, damaging weather or other acts of nature, or employee or contractor error or malfeasance. In particular, cybersecurity threats have become prevalent in our industry as well as for many firms that process information. Cybersecurity threats are evolving and our security measures, and those of our service providers, may not detect or prevent all attempts to hack our systems, denial-of-service attacks, viruses, malicious software, attempts to gain unauthorized access to data, phishing attacks, social engineering, security breaches or employee or contractor malfeasance and other electronic security breaches that may jeopardize the security of information stored in or transmitted by our sites, networks and systems or that we or our third-party service providers otherwise maintain. Such cyber security incidents could lead to disruptions in our systems, the unauthorized release or destruction of our or our clients’ or other parties’ confidential or otherwise protected information and corruption of data. We and our service providers may not have the resources or technical sophistication to anticipate or prevent all types of attacks, and techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to or sabotage systems change frequently and may not be known until launched against us or our third-party service providers. In the last few years there have been many successful advanced cyber-attacks that have damaged several prominent companies in spite of strong information security measures, and we expect that the risks associated with cyber-attacks and the costs of preventing such attacks will continue to increase in the future. We and our clients are regularly the target of attempted cyber-attacks and we must continuously monitor and develop our systems to protect our technology infrastructure and data from misappropriation or corruption. Although we expend significant resources and oversight efforts in an attempt to ensure that we maintain appropriate safeguards with respect to cyber-attacks, there is no guarantee that our systems and procedures are adequate to protect against all security breaches. If our software-enabled services are disrupted or fail for any reason, or if our systems or facilities are infiltrated or damaged by unauthorized persons, we and our clients could experience data loss, including confidential and personal information, financial loss, harm to their reputation and significant business interruption. If that happens, we may be exposed to significant liability, our reputation may be harmed, our clients may be dissatisfied and we may lose business. Although we maintain privacy, data breach and network security liability insurance, we cannot be certain that our coverage will be adequate or cover liabilities actually incurred, or that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all. Given the unpredictability of the timing, nature and scope of such failures or disruptions, we could potentially experience significant costs and exposures, including production downtimes, operational delays, other detrimental impacts on our operations or ability to provide services to our customers, the compromising of confidential or otherwise protected information, misappropriation, destruction or corruption of data, security breaches, other manipulation or improper use of our systems or networks, financial losses from remedial actions, loss of business, potential liability, regulatory inquiries, enforcements, actions and fines and/or damage to our reputation, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We expect that our operating results, including our profit margins and profitability, may fluctuate over time.

Historically, our revenues, profit margins and other operating results have fluctuated from period to period and over time primarily due to the timing, size and nature of our license and service transactions. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for further discussion on fluctuations in revenues, profit margins and other operating results. Additional factors that may lead to such fluctuation include:

Additional tax expense or additional tax exposures could affect our future profitability.

We are subject to income taxes in the U.S. and various international jurisdictions.  Changes in tax laws and regulations, as well as changes in related interpretations and other tax guidance could materially impact our tax receivables and liabilities and our deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities.  On December 22, 2017, U.S. federal tax legislation, commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“Tax Act”), was signed into law, significantly reforming the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.  The Tax Act, among other things, reduces the U.S. federal statutory corporate tax rate, imposed a one-time transition tax on previously undistributed foreign earnings, limits the deductibility on executive compensation, imposes a tax on Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (“GILTI”) and modifies or repeals many business deductions and credits.  The U.S. Department of Treasury and Internal Revenue Service has issued several complex proposed and final regulations, and related guidance, regarding provisions of the Tax Act.  However, several aspects of the legislation remain unclear and subject to interpretation.  Further guidance, technical corrections and regulations are expected to be issued, which could lessen or increase certain impacts of the legislation.  Furthermore, states continue to issue guidance and enact legislation in response to the Tax Act, all of which could have a material impact on our income tax expense, assets and liabilities.

Additionally, in the ordinary course of business we are subject to examinations by various authorities, including tax authorities.  In addition to ongoing investigations, there could be additional investigations launched in the future by governmental authorities in various jurisdictions, and existing investigations could be expanded.  The global and diverse nature of our operations means that these risks will continue to exist and additional investigations, proceedings and contingencies will arise from time to time.  Our business, results of operations and financial condition may be affected by the outcome of investigations, proceedings and other contingencies that cannot be predicted with certainty.

If third-party service providers on which we rely, or other third-parties with which we do business or which facilitate our business activities, suffer disruptions to their IT systems, our business could be harmed.

In providing our software-enabled services to our customers, we depend upon IT infrastructure that is primarily managed by our firm, but we also depend on third-party service providers to provide some of the IT infrastructure on which we rely. Although we seek to ensure that appropriate security and other standards are maintained by these third-parties, these third-parties are also subject to the risks discussed in the preceding risk factor, and there is no guarantee that they will maintain systems and procedures sufficient to protect against system failures and security breaches, including as a result of cyber-attacks.

In addition, the third-parties with which we do business or which facilitate our business activities, including financial intermediaries, are susceptible to the risks described in the preceding risk factor (including regarding the third-parties with which they are similarly interconnected), and our or their business operations and activities may therefore be adversely affected, perhaps materially, by failures, terminations, errors or malfeasance by, or attacks or constraints on, one or more financial, technology or infrastructure institutions or intermediaries with whom they are interconnected or conduct business.

An increase in subaccounting services performed by brokerage firms has and will continue to adversely impact our revenues.

We service open-end and closed-end funds registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, interval funds and exchange-listed closed-end funds, as well as private funds, collective investment trusts and other accounts under shareowner recordkeeping arrangements which we refer to as registered accounts.  These arrangements are distinguished from broker subaccounts, which are serviced under contract with a broker/dealer.  Our clients may adopt the broker subaccount structure.  We offer subaccounting services to brokerage firms that perform shareowner subaccounting.  As the recordkeeping functions in connection with subaccounting are more limited than traditional shareowner accounting, the fees charged are generally lower on a per unit basis.  Brokerage firms that obtain agreements from our clients to use a broker subaccount structure cause accounts currently on our traditional recordkeeping system to convert to our subaccounting system, or to the subaccounting systems of other service providers, which generally results in lower revenues.  While subaccounting conversions have generally been limited to our non-tax advantaged mutual fund accounts, such conversions have begun to extend to the tax-advantaged accounts (such as retirement and Section 529 accounts) we service, which could adversely affect our business and operating results.

Catastrophic events may adversely affect our business.

A war, terrorist attack, natural disaster, pandemic or other catastrophe may adversely affect our business. A catastrophic event could have a direct negative impact on us or an indirect impact on us by, for example, affecting our clients, the financial markets or the overall economy and reducing our ability to provide, our clients’ ability to use, and the demand for, our products and services. The potential for a direct effect on our business operations is due primarily to our significant investment in infrastructure. Although we maintain redundant facilities and have contingency plans in place to protect against both man-made and natural threats, it is impossible to fully anticipate and protect against all potential catastrophes. A computer virus, physical or cyber security breach, criminal act, military action, power or communication failure, flood, severe storm or the like could lead to service interruptions and data losses for clients, disruptions to our operations, or damage to important facilities. In addition, such an event may cause clients to cancel their agreements with us for our products or services. Any of these events could adversely affect our business, results of operation and financial condition.

We have substantial operations and a significant number of employees in India and we are therefore subject to regulatory, economic and political uncertainties in India.

As of December 31, 2020, we had approximately 6,700 employees located in India. The economy of India may differ favorably or unfavorably from the U.S. economy and our business may be adversely affected by the general economic conditions and economic and fiscal policy in India, including changes in exchange rates and controls, interest rates and taxation policies. In particular, in recent years, India’s government has adopted policies that are designed to promote foreign investment, including significant tax incentives, relaxation of regulatory restrictions, liberalized import and export duties and preferential rules on foreign investment and repatriations. These policies may not continue. In addition, we are subject to risks relating to social stability, political, economic or diplomatic developments affecting India in the future.

India faces major challenges in the years ahead sustaining the economic growth that it has experienced over the past several years. These challenges include the need for substantial infrastructure development and improving access to healthcare and education. Our ability to recruit, train and retain qualified employees and develop and operate our facilities in India could be adversely affected if India does not successfully meet these challenges, in which case we may need to relocate those facilities and that could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are dependent on our senior management and their continued performance and productivity.

We are dependent on the continued efforts of the members of our senior management. The loss of any of the members of our senior management may cause a significant disruption in our business, jeopardize existing customer relationships, impair our compliance efforts as a public company, and have a material adverse effect on our business objectives.  We do not maintain key man life insurance policies for any senior officer or manager.

If we cannot attract, train and retain qualified employees, we may not be able to provide adequate technical expertise and customer service to our clients.

We believe that our success is due in part to our ability to attract, train and retain highly skilled employees. Competition for qualified personnel in the software and hedge fund industries is intense, and we have, at times, found it difficult to attract and retain skilled personnel for our operations. Our failure to attract and retain a sufficient number of highly skilled employees could prevent us from developing and servicing our products at the same levels as our competitors; therefore, we may lose potential clients and suffer a decline in revenues.

If we are unable to protect our proprietary technology and other confidential information, our success and our ability to compete will be subject to various risks, such as third-party infringement claims, unauthorized use of our technology, disclosure of our proprietary information or inability to license technology from third-parties.

Our success and ability to compete depends in part upon our ability to protect our proprietary technology and other confidential information.  We rely on a combination of patent, trade secret, copyright and trademark law, and nondisclosure agreements, license agreements and technical measures to protect our proprietary technology and other confidential information.  We have registered trademarks for some of our products and will continue to evaluate the registration of additional trademarks as appropriate.  We generally enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, distributors, clients and potential clients.  However, these efforts may be insufficient to prevent those parties or others from infringing, misappropriating, violating or asserting rights in our intellectual property, confidential information or other technology and our proprietary technology and confidential information may be subject to embezzlement, theft, or other similar illegal behavior by our employees or third-parties. In addition, our employees, distributors, clients and potential clients may breach our confidentiality agreements and we may not have adequate remedies for any such breach.  Furthermore, unauthorized third-parties may seek to copy portions of our products or to reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use

our proprietary information. If a third-party were to gain unauthorized access to or independently develop the confidential or proprietary information we possess, we could suffer a loss of revenues, we could experience an adverse impact on our competitive position, and our relationships with our clients and our reputation could be materially adversely effected. Existing patent and copyright laws afford only limited protection. Third-parties may develop substantially equivalent or superseding proprietary technology or may offer equivalent products in competition with our products in a manner that does not infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate our intellectual property or other proprietary rights, thereby substantially reducing the value of our proprietary rights. A number of third-parties hold patents and other intellectual property rights with application in the financial services field. Consequently, we are subject to the risk that such third-parties will claim that our products infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate their intellectual property rights, including their patent rights. Such claims, regardless of merit, could result in expensive and time-consuming litigation, divert the attention of our personnel, and impair our intellectual property rights. Moreover, as a result of such claims, we may be required to redesign our products or services in a manner that is not infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating such third-party’s intellectual property rights, which may not be technically or commercially feasible. We may also be required to obtain a license to such intellectual property rights, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation, and financial condition.

We incorporate open source software into a limited number of our software products. We monitor our use of open source software in an effort to avoid subjecting our products to unfavorable conditions or conditions we do not intend. Some open source licenses require that source code subject to the license be disclosed to third-parties, grant such third-parties the right to modify and redistribute that source code and a requirement that the source code for any software derived from it be disclosed. If we combine our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under certain open source licenses, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software to the public. Although we believe that we have complied with our obligations under the applicable licenses for open source software that we use, there is little or no legal precedent governing the interpretation of many of the terms of certain of these licenses. As a result, the potential impact of these terms is uncertain and may result in unanticipated obligations or restrictions regarding those of our products, technologies or solutions affected.

We have acquired and may acquire important technology rights through our acquisitions and have often incorporated and may incorporate features of these technologies across many of our products and services. As a result, we are subject to the above risks and the additional risk that the seller of the technology rights may not have appropriately protected the intellectual property rights we acquired. Indemnification and other rights under applicable acquisition documents are limited in term and scope and therefore provide us with only limited protection.

In addition, we rely on third-party software in providing some of our products and services. If we lose our licenses to use such software or if such licenses are found to infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate upon the rights of others, we will need to seek alternative means of obtaining the licensed software to continue to provide our products or services, which may not be feasible on a technical or commercial basis. Our inability to replace such software, or to replace such software in a timely manner, could significantly disrupt our business and our ability to deliver products and services to our clients, and adversely affect our business, results of operation and financial condition.

We may be unable to adapt to rapidly changing technology and evolving industry standards and regulatory requirements.

Rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards and regulatory requirements and new product and service introductions characterize the market for our products and services. Our future success will depend in part upon our ability to enhance our existing products and services and to develop and introduce new products and services to keep pace with such changes and developments and to meet changing client needs. The process of developing our software products is complex and is expected to become increasingly complex and expensive in the future due to the introduction of new platforms, operating systems and technologies. Current areas of significant technological change include mobility, cloud-based computing and the processing and analyzing of large amounts of data. Our ability to keep up with technology and business and regulatory changes is subject to a number of risks, including that:

Our failure to enhance our existing products and services and to develop and introduce new products and services to promptly address the needs of our clients and a changing marketplace could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Undetected software design defects, errors or failures, or employee errors, may result in defects, delays, loss of our clients’ data, litigation against us and harm to our reputation and business.

Our software products are highly complex and sophisticated and could contain design defects or software errors that are difficult to detect and correct. Errors or bugs in our software may affect the ability of our products to work with other hardware or software products, delay the development or release of new products or new versions of products, result in the loss of client data, damage our reputation, affect market acceptance of our products or result in the rejection of our products by the market, cause loss of revenues, divert development resources, increase product liability and warranty claims, and increase service and support costs. We cannot be certain that, despite testing by us and our clients, errors will not be found in new products or new versions of products. Moreover, our clients engage in complex trading activities and this complexity increases the likelihood that our employees may make errors. Employee errors, poor employee performance or misconduct may be difficult to detect and deter. These product defects or errors in the product operations, or employee errors, poor performance or misconduct, could cause damages to our clients for which they may assert claims or lawsuits against us. The cost of defending such a lawsuit, regardless of its merit, could be substantial and could divert management’s attention and result in reputational harm. In addition, if our business liability insurance coverage proves inadequate with respect to a claim or future coverage is unavailable on acceptable terms or at all, we may be liable for payment of substantial damages. Any or all of these potential consequences could have an adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Investment decisions with respect to cash balances, market returns or losses on investments, and limits on insurance applicable to cash balances held in bank and brokerage accounts, including those held by us and as agent on behalf of our clients, could expose us to losses of such cash balances and adversely affect revenues attributable to cash balance deposit investments.

As part of our transaction processing and other services, we maintain and manage large bank and investment accounts containing client funds, which we hold as agent, as well as operational funds. Our revenues include investment earnings related to client fund cash balances. Our choices in selecting investments, or market conditions that affect the rate of return on or the availability of investments, could have an adverse effect on the level of such revenues. The amounts held in our operational and client deposit accounts could exceed the limits of government insurance programs of organizations such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Securities Investors Protection Corporation, exposing us to the risk of loss. Any substantial loss would have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and our financial condition.

A substantial portion of our revenues are derived, and a substantial portion of our operations are conducted, outside the U.S.

For the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018 international revenues accounted for 27%, 27% and 28%, respectively, of our total revenues. We sell certain of our products primarily outside the U.S.  In addition, Brexit and international trade tensions have created political and economic uncertainty and instability in global financial and foreign currency markets. The U.K. exited the E.U. on January 31, 2020 and the U.K’s membership in the E.U. single market ended on December 31, 2020, with a new bilateral trade and cooperation agreement being announced on December 24, 2020. While these events provide some clarity regarding the future relationship between the U.K. and the E.U., there remains uncertainty related to the new relationship between the U.K. and the E.U., which may adversely affect our operations and financial results, as we generated approximately $569.9 million, $652.9 million and $503.9 million in revenues from the U.K. in the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. Our international business is also subject to a variety of other risks, including:

Such factors could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates that could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition.

Because a significant portion of our business is conducted outside the U.S. and significant revenues are generated outside the U.S., we face exposure to adverse movements in foreign currency exchange rates. Fluctuations in currencies relative to currencies in which our earnings are generated also make it more difficult to perform period-to-period comparisons of our reported results of operations. Because our Consolidated Financial Statements are reported in U.S. dollars, translation of sales or earnings generated in other currencies into U.S. dollars can result in a significant increase or decrease in the reported amount of those sales or earnings. In addition, we incur currency transaction risk whenever we enter into either a purchase or a sales transaction using a currency other than the local currency of the transacting entity. Given the volatility of exchange rates, we cannot be assured we will be able to effectively manage our currency translation or transaction risk, and significant changes in the value of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar could adversely affect our financial statements. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for further discussion on the foreign currency translation impact on operating results and financial condition.

We do not currently engage in material hedging activities.  Changes in economic or political conditions globally and in any of the countries in which we operate could result in exchange rate movements, new currency or exchange controls or other restrictions being imposed on our operations.

Our investments in funds and our joint ventures could decline in value.

From time to time we add new investment strategies to our investment product offerings by providing the initial cash investments as “seed capital.”  The seed capital investments may decline in value.  A significant decline in their value could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or operating results.  We are a limited partner in various private equity funds and have future capital commitments related to certain private equity fund investments.  These investments are illiquid.  Generally, private equity fund securities are non-transferable or are subject to long holding periods, and withdrawals from the private equity firm partnerships are typically not permitted.  Even when transfer restrictions do not apply, there is generally no public market for the securities.  Therefore, we may not be able to sell the securities at a time when we desire to do so.  We may not always be able to sell those investments at the same or higher prices than we paid for them.  We also participate in joint ventures with other companies.  These joint venture investments could require further capital contributions.

We do not control certain businesses in which we have significant ownership.

We invest in joint ventures and other unconsolidated affiliates as part of our business strategy, and part of our net income is derived from our pro rata share of the earnings of those businesses.  Despite owning significant equity interests in those companies and having directors on their boards, we do not control their operations, strategies or financial decisions.  The other owners may have economic, business or legal interests or goals that are inconsistent with our goals or the goals of the businesses we co-own.  Our pro rata share of any losses due to unfavorable performance of those companies could negatively impact our financial results.

Some of our joint venture investments are subject to buy-sell agreements, which could, among other things, restrict us from selling our interests even if we were to determine it would be prudent to do so.

We own interests in unconsolidated entities and various real estate joint ventures.  Our interests in such unconsolidated entities are subject to buy/sell arrangements, which could restrict our ability to sell our interests even if we were to determine it would be prudent to do so.  These arrangements could also allow us to purchase the other owners’ interests to prevent someone else from acquiring them and we cannot control the timing of occasions to do so.  The businesses or other owners may encourage us to increase our investment in or make contributions to the businesses at an inopportune time.

In addition, some of the agreements governing our joint venture arrangements include buy/sell provisions that provide a party to the arrangement with the option to purchase the other party’s interests upon such other party’s change of control at a purchase price that may be less than fair market value.  For instance, under the partnership agreement of IFDS L.P., in the event of a change of control of the Company, the other partner would have the option to purchase our interests in IFDS L.P. at a price equal to book value, unless another purchase provision in the partnership agreement was triggered prior to the change of control.  Book value may be substantially less than fair market value at the time of any sale of our interests upon a change of control.

A material weakness in our internal controls could have a material adverse effect on us.

Effective internal controls are necessary for us to provide reasonable assurance with respect to our financial reports and to effectively prevent fraud. If we cannot do so, our reputation and operating results could be harmed. A material weakness in our

internal control over financial reporting could adversely impact our ability to provide timely and accurate financial information. Even effective internal controls can provide only reasonable assurance with respect to the preparation and fair presentation of financial statements. In addition, controls can be circumvented by individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people, or by management override of the controls. Over time, controls may become inadequate because changes in conditions or deterioration in the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may occur. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected. If we are unable to report financial information timely and accurately or to maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures, our stock price could be negatively impacted and we could be subject to, among other things, regulatory or enforcement actions by the SEC, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Legal or Regulatory Risks

Our businesses expose us to risks of claims and losses that could be significant and damage our reputation and business prospects.

Our proprietary applications and related consulting and other services include the processing or clearing of financial and healthcare transactions for our clients and their customers and the design of benefit plans and compliance programs.  The dollar amount of transactions processed or cleared is vastly in excess than the revenues we derive from providing these services.  In the event we make transaction processing or operational errors, or mismanage any process, we could be exposed to claims for any resulting processing delays, disclosure of protected information, miscalculations, mishandling of pass-through disbursements or other processes, and failure to follow a client’s instructions or meet specifications.  Additionally, we may be subject to claims or liability resulting from a failure of third parties (including regulatory authorities) to recognize the limitations of our role as our clients’ agent or consultant, and we may be subject to claims or liability resulting from fraud committed by third parties.  We may be exposed to the risk of counterparty breaches or failure to perform.  We may be subject to claims, including class actions, for reimbursements, losses or damages arising from any transaction processing or operational error, or from process mismanagement.  Because of the sensitive nature of the financial and healthcare transactions we process, our liability and any alleged damages may significantly exceed the fees we receive for performing the service at issue.  Litigation could include class action claims based upon, among other theories, various regulatory requirements and consumer protection and privacy laws that class action plaintiffs may attempt to use to assert private rights of action.  Any of these claims and related settlements or judgments could affect our operating results, damage our reputation, decrease demand for our products and services, or cause us to make costly operating changes.

Our business is subject to evolving regulations and increased scrutiny from regulators.

Our business is subject to evolving and increasing U.S. and foreign regulation, including privacy, licensing, processing, recordkeeping, investment adviser, broker/dealer, retirement, data protection, reporting and related regulations.  New products and services we plan to offer may also be subject to regulation, either directly or as a downstream provider to customers or clients.  Such regulations cover all aspects of our business including, but not limited to, sales and trading methods, trade practices among broker/dealers, use and safekeeping of clients’ funds and securities, use of client and employee data, capital structure of securities firms, net capital, anti-money laundering efforts, healthcare, recordkeeping and the conduct of directors, officers and employees.  Any violation of applicable regulations could expose us or those businesses to civil or criminal liability, significant fines or sanctions, damage our reputation, the revocation of licenses, censures, or a temporary suspension or permanent bar from conducting business, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and our financial condition.

Our clients are subject to extensive regulation, including investment adviser, broker/dealer and privacy regulations applicable to products and services we provide to the financial services industry and insurance, privacy and other regulations applicable to services we provide to the healthcare industry.  As a result, our relationships with our clients may subject us to increased scrutiny from a number of regulators, including the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (and its constituent members, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), Australian Securities & Investments Commission, Bermuda Monetary Authority, British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission, Centrale Bank van Curacao en Sint Maarten, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, Central Bank of Ireland, National Futures Association, Guernsey Financial Services Commission, Jersey Financial Services Commission, Ontario Securities Commission, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Securities Commission of the Bahamas, State Departments of Insurance through Third Party Administator licenses, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, U.S. Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Office of Inspector General, U.S. Office of Civil Rights, U.S. Treasury Department and other government entities that regulate the financial services, hedge fund and hedge fund services industry in the U.S., the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) and the other jurisdictions in which we operate.  As a result of the changes in the global economy and the turmoil in global financial markets in recent years, the risk of additional government regulation has increased.  

In addition, the final outcome of negotiations between the U.K. and the E.U. relating to Brexit remains uncertain. While the U.K. withdrew from the E.U. on January 31, 2020, and the transition period ended on December 31, 2020, negotiations regarding future regulatory arrangements continue.  As a result, the impact of potential changes on the U.K. regulatory regime remains uncertain.  Moreover, our healthcare business is subject to evolving and increasing federal and state regulation.  Such federal regulation is developed, interpreted or enforced by regulators including, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, the Office for Civil Rights and the Office of the Inspector General.  Typically a state’s department of insurance regulates much of our healthcare business; however, each state’s statutes dictate such authority.  Any of these regulations may limit or curtail our activities, including activities that might be profitable, and changes to existing regulations, or the interpretations thereof, may affect our ability to continue to offer our existing products and services, or to offer products and services we may wish to offer in the future.

The European Union’s AIFMD and the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act, among other initiatives, pose significant changes to the regulatory environment in which we and our clients operate.  The impact of these regulatory changes remains uncertain.  If we fail to comply with any applicable laws, rules or regulations, we may be subject to censure, fines or other sanctions, including revocation of our licenses and/or registrations with various regulatory agencies, criminal penalties and civil lawsuits.

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and anti-bribery laws in other jurisdictions, including the U.K. Bribery Act (“Bribery Act”), generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business or other commercial advantage.  The FCPA also imposes accounting standards and requirements on publicly traded U.S. corporations and their foreign affiliates which are intended to prevent the diversion of corporate funds to the payment of bribes and other improper payments, and to prevent the establishment of “off books” slush funds from which such improper payments can be made.  We and our clients operate in a number of jurisdictions that may pose a risk of potential FCPA or Bribery Act violations.

Changes in, and any violation by our clients of, applicable laws and regulations (whether related to the products and services we provide or otherwise) could diminish their business or financial condition and thus their demand for our products and services or could increase our cost of continuing to provide our products and services to such industries.  Demand could also decrease if we do not continue to offer products and services that help our clients comply with regulations.  For example, our accounts in the healthcare industry are impacted by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (the “Affordable Care Act”), including the Health Insurance Marketplace. Changes to the Affordable Care Act have been enacted by Congress in response to the current administration’s stated agenda.

In addition, we cannot predict the nature, scope or effect of future regulatory requirements to which our internal operations might be subject or the manner in which existing laws might be administered or interpreted.  While our policies mandate compliance with these laws, there can be no assurance that we will be completely effective in ensuring our compliance with all applicable anti-corruption laws.  A failure to comply with these laws, rules or regulations, or allegations of such noncompliance, could adversely affect our business, reputation, results of operations and financial condition.

Our role as a fund administrator has in the past, and may in the future, expose us to claims and litigation from clients, their investors, regulators or other third-parties.

As a service provider, we have been, and may in the future be, subject to claims and lawsuits from investors, regulators, liquidators, other third-parties and our clients, some of which pursue high-risk investment strategies and all of which are subject to substantial market risk, in the event that the underlying fund suffers investment losses, incurs instances of fraud, becomes insolvent, files for bankruptcy or otherwise becomes defunct.  Even if we are not ultimately found to be liable, defending such claims or lawsuits could be time-consuming, divert management resources, harm our reputation and cause us to incur significant expenses.  These claims or lawsuits could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Because our platform could be used to collect and store personal information of our customers’ employees or customers, privacy concerns could result in additional cost and liability to us or inhibit use of our platform.

Personal privacy has become a significant issue in the U.S. and in many other countries where we offer our solutions or may offer them in the future.  The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is currently evolving, is not uniform and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future.  Many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws and regulations regarding the collection, use, disclosure, control, security and deletion of personal information.  In the U.S., these include, without limitation, laws and regulations promulgated by states, as well as rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and federal financial regulatory bodies.  Additionally, California recently enacted and amended legislation, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, that came into effect on January 1, 2020 and affords consumers expanded privacy protections.  There may be additional amendments to this legislation, and it remains unclear what, if any, modification will be made to this legislation or how it will be interpreted.  The effects of this legislation

potentially are far-reaching, however, and may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and to incur costs to comply.  Internationally, most of the jurisdictions in which we operate have established their own data security and privacy legal frameworks, many of which are broader in scope, more restrictive and impose greater obligations on us and our customers.  For instance, the European Union’s (“E.U.”) General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) became effective in May 2018 and imposes strict requirements related to processing the personal data of E.U. individuals and provides for robust regulatory enforcement and sanctions for non-compliance.  EU data protection authorities will have the power to impose administrative fines for violations of the GDPR of up to a maximum of €20 million or 4% of the noncompliant company’s annual global turnover for the preceding financial year, whichever is higher, and violations of the GDPR may also lead to damages claims by data controllers and data subjects.  Such penalties are in addition to any civil litigation claims by data controllers, data processors, customers and data subjects.  The GDPR is likely to increase our obligations, including by mandating documentation requirements and granting certain rights to individuals to inquire into how we collect, use, disclose, retain and process information about them.  Although we are continuing to take steps to comply with applicable portions of the GDPR, the scope of many of the GDPR’s requirements remains unclear and regulatory guidance on several topics is still forthcoming.  Therefore, we cannot assure you that such steps will be sufficient.  On June 23, 2016, the U.K. held a referendum in which voters approved an exit from the E.U, commonly referred to as “Brexit,” and it is unclear how Brexit will affect the applicability of the GDPR with respect to U.K. individuals.

In addition to government regulation, privacy advocacy and industry groups may propose new and different self-regulatory standards that either legally or contractually apply to us.  As a result of uncertainty regarding the interpretation and application of privacy and data protection-related laws, regulations, and self-regulatory requirements, it is possible that these laws, regulations, and requirements may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data handling practices or the technological features of our solutions.  If so, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits and other claims, each of which may be material, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our solutions, which could have an adverse effect on our business.  Any inability to adequately address privacy or data protection-related concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy or data protection-related laws, regulations and policies, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales and harm our business.  Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, standards and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our solutions.  Also, privacy concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our solutions, particularly in foreign countries.

We could become subject to litigation regarding our or a third-party’s intellectual property rightsor other confidential or proprietary information, which could seriously harm our business and require us to incur significant costs.

In recent years, there has been a high incidence of litigation in the U.S. involving patents and other intellectual property rights.  We are from time to time a party to litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights or to protect our confidential or proprietary information, or as a result of an allegation that we infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate a third-party’s intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights.  From time to time, we have received notices claiming our technology may infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate third-party intellectual property rights or otherwise threatening to assert intellectual property rights.  These claims and any resulting lawsuit, if successful, could subject us to significant liability for damages and our intellectual property rights being reduced, narrowed or held unenforceable or invalid.  These lawsuits, regardless of their success, could be time-consuming and expensive to resolve, adversely affect our revenues, profitability and prospects, and divert management time and attention.  If we are found to infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate a third-party’s intellectual property rights, we may be required to pay the third-party substantial monetary damages and to cease the activities covered by such intellectual property rights, unless we obtain a license to such intellectual property rights, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all.  In addition, these claims and threats could also cause us to undertake to re-engineer our products or services which may not be technically or commercially feasible.  Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation and financial condition.

Risks Relating to Our Indebtedness

Our substantial indebtedness could adversely affect our financial health and operations.

We currently have a substantial amount of indebtedness. As of December 31, 2020, we had total indebtedness of $6,496.0 million and an additional $246.1 million available for borrowings under our revolving credit facility. This indebtedness could have adverse consequences. For example, it may:

In addition, the agreement governing our senior credit facility contains financial and other restrictive covenants that limit our ability to engage in activities that may be in our long-term best interests, and any additional indebtedness may incur may also contain restrictive covenants.  Our failure to comply with those covenants could result in an event of default which, if not cured or waived, could result in the acceleration of all of our debts.

To service our indebtedness, we require a significant amount of cash. Our ability to generate cash depends on many factors beyond our control.

We estimate that our current levels of indebtedness as of December 31, 2020 will result in annual interest payments of approximately $196.0 million. Our ability to make payments on and to refinance our indebtedness and to fund planned capital expenditures will depend on our ability to generate cash in the future. This, to a certain extent, is subject to general economic, financial, competitive, legislative, regulatory and other factors that are beyond our control.

If our business fails to generate sufficient cash flow from operations and future borrowings are not available to us, we may not be able to pay our indebtedness or fund our other liquidity needs. We may need to refinance all or a portion of our indebtedness on or before maturity. We may not be able to refinance any of our indebtedness on commercially reasonable terms or at all. If we cannot service our indebtedness, we may have to take actions such as selling assets, seeking additional equity or reducing or delaying capital expenditures, strategic acquisitions, investments and joint ventures. We may not be able to effect such actions, if necessary, on commercially reasonable terms or at all.

Restrictive covenants in the agreements governing our indebtedness may restrict our ability to pursue our business strategies.

The Credit Agreement limits our ability, among other things, to:

In addition, the Credit Agreement also requires us, in certain instances, to maintain compliance with specified leverage ratios.  Our ability to comply with these provisions may be affected by events beyond our control, and these provisions could limit our ability to plan for or react to market conditions, meet capital needs or otherwise conduct our business activities and plans.

Our inability to comply with any of these provisions could result in a default under one or more of the agreements governing our indebtedness.  If such a default occurs under one such agreement, the creditors under another debt agreement may elect to declare all borrowings outstanding, together with accrued interest and other fees, to be immediately due and payable.  In addition, the lenders under our Credit Agreement would have the right to terminate any commitments they have to provide further borrowings.

If we are unable to repay outstanding borrowings when due, the lenders under our Credit Agreement also have the right to proceed against the collateral, including substantially all of our domestic assets and the assets of our domestic subsidiaries, granted to them to secure the indebtedness under that facility.  If the indebtedness under our Credit Agreement were to be accelerated, we cannot assure you that our assets would be sufficient to repay in full that indebtedness and our other indebtedness.

Changes in the method of determining LIBOR, or the replacement of LIBOR with an alternative reference rate, may adversely affect interest expense related to our outstanding debt.

Changes in the method of determining London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”), or the replacement of LIBOR with an alternative reference rate, may adversely affect interest expense related to outstanding debt.  At December 31, 2020, we had total debt of $6,496.0 million, including $4,485.9 million of variable interest rate debt and which may bear interest rates in relation to LIBOR, depending on our selection of repayment options.  On July 27, 2017, the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom announced that it intends to stop persuading or compelling banks to submit rates for the calculation of LIBOR to the administrator of LIBOR after 2021.  The announcement indicates that the continuation of LIBOR on the current basis cannot and will not be guaranteed after 2021.  It is unclear whether new methods of calculating LIBOR will be established such that it continues to exist after 2021. The U.S. Federal Reserve, in conjunction with the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, a steering committee comprised of large U.S. financial institutions, is considering replacing LIBOR with the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”), a new index calculated by short-term repurchase agreements, backed by Treasury securities. Whether or not SOFR, or another alternative reference rate, attains market traction as a LIBOR replacement tool remains in question, and the future of LIBOR at this time is uncertain.  If LIBOR ceases to exist, we may need to renegotiate our Credit Agreement and may not be able to do so with terms that are favorable to us.  In particular, the method and rate used to calculate our interest rates and/or payments under the Credit Agreement in the future may result in interest rates and/or payments that are higher than, lower than, or that do not otherwise correlate over time with the interest rates and/or payments that would have been made on our obligations if LIBOR was available in its current form.  See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Contractual Obligations – Senior Secured Credit Facilities” for additional information.  The overall financial market may be disrupted as a result of the discontinuation, reform or replacement of LIBOR or any other benchmark rate, or any uncertainty in respect thereof.  Disruption in the financial market or the inability to renegotiate our Credit Agreement with favorable terms could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Relating to Ownership of Our Common Stock

If equity research analysts do not publish or cease publishing research or reports about our business or if they issue unfavorable commentary or downgrade our common stock, the price and trading volume of our common stock could decline.

The trading market for our common stock is influenced by the research and reports that equity research analysts publish about us and our business. We do not control these analysts. The price of our stock or trading volume in our stock could decline if one or more equity analysts downgrade our stock or if those analysts issue other unfavorable commentary or cease publishing regular reports about us or our business.

The market price of our common stock may be volatile, which could result in substantial losses for investors in our common stock.

Shares of our common stock were sold in our initial public offering at a price of $7.50 per share on March 31, 2010, and through December 31, 20172020, our common stock has traded as high as $42.50$74.00 and as low as $6.64.  An active, liquid and orderly market for our common stock may not be sustained, which could depress the trading price of our common stock.  In addition, the market price of our common stock may fluctuate significantly.  Some of the factors that may cause the market price of our common stock to fluctuate include:

In addition, if the market for technology stocks, financial services stocks or the stock market in general experiences a loss of investor confidence, the trading price of our common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, financial condition or results of operations.  If any of the foregoing occurs, it could cause our stock price to fall and may expose us to class action lawsuits that, even if unsuccessful, could be costly to defend and a distraction to management.

William C. Stone, our Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, exerts significant control over our Company.

As of February 16, 2018,17, 2021, William C. Stone, our Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, beneficially owned approximately 15.5%13.2% of the outstanding shares of our common stock. We are party to a stockholders’stockholders’ agreement with Mr. Stone, pursuant to which Mr. Stone has the right to nominate two members of our board of directors, one of which will be Mr. Stone for so long as he is our Chief Executive Officer. As a result, Mr. Stone has significant influence over our policy and affairs and matters requiring stockholder approval.

SS&C Holdings is a holding company with no operations or assets of its own and its ability to pay dividends is limited or otherwise restricted.

As of December 31, 2020, SS&C Holdings has no direct operations and no significant assets other than the stock of SS&C and Advent Software, Inc.  The ability of SS&C Holdings to pay dividends is limited by its status as a holding company and by the terms of the agreement governing our indebtedness. See “Risk“Risk factors —- Risks relating to our indebtedness —- Restrictive covenants in the agreements governing our indebtedness may restrict our ability to pursue our business strategies.” Moreover, none of the subsidiaries of SS&C Holdings isare obligated to make funds available to SS&C Holdings for the payment of dividends or otherwise. In addition, Delaware law imposes requirements that may restrict the ability of our subsidiaries, including SS&C, to pay dividends to SS&C Holdings. These limitations could reduce our attractiveness to investors.

Our management has broad discretion in the use of our existing cash resources and may not use such funds effectively.

Our management has broad discretion in the application of our cash resources. Accordingly, our stockholders will have to rely upon the judgment of our management with respect to our existing cash resources, with only limited information concerning management’smanagement’s specific intentions. Our management may spend our cash resources in ways that our stockholders may not desire or that may not yield a favorable return. The failure by our management to apply these funds effectively could harm our business.

Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws might discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our Company or changes in our management and, therefore, depress the trading price of our common stock.

Provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and Delaware law may discourage, delay or prevent a merger, acquisition or other change in control that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares of our common stock.  These provisions may also prevent or frustrate attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our management.  These provisions include:

The existence of the foregoing provisions and anti-takeover measures could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock.  They could also deter potential acquirers of our Company, thereby reducing the likelihood that our stockholders could receive a premium for their shares of common stock in an acquisition.

None.

We lease our corporate offices, which consist of approximately 93,500 square feet of office space located at 80 Lamberton Road, Windsor, CT 06095. In 2013, we extended the lease term through October 2022. We utilize facilities and offices in 38approximately 140 other locations in the United States and have offices in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. We lease allapproximately 60% of our facilities and

offices except foroffice space as compared to owning 40% of our offices in Yorktown, New York, and Harrison, New York, which we own. office space.  We believe that our facilities are in good condition and generally suitable to meet our needs for the foreseeable future; however, we will continue to seek additional space as needed to satisfy our growth.

From time to time, the Company iswe are subject to legal proceedings and claims. Certain legal proceedings in which we are involved are discussed in Note 17 to the Consolidated Financial Statements, which is included elsewhere in this annual report on Form 10-K and incorporated by reference herein.  In the opinion of the Company’sour management, the Company iswe are not involved in any litigation or proceedings that would have a material adverse effect on the Companyus or itsour business.

Not applicable.

PARTPART II

Our common stock trades on The Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “SSNC”. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low sales pricesAs of February 17, 2021, we had approximately 129,000 beneficial shareholders of our common stock as reported by The Nasdaq Global Select Market:

On February 16, 2018, the closing price reported on The Nasdaq Global Select Market of our common stock was $50.00 per share. As of February 16, 2018, we had approximately 3,000 holders of record of our common stock.

There is no established public trading market for shares of our Class A non-voting common stock, and as of December 31, 2016 there were no shares of our Class A non-voting common stock outstanding. On March 30, 2016, William C. Stone converted 2,703,846 shares of Class A non-voting stock into 2,703,846 shares of the Company’s common stock, or 5,407,692 shares of common stock on a post-split basis. Each share of Class A non-voting common stock converted automatically into one share of the Company’s common stock upon the expiration of the applicable waiting period under the HSR Act.

In 2017, we paid quarterly cash dividends of $0.0625 per share of common stock on March 15, 2017 and June 15, 2017 and $0.07 per share of common stock on September 15, 2017 and December 15, 2017, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on March 1, 2017, June 1, 2017, September 1, 2017 and December 1, 2017, respectively, totaling $54.4 million. Our ability to pay dividends is limited by our status as a holding company and by the terms of the agreements governing our senior credit facility and our senior notes, insofar as we may seek to pay dividends out of funds made available to us by our subsidiaries, because our debt instruments directly or indirectly impose certain limitations on our subsidiaries’ ability to pay dividends or make loans to us. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will depend on then-existing conditions, including our financial condition, operating results, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, current and anticipated cash needs, plans for expansion, and other factors our Board of Directors may deem relevant.

Our equity plan information required by this item is incorporated by reference to the information in Part III, Item 12 of this annual report on Form 10-K.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

The following is a summary of the repurchases of our common stock in the fourth quarter of 2020 (in millions, except average price per share):

Performance graph

This performance graph shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the SEC for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, or otherwise subject to the liabilities under that Section, and shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any filing of SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. under the Exchange Act.

The following graph shows a comparison from December 31, 20122015 through December 31, 20172020 of cumulative total return for our common stock, the Nasdaq Composite Index and the Nasdaq Computer and Data Processing Index. Such returns are based on historical results and are not intended to suggest future performance. Data for the Nasdaq Composite Index and the Nasdaq Computer and Data Processing Index assume reinvestment of dividends.

COMPARISON OF CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN*

Among SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc., the Nasdaq Composite Index

And the Nasdaq Computer and Data Processing Index

The five-year selected financial data set forth below should be read in conjunction with our Consolidated Financial Statements and related notes and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” appearing elsewhere in this annual report on Form 10-K.Not Applicable

Overview

Business. We are a leading provider of mission-critical, sophisticated software products and software-enabled services that allow financial services providers to automate complex business processes and effectively manage their information processing requirements.processes.  Our portfolio of software products and rapidly deployable software-enabled services allows our clients to automate and integrate front-office functions such as trading and modeling, middle-office functions such as portfolio management and reporting, and back-office functions such as accounting, transfer agency, compliance, regulatory services, performance measurement, reconciliation, reporting, processing and clearing.  Our solutions enable our clients to focus on core operations, better monitor and manage investment performance and risk, improve operating efficiency and reduce operating costs. We provide our solutions globally to approximately 11,000thousands of clients, principally within the institutional asset and wealth management, alternative investment management, brokerage, retirement, financial advisory and financial institutions vertical markets.  In addition, our clientswe provide solutions to the healthcare industry including pharmacy, healthcare administration and health outcomes optimization solutions to satisfy their information processing, quality of care, cost management and payment integrity needs. Our healthcare solutions include commercial lenders, real estate investment trusts (“REITs”), corporate treasury groups, insuranceclaims adjudication, benefit management, care management and pension funds, municipal finance groups and real estate property managers.business intelligence services.

Acquisitions. To supplement our growth, we evaluate and execute acquisitions that provide complementary products or services, add proven technology and an established client base and expand our intellectual property portfolio or address a highly specialized problem or a market niche. Since the beginning of 2015,2018, we have spent approximately $3.3$8.6 billion to acquire nine businesses in the financial services software industry,on our seven most significant acquisitions, using a combination of cash on hand, and equity and debt financing (as discussed in Notes 68, 10 and 11 to our Consolidated Financial Statements).

The following table lists the significant businesses we have acquired since January 1, 2015:2018: