Earnings Highlights:

* Fourth quarter 2009 revenues increased 1.3% to $76.5 million and revenue for the year ended December 31, 2009 increased 2.4% to $303.4 million.
* Fourth quarter 2009 Adjusted EBITDA decreased 2.5% to $28.4 million, with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 37.2%. Adjusted EBITDA for the year ended December 31, 2009 increased 9.4% to $110.7 million with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 36.5%.
* GAAP EPS for fourth quarter 2009 was $0.11. EPS before KLD acquisition costs and loss on disposal of property and equipment for fourth quarter 2009 was $0.12.
* Adjusted EPS (before amortization of intangibles, one-time costs, loss on disposal of fixed property and equipment, and stock-based compensation) for the fourth quarter 2009 was $0.20, flat from the prior year.

The Q4 2009 consolidated renewal rate increased to 84.6%, an improvement from 80.8% in the first half of 2009 and 82.5% in Q3 2009 led by an increase in the Q4 2009 Risk renewal rate to 88.4%. New ACV sales also continued to show improvement during 2009, as Q4 2009 new ACV sales increased to $14.7 million, up from $10.0 million in Q3. Q4 2009 Risk new ACV sales were particularly strong increasing to $10.0 million. Consolidated ACV at December 31, 2009 increased to $282.5 million from $276.6 million at September 30, 2009 due mainly to Risk ACV growth and the KLD acquisition.

"The difficult business conditions that we faced in the first half of 2009 continued to abate in the fourth quarter of 2009," said Ethan Berman, Chief Executive Officer of RiskMetrics Group. "We experienced higher renewal rates and new sales, particularly in the Risk business. In addition, we see these trends continuing into 2010 with ongoing recovery of renewal rates and a strong new sales pipeline. We also have controlled costs and realized the benefits of our scalable infrastructure resulting in Adjusted EBITDA growth of 9.4% in 2009 to $110.7 million."