ITEM 3. KEY INFORMATION

A. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The following selected consolidated historical financial information should be read in conjunction with the sections entitled “Introduction—Corporate Reorganisation,” “Introduction—Presentation of Financial Information,” and “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects” and the audited consolidated financial statements of Markit Ltd., including the notes thereto, included elsewhere in this annual report.

The selected consolidated historical financial information presented as of December 31, 2014 and 2013 and for the years ended December 31, 2014, 2013 and 2012 has been derived from the audited consolidated financial statements of Markit Ltd. included elsewhere in this annual report. The selected consolidated historical financial information presented as of December 31, 2012 and 2011 and for the year ended December 31, 2011 has been derived from audited consolidated financial statements of Markit Group Holdings Limited that have not been included elsewhere in this annual report. The selected consolidated historical financial information presented as of and for the year ended December 31, 2010 has been derived from the unaudited accounting data records of Markit Group Holdings Limited and is not included in the financial statements or notes thereto that are included elsewhere in this annual report.

All our operations are continuing operations and we have not proposed or paid dividends in any of the periods presented.

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B. CAPITALIZATION AND INDEBTEDNESS

Not applicable.

C. REASONS FOR THE OFFER AND USE OF PROCEEDS

Not applicable.

D. RISK FACTORS

Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially and adversely affected if any of these risks occurs, and as a result, the market price of our common shares could decline.

Risks Related to Our Business

We operate in highly competitive markets and may be adversely affected by this competition.

The markets for our products and services are highly competitive and are subject to rapid technological changes and evolving customer demands and needs. Many of our principal competitors are established companies that have substantial financial resources, recognised brands, technological expertise and vast market experience. These competitors sometimes have more established positions in certain product segments and geographic regions than we do. We also compete with smaller companies, some of which may be able to adopt new or emerging technologies or address customer requirements more quickly than we can. In particular:

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Competition may require us to reduce the price of some of our products and services or make additional capital investments that would adversely affect our profit margins or cash flows. For instance, the increase of electronic trading of derivatives is expected to create pricing and other competitive pressure on our Processing division, and in response we lowered the price points of certain products. If we are unable or unwilling to do so, or make other price reductions or such additional capital investments, we may lose market share and our financial condition or results of operations may be adversely affected. Moreover, our strategic position in the marketplace and our opportunities to acquire, be acquired or partner with our competitors may be reduced if our competitors forge deeper or exclusive relationships with one another. We cannot assure anyone that our investments and our relationships with our partners have been or will be sufficient to maintain or improve our competitive position or that the development of new or improved technologies, products and services by our competitors will not have a material adverse effect on our business. If we fail to compete effectively against current or future competitors, our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

If we are unable to develop successful new products and services, or if we experience design defects, errors, failures or delays associated with our products or services or migration of an existing product or service to a new system, our business could suffer serious harm.

Our growth and success depend upon our ability to develop and sell new products and services. If we are unable to develop new products or services, or if we are not successful in introducing or obtaining any required regulatory approval or acceptance for new products or services, we may not be able to grow our business or growth may occur more slowly than we anticipate.

Despite testing, products and services that we develop, license or distribute may contain errors or defects after release. In addition, whether we release new products and services or migrate existing products and services to new systems or upgrade outdated software and infrastructure, our software may contain design defects and errors when first introduced or when major new updates or enhancements are released. We have also experienced delays in the past while developing and introducing new products and services, primarily due to difficulties in licensing data inputs, developing new products or services, or adapting to particular operating environments. Additionally, in our development of new products and services or updates and enhancements to our existing products and services, we may make a major design error that causes the product or service to operate incorrectly or less effectively. Many of our products and services also rely on data and services provided by third-party providers over which we have no control and may be provided to us with defects, errors or failures. Our customers may also use our products and services together with their own software, data or products from other companies. As a result, when problems occur, it might be difficult to identify the source of the problem. If design defects, errors or failures are discovered in our current or future products or services, we may not be able to correct them in a timely manner, if at all.

Our inability to develop and sell new products and services, our inability to successfully migrate existing products or services to new systems, or the existence of design defects, errors or delays in our products or services that are significant, or are perceived to be significant, could result in rejection or delay in market acceptance of our products or services, damage to our reputation, loss of revenue, a lower rate of licence renewals or upgrades, diversion of development resources, product liability claims or regulatory actions, or increases in service and support costs. We may also need to expend significant capital resources to eliminate or work around design defects, errors, failures or delays. In each of these ways, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially adversely impacted.

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Declining activity levels in the securities or derivatives markets, weak or declining financial performance of financial market participants or the failure of market participants could lower demand for our products and services and could affect our recurring variable fee revenue.

Our business is dependent upon the global financial markets as well as the financial health of the participants in those markets and the general economy. Unfavourable or uncertain economic conditions, economic instability or economic downturns could cause our customers or prospective customers to cancel, reduce or delay planned expenditures for our products and services, or impair our customers’ ability to pay for products or services they have purchased. This could adversely affect our financial results by reducing our revenue.

In addition, a significant proportion of our revenue is variable and depends upon transaction volumes, investment levels (i.e., assets under management) or the number of positions we value. Lower activity levels in the financial markets, including lower transaction volumes, assets under management or positions taken could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.

We work on product development with, license data inputs for our products and services from, and generate a significant percentage of our total revenue from financial institutions that are also our shareholders, who are not contractually obligated to continue to maintain these relationships and who also have similar involvement with our competitors.

We have historically earned a substantial portion of our revenue from and have worked on new product and service offerings with financial institution customers that are also our shareholders. For the years ended December 31, 2014, 2013, and 2012, 38.7%, 42.6%, and 44.7% of our total revenue, respectively, was generated by payments from financial institutions or their affiliates that are also our shareholders. Cooperation with these financial institution customers has also been important in the development of many of our products and services. In addition, as described below, these financial institutions that are our customers and shareholders also provide us with data, which is a critical input for our products and services. Additionally, some of these financial institution customers that are also our shareholders had a right to appoint members of our Board of Directors, which right terminated upon the consummation of our initial public offering.

Our financial institution shareholders and our other customers have made, and may continue to make, investments in businesses that directly compete with us. Our customers also trade, and may continue to trade, on markets operated by our competitors. Reduced engagement from these financial institution customers now that they can no longer designate a member of our Board of Directors, or as a result of a reduction in the level of their equity ownership in us, may cause them to reduce or discontinue their use of our products and services, their desire to work with us on new product developments or their willingness to supply data and information services to us. Further, changes in regulation and other market factors may cause these financial institutions to cease creating the datasets that are important to our products and services or to cease providing such datasets to us. The loss of, or a significant reduction in, participation on our platform by these financial institution customers may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We are dependent on third parties for data and information services.

We depend upon data and information services from external sources, including data received from certain competitors, customers and various government and public record services, for information used in certain of our products and services. In most cases, we do not own the information provided by these external sources, and the participating organisations could discontinue contributing information to the databases. Our data sources could also increase the price of, or withdraw, their data or

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information services for a variety of reasons, or we could become subject to legislative, regulatory, judicial or contractual restrictions on the use of data, in particular if such data is not collected by the third parties in a way which allows us to process the data or use it legally.

Some of our customers are both significant shareholders of our company and data suppliers or information service providers. As of December 31, 2014, approximately 58.0% of our issued and outstanding common shares was owned by financial institutions who are also our customers. Certain of these same parties provide us with a significant amount of our data. There can be no assurance that those customers will continue to provide data to the same extent or on the same terms or continue to purchase our products and services.

In addition, our competitors, which in some cases are our suppliers of data and information services, could enter into exclusive contracts with our existing or other data sources or information service providers, revise the current terms on which they provide us with data or services, alter or revise the data or services they provide without our knowledge, or cease providing us with data or services altogether for a variety of reasons, including ceasing or interrupting the provision of such data or services generally or to us specifically, such as declining to support us given our competing positions. If (i) a substantial number of data sources or certain key sources were to withdraw or were unable to provide us with their data or information services; (ii) we were to lose access to, or be precluded from receiving or restricted in using, data or information services due to exclusive contracts among our competitors, government regulation, or regulatory concerns of our suppliers; (iii) the collection of data were to become uneconomical or disrupted; (iv) there were concerns about the quality or accuracy of the data or services provided; or (v) we were unable to arrange for substitute sources of information internally or via another third-party provider, our ability to provide products and services to our customers could be impacted and our business, reputation, financial condition, operating results and cash flow could be materially adversely affected.

There may be consolidation in our end-customer market, which would reduce the use of our products and services.

Mergers or consolidations among our customers, as a result of increased regulatory pressure or otherwise, could reduce the number of our customers and potential customers. This could adversely affect our revenue even if these events do not reduce the activities of the consolidated entities. If our customers merge with or are acquired by other entities that are not our customers, or entities that use fewer of our products or services, such customers may discontinue or reduce their use of our products and services. For example, when Bank of America Corporation (together with its affiliates, “Bank of America”) acquired Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated and its affiliates (“Merrill Lynch”), certain of our agreements with Merrill Lynch related to various products and services were eventually terminated and consolidated under our historical contracts with Bank of America. Any such developments could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

The impact of cost-cutting pressures across the industry we serve could lower demand for our products and services.

Our customers are focused on controlling or reducing spending as a result of the continued financial challenges and market uncertainty many of them face. For example, in 2012, many large financial institutions initiated reductions in their workforces and took other measures to control or contain operational spending. More recently, many of these institutions were subject to substantial penalties from regulatory bodies. Customers within the financial services industry that strive to reduce their operating costs may seek to reduce their spending on our products and services. Our results of operations could be materially and adversely affected if a large number of smaller customers or a critical number of larger customers reduce their spending with us.

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Alternatively, customers may use other strategies to reduce their overall spending on financial market products and services, such as by consolidating their spending with fewer vendors, including by selecting other vendors with lower-cost offerings, or by self-sourcing their need for financial market products and services. If customers elect to consolidate their spending on financial market products and services with other vendors and not us, if we lose business to lower priced competitors, or if customers elect to self-source their financial market product and service needs, our results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Our customers may become more self-sufficient, which may reduce demand for our products and services and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our customers may, as some have in the past, internally develop certain products and services as well as functionality contained in the products and services that they currently obtain from us, including through the formation of consortia. For example, some of our customers who currently license our valuations data and analytics tools to analyse their portfolios and who do not require an independent source for these services may develop their own tools to collect data and assess risk, making our products and services less useful to them. Furthermore, public sources of free or relatively inexpensive information, whether through the Internet, from governmental and regulatory agencies or from companies and other organisations, have become more readily available, and this trend is expected to continue. This greater availability of information could further assist our customers in independently developing certain products and services that we currently provide. To the extent that customers become more self-sufficient, demand for our products and services may be reduced, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We are subject to ongoing antitrust investigations and litigation arising from activities relating to credit default swaps, and may in the future become subject to further investigations and litigation. An adverse outcome in these investigations or litigation could result in substantial fines, damages or penalties and could change how we offer products or services, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We are subject to antitrust and competition laws and regulations in the countries where we have operations. These laws and regulations seek to prevent and prohibit anticompetitive activity. We are currently subject to a number of antitrust and competition-related investigations and claims, including investigations by the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Competition Directorate of the European Commission (the “EC”) as well as a consolidated class action lawsuit in the United States. See “Item 8. Financial Information—A. Consolidated Statements and Other Financial Information—Legal Proceedings” for a description of these matters. These investigations and lawsuit involve multiple parties and complex claims that are subject to significant uncertainties and unspecified penalties or damages. Therefore, we cannot estimate the probability of loss or the extent of our potential liability on a standalone basis or relative to the potential liability of the other parties to the investigations and lawsuits. Future investigations and lawsuits relating to credit default swaps are also possible.

Depending on the outcome of any pending or future claims or investigations, we may be required to change the way we offer particular products or services, which could result in material disruptions to and costs incurred by our business, and we may be subject to substantial fines, penalties, damages or an injunction or other equitable remedies. Pending or future claims or investigations (regardless of outcome) may also affect how the Dealers (as defined in “Item 8. Financial Information—A. Consolidated Statements and Other Financial Information—Legal Proceedings”) or other parties

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interact with us, including the manner or type of data provided to us and the manner or type of data products and services purchased from us. These pending antitrust and competition-related claims and investigations, and any future claims and investigations, could also be costly to us in terms of time and expense incurred defending such claims or investigations. Any of the above impacts, individually or together, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

For some of our products and services, we typically face a long selling cycle to secure new contracts that requires significant resource commitments, resulting in a long lead time before we receive revenue.

For new products and services and for complex products and services, we typically face a long selling cycle to secure each new contract, and there is generally a long preparation period before we commence providing products and services or delivering configurable software. For instance, our Analytics service provides a range of enterprise risk management software solutions, using the latest risk technology to deliver computation speed. The consultative nature of these projects requires our sales team to actively engage with potential customers through various procurement stages, often requiring many levels of internal approval, and including various milestone phases such as scoping, planning and proof of concept to reach deal closure, which typically takes 12 months or more. We typically incur significant business development expenses during the selling cycle and we may not succeed in winning a new customer’s business, in which case we receive no revenue and may receive no reimbursement for such expenses. Current selling cycle periods could lengthen, causing us to incur even higher business development expenses with no guarantee of winning a new customer’s business. Even if we succeed in developing a relationship with a potential new customer, we may not be successful in obtaining contractual commitments after the selling cycle or in maintaining contractual commitments after the implementation cycle, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We rely heavily on network systems and the Internet and any failures or disruptions may adversely affect our ability to serve our customers.

Most of our products and services are delivered electronically, and our customers rely on our ability to process transactions rapidly and deliver substantial quantities of data and other services on computer-based networks. Our customers also depend on the continued capacity, reliability and security of our electronic delivery systems, our websites and the Internet. Our ability to deliver our products and services electronically may be impaired due to infrastructure or network failures, malicious or defective software, human error, natural disasters, service outages at third-party Internet providers or increased government regulation. For example, as a result of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, one of our data centres in New Jersey and some of our office space in New York City were flooded and unavailable, resulting in several days of reduced operations and substantial costs associated with repairs, relocation and resource reallocation to ensure continued delivery of our products and services. Further, we receive data inputs from critical third-party suppliers who are subject to the same delivery risks, such that if any of the foregoing issues affect these suppliers, we may be impacted as well. Significant growth of our customer base may also strain our systems in the future. Delays in our ability to deliver our products and services electronically may harm our reputation and result in the loss of customers. In addition, a number of our customers entrust us with storing and securing their data and information on our servers. Although we have disaster recovery plans that include backup facilities for our primary data centres, our systems are not always fully redundant, and our disaster planning may not always be sufficient or effective. As such, these disruptions may affect our ability to store, handle and secure such data and information.

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From time to time, the speed at which we are required to update market and customer data can increase. This can sometimes impact product and network performance. Factors that have significantly increased data update rates include high market volatility, new derivative instruments, increased automatically generated algorithmic and program trading and market fragmentation, resulting in an increased number of trading and clearing venues. Changes in legislation and regulation pertaining to market structure and dissemination of market information may also increase data flow rates. There can be no assurance that our company, our third-party data suppliers and our network providers will be able to accommodate accelerated growth of data volumes or avoid other failures or interruptions. We currently face significant increases in our use of power and data storage, and we may experience a shortage of capacity and increased costs associated with such usage. A significant delay or disruption of our network systems, servers or use of the Internet may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition, and our existing insurance coverage may not cover all our losses.

If embargoed data or non-public information relating to our indices, including the PMI series, is inadvertently disclosed or deliberately misused, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

We own and administer several indices, including Purchasing Managers Index (“PMI”) series, which are monthly economic surveys of selected companies that provide advance insight into the private sector economy. Among others, central banks use the PMI series data to help make interest rate decisions and financial analysts use the PMI series data to forecast official economic data. If, prior to the date of intended release, we are unable to limit access to the PMI series or prevent its unauthorised disclosure, whether inadvertent or deliberate, our reputation may suffer, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Moreover, we provide the PMI series data under embargo to certain financial information and news providers. Part of the value to us from doing so is that these news providers are able to analyse and provide commentary on the data simultaneously with the public release of such data by us. If the embargoed data is inadvertently disclosed or deliberately misused prior to our authorisation, financial markets could be negatively affected and any resulting need to change our procedures around the provision of embargoed data to any third parties may diminish the value of the PMI series to our business.

Fraudulent or unpermitted data access and other security or privacy breaches may negatively impact our business and harm our reputation.

Many of our products and services involve the storage and transmission of proprietary information and sensitive or confidential data. Security breaches in our facilities, computer networks, and databases may cause harm to our business and reputation and result in a loss of customers. Our products, services and systems and our customers’ systems may be vulnerable to physical break-ins, computer viruses, attacks by hackers, including denial of service attacks, and other similarly disruptive activity. Recently, the financial services industry has been targeted for purposes of political protest, activism and fraud, as well as by foreign state actors and terrorist organisations seeking to disrupt the businesses and financial systems in the countries in which we operate. Further, former employees of certain companies in the financial sector have misappropriated trade secrets or stolen source code in the past, and we could be a target for such illegal acts in the future.

In addition, we rely on a system of internal processes and software controls along with policies, procedures and training to protect the confidentiality of customer data, such as portfolio data and trading information that may be provided to us or hosted on our systems. If we fail to maintain the adequacy of our internal controls, including any failure to implement required new or improved controls, or if we experience difficulties in the implementation of our internal controls, policies or procedures, or if

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an employee, consultant or third-party provider purposely circumvents or violates our internal controls, policies or procedures, then unauthorised access to, or disclosure or misappropriation of, customer data could occur.

Any such security or privacy breach, or unauthorised access, disclosure or misappropriation may adversely affect us in the following ways:

Our existing resources and measures to maintain data and information security have not always in the past been, and may not always in the future be, effective. In the past, we have experienced security breaches, unauthorised disclosures and cyber incidents, as well as occasional system interruptions that have made some of our services or websites unavailable for limited periods of time. Third-party providers also may experience security breaches and unauthorised disclosures involving the storage and transmission of proprietary information. If anyone gains improper access to our databases, they may be able to steal, publish, delete or modify our confidential information or that of a third-party stored or transmitted on our networks. Any significant failure, compromise, unauthorised access or disclosure, cyber-breach or interruption of our systems, including operational services, loss of service from third parties, sabotage, break-ins, failure of controls, war, terrorist activities, power or coding loss or computer viruses could result in lack of availability, loss of data integrity, fraud, unauthorised disclosure or other outcomes harmful to our business. Any breach of data, controls or information security caused by one of these events could also result in unintentional disclosure of, or unauthorised access to, company, customer, vendor, employee or other confidential data or information that could be material.

We receive important services, software and technologies from third-party providers and any errors, failures or disruption in the services or technologies provided by these third parties could harm our customer relationships or our reputation.

We rely on third-party providers for integral services, software and technologies. These providers include those that provide services for our principal infrastructure, third-party software, such as software provided by SunGard, Microsoft and Symantec, which are key components to many of our systems, as well as providers of services and technologies that are integral to specific products, such

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as the operational services provided by Genpact in our Markit Genpact KYC Services joint venture. Several of these providers are also our competitors. These services, software and technologies may not continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.

Moreover, the satisfactory performance, reliability and availability of such services, software and technologies are critical to our ability to generate revenues, as well as to our reputation. Any errors, failures to perform, interruptions or delays experienced in connection with these third-party providers could adversely impact our business, operating results and financial condition. We have little control over these third-party providers, which increases our vulnerability to errors, failures, interruptions or disruptions or problems with their services or technologies.

Should the companies providing such services, software and technologies cease providing or supporting, or significantly increase the cost of services, software and technologies, it would be difficult to replace some or all of such services, software or technologies, and we may incur significant costs or product development delays until we either develop or, if available, identify, obtain and integrate, alternative services, software or technology into our systems.

Our use of open source software and third-party software containing open source elements could result in litigation or impose unanticipated restrictions on our ability to commercialise our products and services.

We use open source software in our technology most often as small components within a larger product or service, to augment algorithms, functionalities or libraries created by Markit, and may use more open source software in the future. For example, our Analytics product and certain of our foreign exchange products all use ANTLR, a standard, industry-known parser for reading, processing, executing or translating structured text or binary files, which is licensed pursuant to the permissive Berkeley Software Distribution licence. Open source code is also contained in some third-party software we rely on. We could be subject to suits by parties claiming breach of the terms of the licence for such open source software. The terms of many open source licences are ambiguous and have not been interpreted by U.S. or other courts, and these licences could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialise our products and services. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative impact on our operating results and financial condition or require us to devote additional research and development resources to remove open source elements from or otherwise change our software. In addition, if we were to combine our proprietary technology with open source software in a certain manner, we could, under certain open source licences, be required to release the source code of our proprietary software. If we inappropriately use open source software, we may also be required to re-engineer our software, license our software on unfavourable terms or at no cost, discontinue certain products and services or take other remedial actions, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition.

We may face liability for content contained in our products and services.

We may be subject to claims for breach of contract, defamation, libel, copyright or trademark infringement, fraud or negligence, regulations or other theories of liability, in each case relating to the data, articles, commentary, ratings, information or other content we collect and distribute in the provision of our products and services. If such data or other content or information that we distribute has errors, is delayed or has design defects, we could be subject to liability or our reputation could suffer. We could also be subject to claims based upon the content that is accessible from our corporate website or those websites that we own and operate through links to other websites. Further, we could be subject to claims that we have misused data inputs provided by third-party suppliers. Costs to defend or liability arising as a result of such claims, or any resulting reputational harm, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.

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We depend on world class personnel to operate and grow our business, and if we do not continue to recruit, motivate and retain high-quality management and key employees, we may not be able to execute our business strategies.

The performance of our strategies depends on our ability to continue to recruit, motivate and retain our executive officers and other key management, sales, marketing, product development and operations personnel across our entire business. Although we have entered into employment letter agreements with our executive officers, each of them may terminate their employment with us at any time. We compete with many businesses that are seeking skilled individuals, including those with advanced technical abilities. Competition for professionals in our Information, Solutions and Processing divisions can be intense as other companies seek to enhance their positions in our market segments. The replacement of any of our key personnel would likely involve significant time and costs and may significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our business objectives. In addition, we do not carry any “key person” insurance policies that could offset potential loss of service under applicable circumstances.

A significant amount of the equity interests in our company that were granted to our employees prior to our initial public offering became fully vested at the time of our initial public offering. As a result, some of our employees may be able to realise substantial financial gains in connection with the sales of their vested equity interests, which could result in a loss of these employees. We also intend to continue to use equity incentive awards as a means of retaining senior employees. With respect to option awards, if our share price does not appreciate above the exercise price at which option awards are granted or there is a significant decline in our share price relative to the exercise price at which equity awards have been granted or will be granted in the future, the value of option awards as a retention tool would decline. In addition, any future organisational changes, including the integration of new acquisitions with our other business units, could cause our employee attrition rate to increase. The loss of the services of key personnel or our inability to otherwise recruit, motivate or retain qualified personnel could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

We generate a significant percentage of our revenue from recurring fixed fee agreements, and our ability to maintain existing revenue and to generate higher revenue is dependent in part on maintaining a high renewal rate.

For the year ended December 31, 2014, we generated 52.5% of our revenue from recurring fixed fees, which are typically subscription agreements. Although the initial term of our subscription agreements can range from one to five years and many of them include auto-renewal clauses, with appropriate notice, certain arrangements are cancellable. To maintain existing fixed revenue and to generate higher revenue, we rely on a significant number of our customers renewing their subscriptions with us or not cancelling their subscriptions. Our revenue could also be adversely impacted if a significant number of our customers renewed their subscriptions with us but reduced the amount of their spending on those subscriptions.

Our growth and profitability may not continue at the same rate as we have experienced in the past, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We have experienced significant growth during our operating history. There can be no assurance that we will be able to maintain the levels of growth and profitability that we have experienced in the past. Among other things, there can be no assurance that we will be as successful in our expansion efforts as we have been in the past, or that such efforts will result in growth rates or profit margins comparable to those we have experienced in the past. See “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects.” Any failure to continue to grow our business and maintain profitability could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. See, for example, “—If we

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are unable to develop successful new products and services, or if we experience design defects, errors, failures or delays associated with our products or services or migration of an existing product or service to a new system, our business could suffer serious harm” and “—We depend on world class personnel to operate and grow our business, and if we do not continue to recruit, motivate and retain high-quality management and key employees, we may not be able to execute our business strategies.”

Our brand and reputation are important company assets and are key to our ability to remain a trusted source of our products and services.

The integrity of our brand and reputation is key to our ability to remain a trusted source of products and services and to attract and retain customers. Negative publicity regarding Markit or actual, alleged or perceived issues regarding one of our products or services could harm our relationships with customers and partners. Failure to protect our brand may adversely impact our credibility as a trusted supplier of content and may have a negative impact on our business.

We enter into redistribution arrangements that allow other firms to represent certain of our products and services. It is difficult to monitor whether such agents’ representation of our products and services is accurate. In the past, certain companies have used our products and services to attract customers without our permission to do so. Poor representation of our products and services by our partners or agents, or entities acting without our permission, could have an adverse effect on our reputation and our business.

Changes in legislation and regulation may decrease the demand for our products and services from customers or make our products and services impracticable.

Most of our customers operate within a highly regulated environment. Over the past few years, the United States, the European Union (the “EU”) and other jurisdictions have introduced new legislation and regulation of financial markets, including the OTC derivatives markets from which we derive a significant portion of our revenue. These legislative and regulatory efforts may decrease the demand for our products and services from customers, thereby adversely affecting our revenue.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”) in the United States, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (“EMIR”), the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (“MiFIR”), the original Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (“MiFID”) and the new Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (“MiFID II”) in the EU and other legislation and regulation in these jurisdictions and others mandate that many OTC derivatives be centrally cleared through regulated clearinghouses, traded on organised trading venues and reported to trade repositories (and, in many cases, also to the public) and subject market participants to business conduct, risk management, capital, margin and recordkeeping rules, among other requirements. New capital rules, including Basel III and the Capital Requirements Directive IV (“CRD IV”) require higher capital charges for many trading activities of banks whilst higher margin requirements for non-cleared derivatives are due to be implemented over the coming year. Some of these statutory and regulatory requirements are currently effective, while others will become effective over the next several years. The MiFID II / MiFIR regime could impact non-derivative products that our products and services support, including, for example, bond pricing. Additional legislation and regulation in this area, beyond what is currently contemplated, are also possible. For example, President Obama’s proposed 2014 and 2015 budgets would subject all derivatives to mark-to-market taxation treatment, and if such a proposal ever became law, it would increase the tax burden for derivatives customers. The Financial Transaction Tax proposal being discussed in Europe could have a similar effect. In addition, the U.S. Congress could enact legislation to lessen the impact or effectiveness of the Dodd-Frank Act, which could affect the need for our products and services.

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These legislative and regulatory efforts may significantly increase the cost of entering into OTC derivative contracts and reduce the variety of derivatives traded, thereby decreasing the use of such instruments, and the relevant products and services we provide for such instruments, by the market participants who are our customers. Legislative and regulatory changes may also lead to market participants terminating the derivatives activity for which they use our products and services, or moving that activity to other entities that do not use our products and services. If our customers reduce their use of our products and services relating to derivatives or other relevant financial products as a result of such legislation and regulations, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, it is possible that changing political dynamics could lead to these regulatory regimes being repealed or modified in such a way as to decrease or eliminate the need for certain of our products and services. If our customers no longer need certain of our products and services relating to derivatives or other relevant financial products as a result of such changes to legislation and regulations, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

These legislative and regulatory efforts could also cause some or all of our products or services to become obsolete, reduce demand for our products or services or increase our expenses of providing products or services to customers, any of which could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition or results of operations. We may not be as well equipped to respond to such changes as some of our competitors and may lose any existing first-mover advantage. Some of our larger, more established competitors may have the financial and human resources to adapt to such changes quickly. Other smaller competitors may be able to move quickly to adopt new technologies or create products or services to capitalise on such changes. Delays in adapting our products and services to legislative and regulatory changes could harm our reputation and have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

For example, our trade processing business could be negatively affected by a shift towards further standardisation in the derivatives markets, resulting in part from the new regulatory regimes in the United States, the EU and other jurisdictions. Part of our processing business serves to facilitate confirmation and mutual agreement between parties to bespoke bilateral derivatives transactions. Due to the regulatory efforts outlined above and a movement towards centralised clearing and exchange or exchange-like trading, many of these products may become increasingly standardised, lessening the need for our services. Similarly, as a result of regulatory requirements or incentives, some of our customers may seek to achieve economically equivalent positions and exposures through futures products, rather than OTC derivatives. This trend towards “futurisation” may diminish customer demand for certain of our processing services.

Demand for our Information division services may also decline as a result of new regulations. For example, new U.S. rules promulgated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) and proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) require public dissemination of certain information about OTC derivative transactions reported to trade repositories, with the effect that customers may have more access to free, publicly available information about pricing and other salient trade terms. Additional transparency in the market may also be facilitated by other types of market intermediaries, including central counterparties and electronic trading platforms. To the extent customers are able to process, interpret and rationalise this information without the help of third parties, demand for our services may decline. Similar trade reporting regimes are expected for OTC derivatives in non-U.S. jurisdictions, where we would expect the impact on customer demands to be similar to those anticipated in the United States, and for other instruments, for example bonds under MiFID II / MiFIR in Europe.

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We may become subject to increased regulation of our services, including our index, pricing and processing services.

Our customers rely on many of our products and services to meet their operational needs. As part of global regulatory reform efforts, including those discussed above, we may become subject to increased regulation of our services, which could increase our costs and decrease our profitability. We are subject to limited direct regulation currently (primarily around our processing and compression businesses which are subject to supervision by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority), and therefore direct regulation would impose new compliance burdens, which could negatively impact our profitability.

For example, on September 13, 2013, the European Commission proposed draft legislation to establish regulation of benchmarks, including LIBOR and commodity benchmarks. The draft would require benchmark administrators to be authorised and subject to ongoing supervision by EU regulators, and supervised entities in the EU may only be able to use benchmarks as a reference in a financial instrument if the benchmark is provided by an entity authorised in the EU or a third country deemed equivalent. Although we already have a compliance program to address the Principles for Financial Benchmarks established by the International Organization of Securities Commissions, because of the nature of our operations, we may be deemed to be a “benchmark administrator” and subject to additional direct regulation under upcoming European legislation.

Also, certain other services of ours could become subject to direct regulation as a result of various regulatory initiatives, which could impact our ability to provide such services. For example, under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed standards for clearing agency operation and governance, intermediating organisations such as MarkitSERV that capture trade information and perform an independent comparison of that information in order to confirm each party’s terms could be considered clearing agencies and required to register with the SEC, rendering them subject to direct regulation as clearing agencies. If our derivatives processing business was required to register as a clearing agency with the SEC it would bring with it significant new regulatory compliance burdens. Further, some of our services could become subject to regulatory oversight in our function as a “third-party service provider.” In December 2014, the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Committee on Payments and Settlement Systems published a final report that establishes an assessment methodology and provides guidance for regulatory authorities in assessing a financial market infrastructure’s “critical service providers” against the oversight expectations for such critical service providers described in a 2012 report on financial market infrastructures prepared by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Committee on Payments and Settlement Systems. Such guidance includes descriptions of planning, due diligence, third-party selection, contract negotiation, ongoing monitoring of third-party relationships, oversight and accountability, and documentation and reporting that financial institutions should consider when outsourcing functions. Certain of our products and services are subject to those regulations and guidance as a contractual matter with certain customers, requiring us to incur significant product structuring and compliance costs to meet required regulations and guidance. This initiative by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Committee on Payments and Settlement Systems may increase regulatory scrutiny of critical service providers, such as MarkitSERV, and could be an impetus for regulators to commence initiatives to either directly regulate critical service providers or to establish further heightened standards for them.

As derivatives and other regulations in Europe and Asia continue to evolve, direct regulatory oversight or heightened standards might be applied to several of our services, which could create additional compliance costs and could negatively impact our profitability.

Similarly, existing and proposed legislation and regulations, including changes in the manner in which such legislation and regulations are interpreted by courts, may impose limits on our collection and use of certain kinds of information and our ability to communicate such information effectively to our customers. Laws relating to e-commerce, electronic and mobile communications, privacy and data protection, outsourcing, anti-money laundering, direct marketing and digital advertising and the use of

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public records have also become more prevalent in recent years. It is difficult to predict the substance of new international laws and regulations in this area, how they will be construed by the relevant courts or the extent to which any changes may adversely affect us, either directly or via regulation of our customers. Existing and proposed legislation and regulation, some of which may be conflicting on a global basis (such as U.S. Data Privacy regulation, the EU Privacy directives and similar laws or U.S. derivatives regulations and their cross-border application, as compared to similar regulations and possible cross-border applications in non-U.S. jurisdictions), may also increase our cost of doing business or require us to change some of our existing business practices. We could be subject to fines or penalties as well as reputational harm for any violations.

Acquisitions that we have completed and any future acquisitions, strategic investments, partnerships or alliances may be difficult to integrate or identify, divert the attention of key management personnel, disrupt our business, dilute shareholder value and adversely affect our financial results, including impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets.

Acquisitions have been and continue to be an important part of our growth strategy. We have acquired, and in the future may acquire or make strategic investments in, complementary businesses, technologies or services or enter into strategic partnerships or alliances with third parties to enhance our business. These types of transactions involve numerous risks, including:

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If any of the above risks are realised, we might fail to achieve the expected benefits or strategic objectives of any acquisition we undertake.

In addition, we may incur earn-out and contingent consideration payments in connection with future acquisitions, which could result in a higher than expected impact on our future earnings. We may also finance future transactions through debt financing, including significant draws on our revolving credit facility, the issuance of our equity securities, the use of existing cash, cash equivalents or investments or a combination of the foregoing. Acquisitions financed with debt could require us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow to principal and interest payments and could subject us to restrictive covenants. Acquisitions financed with the issuance of our equity securities would be dilutive to the share value and voting power of existing common shares, which could affect the market price of our common shares. Future acquisitions financed with our own cash could deplete the cash and working capital available to fund our operations adequately. Difficulty borrowing funds, selling securities or generating sufficient cash from operations to finance our activities may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

It is also possible that we may not identify suitable acquisition, strategic investment or partnership or alliance candidates, or if we do identify suitable candidates, we may not be able to complete transactions on terms commercially acceptable to us, if at all. Our inability to identify suitable acquisition targets or strategic investments, partners or alliances, or our inability to complete such transactions, may negatively affect our competitiveness and growth prospects.

Our relationships with third-party service providers, including market data vendors, trade order, risk, accounting and portfolio management service providers and other market participants, may not be successful or may change, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

We have commercial relationships with third-party service providers whose capabilities complement our own, including market data vendors, trade order, risk, accounting and portfolio management service providers and other market participants. In some cases, these providers are also our competitors. A significant portion of our products and services are developed using third-party service providers’ data or services, or are made available to our customers or are integrated for our customers’ use through information and technology solutions provided by such third-party service providers. The priorities and objectives of these providers, particularly those that are our competitors, may differ from ours, which may make us vulnerable to unpredictable price increases and may cause some service providers not to renew certain agreements. Moreover, providers that are not currently our competitors, including one or more of our key providers, may become competitors or be acquired by or merge with a competitor in the future, any of which could reduce our access over time to the information and technology solutions provided by those companies. For example, as we expand our product and service offerings, whether through organic growth or acquisitions, we may launch products and services that compete with providers that are not currently our competitors, which could negatively impact our existing relationships. If we do not obtain the expected benefits from our relationships with third-party service providers or if a substantial number of our third-party service providers were to withdraw their services, we may be less competitive, our ability to offer products and services to our customers may be negatively affected, and our results of operations could be adversely impacted.

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In addition, we rely on other third-party service providers for management of our data centres, telecommunications, data processing, software development and certain human resources functions. If we are unable to sustain commercially acceptable arrangements with these service providers or find substitutes or alternative sources of service, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be adversely affected.

Third parties may claim that we infringe upon their intellectual property rights.

We are significantly dependent on technology, processes, methodologies and information, as well as the intellectual property rights related to them. Companies in our industry, including our competitors and potential competitors, have in recent years increasingly pursued patent and other intellectual property protection for their data, technologies and business methods. If any third-party owns a patent or other intellectual property covering any of our data, technologies or business methods, we could be sued for infringement. We may also misuse data from our third-party suppliers or from other parties outside the terms of our licences with such suppliers or without the proper licence with such other parties. Furthermore, there is always a risk that third parties will sue us for infringement or misappropriation of trademarks, copyrights or trade secrets, or otherwise challenge our use of technology, processes, methodologies or information.

We do not actively monitor third-party patents and patent applications that may be relevant to our technologies or business methods, and it is not possible for us to detect all potentially relevant patents and patent applications. Since the patent application process can take several years to complete, there may be currently pending applications, unknown to us, that may later result in issued patents that cover our products and technologies. As a result, we may infringe existing and future third-party patents of which we are not aware.

From time to time, we may receive offers to license, notices of claims or threats from third parties alleging infringement or potential infringement of their intellectual property. The number of these claims may grow as our business expands. We have made and may make expenditures related to the use of certain intellectual property rights as part of our strategy to manage this risk.

Responding to claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violation of intellectual property rights, regardless of merit, can consume valuable time, result in costly litigation and delay certain operations of our business. We may be forced to settle such claims on unfavourable terms, and there can be no assurance that we would prevail in any litigation or proceeding arising from such claims if such claims are not settled. We may be required to pay damages and legal expenses, stop providing or using the affected technologies, processes, methodologies or information, redesign our products and services or enter into royalty and licensing agreements. There can be no assurance that any royalty or licensing agreements will be made, if at all, on terms that are commercially acceptable to us. Such litigation or proceedings could result in the loss or compromise of our intellectual property rights. We have in the past and may also be in the future called upon to defend partners, customers, suppliers or distributors against such third-party claims under indemnification clauses in our agreements. Any such outcomes could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Failure to protect our intellectual property and confidential information adequately, in the United States and abroad, could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our success depends in part on our proprietary technology, processes, methodologies and information. We rely on a combination of trademark, trade secret, patent, copyright, misappropriation and domain name laws and all other intellectual property laws to establish, maintain and protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights in such technology, processes, methodologies and information. These laws are subject to change at any time and could further restrict our ability to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights. In addition, the existing laws of certain countries in which we operate may

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not protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights to the same extent as do the laws of the United States. Even if we have intellectual property rights, there is no guarantee that such rights will provide adequate protection of our proprietary technology, processes, methodologies or information, a competitive advantage to our business or deterrence against infringement, misappropriation or other violations of our intellectual property by competitors, former employees or other third parties. In addition, third parties may try to challenge, invalidate or circumvent our rights and protections. For example, future regulatory requirements in relation to the provision of access, such as MiFIR in Europe which would require owners of benchmark intellectual property to provide open, non-discriminatory access to benchmark information and licences to trading and clearing venues, may have a negative impact on our ability to protect and monetise our intellectual property, decreasing its value.

We may be required to spend significant resources to monitor, enforce or protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights. Despite such efforts, we may not be able to detect unauthorised use of, or take appropriate and timely steps to enforce, our intellectual property and proprietary rights. Even if we attempt to enforce or protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights or determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others through litigation or proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or other governmental authorities or administrative bodies in the United States or abroad, it may require considerable cost, time and resources to do so, and there is no guarantee that we would be successful in such litigation or proceedings. In the past, we have sent cease and desist letters to third parties to enforce our trademark rights, but there can be no guarantee that such actions will be successful. If we fail to enforce our intellectual property or proprietary rights, our competitive position could suffer. Furthermore, our intellectual property rights may not prevent competitors from independently developing or securing rights to products or services that are similar to or duplicative of ours, using trademarks that are similar to ours in different fields of goods and services, reverse engineering our technologies or designing around our patents. Even if we are able to enter into licensing or restricted use agreements with business partners, or coexistence agreements with third-party trademark owners, such parties may breach the terms of these agreements. Any failure to establish, maintain or protect our intellectual property or proprietary rights could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We further attempt to protect our confidential and proprietary information, trade secrets and know-how by requiring our employees and consultants to enter into confidentiality and assignment of inventions agreements and third parties, such as customers and vendors, to enter into non-disclosure agreements. These agreements may not effectively prevent unauthorised use or disclosure of our confidential or proprietary information, trade secrets, know-how or other intellectual property and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of such unauthorised use or disclosure.

Our compliance and risk management methods might not be effective and may result in outcomes that could adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and operating results.

Our ability to comply with applicable complex and changing laws and rules is largely dependent on our establishment and maintenance of compliance, surveillance, audit and reporting systems, as well as our ability to attract and retain qualified compliance and other risk management personnel. As a publicly traded company, we are subject to regulations including the Dodd-Frank Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”). While we have policies and procedures to identify, monitor and manage our risks, we cannot assure you that our policies and procedures will always be effective or that we will always be successful in monitoring or evaluating the risks to which we are or may be exposed. In addition, some of our risk management methods depend upon evaluation of information regarding markets, customers or other matters that are publicly available or otherwise accessible by us. That information may not in all cases be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly evaluated. In case of non-compliance or alleged non-compliance with applicable laws or regulations, we could be subject to investigations and proceedings that may be very expensive

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to defend and may result in substantial penalties or civil lawsuits, including by customers, for damages which can be significant. Any of these outcomes would adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and operating results. In extreme cases, these outcomes could adversely affect our ability to continue to conduct our business. Further, the implementation of new legislation or regulations, such as corporate governance and executive compensation-related provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act that require the SEC to adopt additional rules and regulations in these areas, or changes in or unfavourable interpretations of existing regulations by courts or regulatory bodies, could require us to incur significant compliance costs and impede our ability to operate, expand and enhance our products and services as necessary to remain competitive and grow our business, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our results of operations could be materially adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

Although we report our results of operations in U.S. dollars, a portion of our revenue and expenses are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Because our consolidated financial statements are presented in U.S. dollars, we must translate revenue and expenses, as well as assets and liabilities, into U.S. dollars at exchange rates in effect during or at the end of each reporting period. Therefore, changes in the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies will affect our revenue, operating profit and the value of balance sheet items originally denominated in other currencies. These changes cause our growth in consolidated earnings stated in U.S. dollars to be higher or lower than our growth in local currency when compared against other periods.

As we continue to leverage our global delivery model, more of our expenses will be incurred in currencies other than those in which we bill for the related services. An increase in the value of certain currencies against the U.S. dollar could increase costs for delivery of services at offshore sites by increasing labour and other costs that are denominated in local currency. There can be no assurance that our contractual provisions will offset their impact, or that our currency hedging activities, which are designed to partially offset this impact, will be successful.

Consequently, our results of operations may be materially adversely affected. In addition, our currency hedging activities are themselves subject to risk. These include risks related to counterparty performance under hedging contracts.

Our global operations expose us to numerous and sometimes conflicting legal and regulatory requirements, and violation of these regulations could harm our business.

We are subject to numerous, and sometimes conflicting, legal regimes on matters as diverse as anti-corruption, import/export controls, content requirements, trade restrictions, tariffs, taxation, sanctions, immigration, internal and disclosure control obligations, securities and derivatives regulation, anti-competition, data privacy and labour relations. For example, our operations in the United States are subject to U.S. laws on these diverse matters, which are different in several respects from the laws of the United Kingdom and India where we have significant operations. We also have operations in emerging market jurisdictions where legal systems may be less developed or familiar to us. Compliance with diverse legal requirements is costly, time-consuming and requires significant resources. Violations of one or more of these regulations in the conduct of our business could result in significant fines, criminal sanctions against us or our officers, prohibitions on doing business and damage to our reputation. Violations of these regulations in connection with the performance of our obligations to our customers also could result in liability for significant monetary damages, fines or criminal prosecution, unfavourable publicity and other reputational damage, restrictions on our ability to

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process information and allegations by our customers that we have not performed our contractual obligations. Due to the varying degrees of development of the legal systems of the countries in which we operate, local laws might be insufficient to protect our rights.

In particular, in many parts of the world, including countries in which we operate or seek to expand, practices in the local business community may not conform to international business standards and could violate anti-corruption laws or regulations, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010. Our employees, subcontractors, agents, joint venture partners and other third parties with which we associate could take actions that violate policies or procedures designed to promote legal and regulatory compliance or applicable anticorruption laws or regulations. Violations of these laws or regulations by us, our employees or any of these third parties could subject us to criminal or civil enforcement actions (whether or not we participated or knew about the actions leading to the violations), including fines or penalties, disgorgement of profits and suspension or disqualification from work, including U.S. federal contracting, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, including our results of operations and our reputation.

Operating globally involves challenges that we may not be able to meet and that may adversely affect our ability to grow.

As of December 31, 2014, we had offices in 10 countries, and we expect the number of countries in which we operate to increase as we seek out growth opportunities in new geographic areas, including emerging markets and developing economies. There are certain risks inherent in doing business globally which may adversely affect our business and ability to grow. These risks include difficulties in penetrating new markets due to established and entrenched competitors, difficulties in developing products and services that are tailored to the needs of local customers, lack of local acceptance or knowledge of our products and services, lack of recognition of our brands, products or services, unavailability of joint venture partners or local companies for acquisition, instability of international economies and governments, exposure to adverse government action in countries where we may conduct reporting activities, changes in laws and policies affecting trade and investment in other jurisdictions, restrictions or limitations on outsourcing contracts or services abroad, and exposure to varying legal standards, including intellectual property protection laws. Adverse developments in any of these areas could cause our actual results to differ materially from expected results. Expanding our business into emerging markets and developing economies may also present additional risks beyond those associated with more developed international markets. In any emerging markets and developing economies, we may face the risks of working in cash-based economies, dealing with inconsistent government policies and encountering sudden currency revaluations.

We may be required to take future impairment charges that would reduce our reported assets and earnings.

Goodwill and other identifiable intangible assets comprise a substantial portion of our total assets. We are required under IFRS to test our goodwill and identifiable intangible assets with indefinite lives for impairment on an annual basis. We also are required by IFRS to perform an interim or periodic review of our goodwill and all identifiable intangible assets if events or changes in circumstances indicate that impairment may have occurred. Impairment testing requires us to make significant estimates about our future performance and cash flows, as well as other assumptions. Economic, legal, regulatory, competitive, contractual and other factors as well as changes in our share price and market capitalisation may affect these assumptions. In 2014, we incurred a $39.8 million impairment charge related to our Markit Analytics and Credit Centre businesses. If future testing indicates that impairment has occurred relative to current fair values, we may be required to record a non-cash impairment charge in the period the determination is made. Recognition of an impairment would reduce our reported assets and earnings.

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International hostilities, terrorist activities, natural disasters, pandemics and infrastructure disruptions could prevent us from effectively serving our customers and thus adversely affect our results of operations.

Acts of terrorist violence, cyber-terrorism, political unrest, armed regional and international hostilities and international responses to these hostilities, natural disasters, including hurricanes or floods, global health risks or pandemics or the threat of or perceived potential for these events could have a negative impact on us. These events could adversely affect our customers’ levels of business activity and precipitate sudden significant changes in regional and global economic conditions and cycles. These events also pose significant risks to our employees and our physical facilities and operations around the world, whether the facilities are ours or those of our third-party service providers or customers. By disrupting communications and travel and increasing the difficulty of obtaining and retaining highly skilled and qualified personnel, these events could make it difficult or impossible for us to deliver products and services to our customers. Extended disruptions of electricity, other public utilities or network services at our facilities, as well as system failures at our facilities or otherwise, could also adversely affect our ability to serve our customers. We may be unable to protect our employees, facilities and systems against all such occurrences. We generally do not have insurance for losses and interruptions caused by terrorist attacks, conflicts and wars. If these disruptions prevent us from effectively serving our customers, our results of operations could be adversely affected.

Changes in our rates of taxation, and audits, investigations and tax proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

We are subject to direct and indirect taxes in numerous jurisdictions. We calculate and provide for such taxes in each tax jurisdiction in which we operate. The amount of tax we pay is subject to our interpretation of applicable tax laws in the jurisdictions in which we file. We seek to run Markit Ltd. in such a way that it is and remains tax resident in the United Kingdom. We have taken and will continue to take tax positions based on our interpretation of tax laws, but tax accounting often involves complex matters and judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for taxes and other tax liabilities. Although we believe that we have complied with all applicable tax laws, there can be no assurance that a taxing authority will not have a different interpretation of the law and assess us with additional taxes.

We are subject to ongoing tax audits in various jurisdictions. Tax authorities have disagreed, and may in the future disagree, with our judgments. We regularly assess the likely outcomes of these audits to determine the appropriateness of our tax liabilities. However, our judgments might not be sustained as a result of these audits, and the amounts ultimately paid could be different from the amounts previously recorded. In addition, our effective tax rate in the future could be adversely affected by changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities and changes in tax laws. Tax rates in the jurisdictions in which we operate may change as a result of macroeconomic, political or other factors. Increases in the tax rate in any of the jurisdictions in which we operate could have a negative impact on our profitability. In addition, changes in tax laws, treaties or regulations, or their interpretation or enforcement, may be unpredictable, particularly in less developed markets, and could become more stringent, which could materially adversely affect our tax position. Any of these occurrences could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

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Certain Risks Relating to Our Common Shares

The market price of our common shares may be influenced by many factors, some of which are beyond our control.

The market price of our common shares may be influenced by many factors, some of which are beyond our control, including:

In addition, the stock market in general has experienced substantial price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of particular companies affected. These broad market and industry factors may materially harm the market price of our common shares, regardless of our operating performance.

Sales of substantial amounts of our common shares in the public market, or the perception that these sales may occur, could cause the market price of our shares to decline.

Sales of substantial amounts of our common shares in the public market, or the perception that these sales may occur, could depress the market price of our common shares and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. We are unable to predict the effect that sales may have on the prevailing market price of our shares.

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Under our memorandum of association and bye-laws that took effect upon completion of our corporate reorganisation, we are authorised to issue up to 3,000,000,000 common shares, of which 182,507,512 common shares were issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2014, excluding 25,219,470 issued and outstanding common shares held by the Markit Group Holdings Limited Employee Benefit Trust. Upon consummation of our initial public offering, we entered into a registration rights and lock-up agreement with certain of our existing shareholders and with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (“CPPIB”). See “Item 7.Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions—B. Related Party Transactions—Transactions with Related Parties—Registration Rights Agreement” for a description of the terms of this agreement. Following the expiration of the lock-up periods set forth in that agreement, these shareholders will have the right to demand that we file a registration statement covering the offer and sale of their securities under the Securities Act, for as long as each holds unregistered securities. Registration of these shares under the Securities Act would result in the shares becoming freely tradable without restriction under the Securities Act. Sales of common shares by these or any other shareholders, including through the exercise of options and the sale of shares by our employees, could have a material adverse effect on the trading price of our common shares. We cannot predict the size of future issuances of our shares or the effect, if any, that future sales and issuances of shares would have on the market price of our common shares.

We also filed a registration statement in respect of all common shares that we may issue under our equity compensation plans. These can be freely sold in the public market upon issuance.

The obligations associated with being a public company require significant resources and management attention.

Our initial public offering has had a significant transformative effect on us. Our business historically has operated as a privately owned company, and we have begun incurring significant additional legal, accounting, tax (by virtue of U.K. National Insurance requirements), reporting and other expenses as a result of having publicly traded common shares. We also incurred costs which we have not incurred previously, including, but not limited to, costs and expenses for directors’ fees, increased insurance for directors and officers, investor relations and various other costs of a public company.

As a public company, we have also incurred costs associated with corporate governance requirements, including requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as rules implemented by the SEC and NASDAQ. We expect these rules and regulations to continue to increase our legal and financial compliance costs and make some management and corporate governance activities more time-consuming and costly. These rules and regulations may make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. This could have an adverse impact on our ability to recruit a qualified board of directors.

The additional demands associated with being a public company may disrupt regular operations of our business by diverting the attention of some of our senior management team away from revenue producing activities to management and administrative oversight, adversely affecting our ability to attract and complete business opportunities and increasing the difficulty in both retaining professionals and managing and growing our business. Any of these effects could harm our business, financial condition or results of operations.

In addition, in connection with the implementation of the necessary procedures and practices related to internal control over financial reporting, we may identify deficiencies that we may not be able to remediate in time to meet the deadline imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for compliance with the requirements of Section 404. Failure to comply with Section 404 could subject us to regulatory scrutiny and sanctions, impair our ability to raise revenue, cause investors to lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and negatively affect our share price.

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As a foreign private issuer, we are permitted to, and we do, rely on exemptions from certain disclosure and corporate governance standards applicable to U.S. issuers. This may be less favourable to holders of our common shares.

As a foreign private issuer, we are not subject to the same disclosure and procedural requirements as domestic U.S. registrants under the Exchange Act. For instance, we are not required to prepare and file periodic reports and financial statements with the SEC as frequently or as promptly as U.S. companies whose securities are registered under the Exchange Act, we are not subject to the proxy requirements under Section 14 of the Exchange Act, and we are not generally required to comply with Regulation FD, which restricts the selective disclosure of material non-public information. In addition, our officers, directors and principal shareholders are exempt from the reporting and “short-swing” profit recovery provisions of Section 16 of the Exchange Act. Moreover, we are permitted to disclose compensation information for our executive officers on an aggregate, rather than an individual, basis because individualised compensation disclosure is not required under Bermuda law. We do, however, intend to furnish our shareholders with annual reports containing financial statements audited by our independent auditors and to make available to our shareholders quarterly reports containing unaudited financial information for each of the first three quarters of each fiscal year.

We are also exempt from certain corporate governance standards applicable to U.S. issuers. For example, Rule 5605 of NASDAQ’s corporate governance listing rules (the “NASDAQ Rules”) requires listed companies to have, among other things, a majority of their board members be independent, and to have independent director oversight of executive compensation, nomination of directors and corporate governance matters. As a foreign private issuer, however, we are permitted to follow Bermuda practice in lieu of the above requirements, under which there is no requirement that a majority of our directors be independent. See “Item 16G. Corporate Governance.”

We will lose our foreign private issuer status if we fail to meet the requirements under U.S. securities laws necessary to avoid loss of foreign private issuer status. The regulatory and compliance costs to us under U.S. securities laws as a U.S. domestic issuer may be significantly higher. If we are not a foreign private issuer, we will be required to prepare and report our consolidated financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States rather than IFRS, and that transition would involve significant cost and time. We would also be required to file periodic reports and registration statements on U.S. domestic issuer forms with the SEC, which are more detailed and extensive than the forms available to a foreign private issuer. We may also be required to modify certain of our policies to comply with good governance practices associated with U.S. domestic issuers. Such conversion and modifications will involve additional costs. In addition, we may lose our ability to rely upon exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements on NASDAQ that are available to foreign private issuers.

Insiders continue to have substantial control over us and could limit your ability to influence the outcome of key transactions, including a change of control.

As of December 31, 2014, our shareholders who own more than 5% of our common shares (and entities affiliated with them) and our directors and executive officers collectively beneficially own approximately 35.7% of our issued and outstanding common shares. As a result, these shareholders, if acting together, would be able to influence or control matters requiring approval by our shareholders, including amendments to our bye-laws, the election of directors and the approval of mergers or other extraordinary transactions. In addition, they could influence our dividend policy. They may also have interests that differ from yours and may vote in a way with which you disagree and which may be adverse to your interests. The concentration of ownership may have the effect of delaying, preventing or deterring a change of control of our company, could deprive our shareholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their common shares as part of a sale of our company and might ultimately affect the market price of our common shares.

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We currently do not anticipate paying any cash dividends.

We currently do not intend to pay any dividends to holders of our common shares. As a result, capital appreciation in the price of our common shares, if any, will be your only source of gain on an investment in our common shares. The payment of any future dividends will be determined at the discretion of our Board of Directors in light of conditions then existing, including our earnings, financial condition and capital requirements, business conditions, corporate law requirements and other factors. See “Item 8. Financial Information—A. Consolidated Statements and Other Financial Information—Dividend Policy.”

Volatility in our share price could subject us to securities class action litigation.

In the past, securities class action litigation has often been brought against a company following a decline in the market price of its securities. This risk is especially relevant for us because financial services companies have experienced significant share price volatility in recent years. If we face such litigation, it could result in substantial costs and a diversion of management’s attention and resources, which could adversely affect our financial condition or results of operations.

We are a Bermuda company and it may be difficult for you to enforce judgments against us or our directors and executive officers.

We are a Bermuda exempted company. As a result, the rights of holders of our common shares are governed by Bermuda law and our memorandum of association and bye-laws. The rights of shareholders under Bermuda law may differ from the rights of shareholders of companies incorporated in other jurisdictions. A number of our directors and some of the named experts referred to in this annual report are not residents of the United States, and a substantial portion of our assets are located outside the United States. As a result, it may be difficult for investors to effect service of process on those persons in the United States or to enforce in the United States judgments obtained in U.S. courts against us or those persons based on the civil liability provisions of the U.S. securities laws. It is doubtful whether courts in Bermuda will enforce judgments obtained in other jurisdictions, including the United States, against us or our directors or officers under the securities laws of those jurisdictions or entertain actions in Bermuda against us or our directors or officers under the securities laws of other jurisdictions.

Bermuda law differs from the laws in effect in the United States and may afford less protection to holders of our common shares.

We are organised under the laws of Bermuda. As a result, our corporate affairs are governed by the Companies Act 1981 (the “Companies Act”), which differs in some material respects from laws typically applicable to U.S. corporations and shareholders, including the provisions relating to interested directors, amalgamations, mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, shareholder lawsuits and indemnification of directors. Generally, the duties of directors and officers of a Bermuda company are owed to the company only. Shareholders of Bermuda companies typically do not have rights to take action against directors or officers of the company and may only do so in limited circumstances. Class actions are not available under Bermuda law. The circumstances in which derivative actions may be available under Bermuda law are substantially more proscribed and less clear than they would be to shareholders of U.S. corporations. The Bermuda courts, however, would ordinarily be expected to permit a shareholder to commence an action in the name of a company to remedy a wrong to the company where the act complained of is alleged to be beyond the corporate power of the company or illegal, or would result in the violation of the company’s memorandum of association or bye-laws. Furthermore, consideration would be given by a Bermuda court to acts that are alleged to constitute a fraud against the minority shareholders or, for instance, where an act requires the approval of a greater percentage of the company’s shareholders than that which actually approved it.

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When the affairs of a company are being conducted in a manner that is oppressive or prejudicial to the interests of some shareholders, one or more shareholders may apply to the Supreme Court of Bermuda, which may make such order as it sees fit, including an order regulating the conduct of the company’s affairs in the future or ordering the purchase of the shares of any shareholders by other shareholders or by the company. Additionally, under our bye-laws and as permitted by Bermuda law, each shareholder has waived any claim or right of action against our directors or officers for any action taken by directors or officers in the performance of their duties, except for actions involving fraud or dishonesty. In addition, the rights of holders of our common shares and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors under Bermuda law are not as clearly established as under statutes or judicial precedent in existence in jurisdictions in the United States, particularly the State of Delaware. Therefore, holders of our common shares may have more difficulty protecting their interests than would shareholders of a corporation incorporated in a jurisdiction within the United States.

We have anti-takeover provisions in our bye-laws that may discourage a change of control.

Our bye-laws contain provisions that could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us without the consent of our Board of Directors. These provisions provide for:

These provisions could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if the third party’s offer may be considered beneficial by many shareholders. As a result, shareholders may be limited in their ability to obtain a premium for their shares.

If we are, or were to become, a passive foreign investment company (a “PFIC”) for U.S. federal income tax purposes, U.S. investors in our common shares would be subject to certain adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences.

In general, a non-U.S. corporation will be a PFIC for any taxable year if (i) 75% or more of its gross income consists of passive income or (ii) 50% or more of the average quarterly value of its assets consists of assets that produce, or are held for the production of, passive income. We believe that we were not a PFIC for our 2014 taxable year. However, there can be no assurance that we will not be considered a PFIC for any taxable year. If we were a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S. investor held common shares, such investor would be subject to certain adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences, such as ineligibility for any preferred tax rates on capital gains or on actual or deemed dividends, an additional interest charge on certain taxes treated as deferred, and additional reporting requirements under U.S. federal income tax laws and regulations. If we are characterised as a PFIC, a U.S. investor may be able to make a “mark-to-market” election with respect to our common shares that would alleviate some of the adverse consequences of PFIC status. Although U.S. tax rules also permit a U.S. investor to make a “qualified electing fund” election with respect to the shares of a foreign corporation that is a PFIC if the foreign corporation provides certain information to its investors,

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we do not currently intend to provide the information that would be necessary for a U.S. investor to make a valid “qualified electing fund” election with respect to our common shares. See “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation—U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations—Passive Foreign Investment Company Rules.”