Adhesion Technologies and RiskMetrics Group Enter Into Wealth Management Partnership to Integrate Financial Data Consolidation With Portfolio Analysis, Optimization and Monitoring.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 3, 2002

Adhesion Technologies, Inc. and RiskMetrics Group announced today that they have entered into an agreement to jointly market a comprehensive wealth management solution.

As part of the agreement, RiskMetrics' WealthBench(TM) portfolio analysis, optimization, multi-goal planning and monitoring solution will be seamlessly integrated with Adhesion's EA2 Financial Consolidation Platform.

"Investors want much more from account aggregation than a consolidated statement," said Anc Newman, SVP of Business Development at Adhesion. "They want the confidence of personalized advice from financial advisors that both appreciates their full financial situation and is grounded in rigorous analysis. The combination of the industry leading capabilities of Adhesion's EA2 Financial Consolidation Platform and RiskMetrics' WealthBench(TM) institutional-strength analysis and planning tools strongly demonstrates the value of this approach to both financial advisors and their clients."

"Adhesion's EA2 provides wealth management professionals with a holistic picture of a client's net worth, allowing them to deliver truly valuable investment advice. The integration with WealthBench(TM) now gives those professionals access to the powerful analysis and decision support tools they need for key strategic investment decision-making," said Rob Dinning, Business Development Director of RiskMetrics Group.

Through this integrated wealth management solution, financial institutions and their advisors can realize benefits including:

Differentiate wealth management services - with personalized

analysis, using institutional-level methodologies, customized with

the FI's proprietary research.

Strengthen their role as primary advisor to their clients - by

providing valuable advice and reporting that is timely and

actionable, tailored to each client's existing portfolio, specific

risk tolerance, return objectives, and financial goals.

Increase productivity - by leveraging technology to acquire and

analyze data, in an enterprise or single user environment,

enabling advisors, brokers, and relationship managers to spend

more time with clients.

About Adhesion Technologies

Adhesion is a leading provider of software solutions for financial account consolidation, both for internal accounts and those held away. Adhesion's EA2 Financial Consolidation Platform enables financial institutions and services providers (FSP's) to create value-added and differentiating wealth management services for their customers. Focused exclusively on solutions for FSP's from the outset, and heavily staffed with financial industry veterans, Adhesion delivers a highly functional financial account consolidation platform for banking (private, commercial, retail), broker-dealer, financial advisory and asset management clients providing the ability to deploy EA2 within their facilities and seamlessly integrate it with their existing technology and wealth management applications. Adhesion is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina and can be reached at www.adhesiontech.com or [e-mail].

About RiskMetrics Group

RiskMetrics Group empowers institutions and their clients around the world to make better investment decisions. RiskMetrics Group's risk management and wealth management systems, services, and data are used by hundreds of leading financial institutions, multinational corporations and many of the world's central banks. Formerly a division at J.P. Morgan, RiskMetrics Group was spun-off as a separate company in 1998. The company has seven offices around the world, including New York, London, Tokyo, and Singapore.