Morningstar backs change of leadership at Iress

The change of chief executive at major financial planning software group, Iress has been endorsed by research and ratings house, Morningstar.

In an analysis of Iress issued in the aftermath of the announcement that long-serving chief executive, Andrew Walsh, would be leaving the company to be replaced by Marcus Price, Morningstar said “we view Price as an excellent choice to lead Iress into the future”.

Morningstar said it was maintaining its $11 per share fair value estimate for Iress following the CEO change.

“We view Price as an excellent choice to lead Iress into the future,” the Morningstar assessment said. “Price has a multidecade history of senior executive roles in the Australian financial services industry, most of them in various financial data technology companies. Price has previously been the founding CEO of Veda—now part of Equifax—which is a provider credit scoring services.”

“During Price’s tenure, it grew from just a few employees to over a hundred employees. Price has also been the inaugural CEO of wide-moat-rated Pexa, which became the dominant electronic conveyancing, or e-conveyancing platform in Australia during his tenure.,” the ratings house analysis said.

“We consider these and others experiences to be highly relevant for Price’s role at Iress given the similar nature of Iress’ various businesses.”