Bridge Gives $7.3 Million in Information Services To U.Va.; Largest Ever Gift Creates High-Tech BRIDGE Center for Financial Markets.

Business Editors

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 24, 2000

Bridge Information Systems (BRIDGE(R)) the largest provider of financial information services in North America, has given the University of Virginia's (U.Va.) McIntire School of Commerce a gift of real-time financial data and information services valued at $7.3 million, the largest gift ever received by the McIntire School.

The gift will create a new, high-tech financial center, the BRIDGE Center for Financial Markets at U.Va., which will be dedicated at a ribbon cutting in the lower level of Monroe Hall this evening at 6:30 p.m. The event will include remarks by BRIDGE Chairman and CEO Thomas M. Wendel and a demonstration of the trading center's technology.

"The BRIDGE Center promises to fundamentally transform the teaching of business and finance at McIntire," said Dean Carl Zeithaml. "Our graduates will be thoroughly prepared to work in the fast-paced world of Wall Street and in a variety of other careers. The BRIDGE Center will enhance virtually all aspects of our curriculum as well as the research activities of our faculty. We are very grateful for this extremely generous gift."

"We are very pleased to partner with one of America's leading undergraduate business programs," said BRIDGE Executive Vice President Angus Robertson. "We look forward to building a long-term working relationship with McIntire's outstanding students and faculty."

The BRIDGE Center will be equipped with 62 financial workstations, allowing students and faculty to develop portfolios, build financial models, test ideas and trading systems, and watch markets and economic events unfold in real time. The Center will include a simulated trading room featuring BridgeStation(R), BRIDGE's most comprehensive package of market data, superior analytics, advanced charting capabilities and news. A Capital Markets Room will feature workstations from Telerate, Inc., a BRIDGE subsidiary, offering access to the industry's most comprehensive capital markets data and news. BRIDGE and Telerate(R) products employ an open architecture allowing students and faculty to easily import information into their own applications for analysis and study.

"The BRIDGE Center will enable faculty to integrate financial market activity into the curriculum and improve the analytical and decision-making skills of students," Zeithaml added. "It will serve both as a classroom and as a hands-on lab for McIntire students in all concentrations."

As part of the arrangement dozens of additional BRIDGE and Telerate workstations will be provided to the U.Va.'s Darden Graduate School of Business.

BRIDGE, together with its principle operating units, Bridge Information Systems, Telerate, BridgeNews, and Bridge Trading, is the largest provider of financial information and related services in North America -- and one of the fastest growing in the world.

BRIDGE information products include a wide range of workstations, market data feeds and web-browser-based applications, combined with comprehensive market data, in-depth news, powerful analytic tools and trading room integration systems. BridgeNews leverages a network of 600+ BRIDGE journalists in more than 100 locations that break news that affect securities markets globally. BRIDGE is the co-producer of the Nightly Business Report and is a leading provider of financial news and information to media companies worldwide.

BRIDGE, with 5000+ employees worldwide, and over a quarter of a million users in over 65 countries, is headquartered in New York City with the BRIDGE Trading and Technology center in St. Louis, and major regional centers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific Rim. For more information visit the BRIDGE web site at http://www.bridge.com.

For more information, call Senior Associate Dean Bob Webb at [phone]. Television reporters should call our TV News Office at [phone].