Capital IQ Releases Comprehensive Platform Update With Powerful New Excel Plug-In, Company and Person Screening, Relationship Tree, and Outlook Plug-In Functionality.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 2003

Private and Public Capital Markets Data, Custom Reporting,

Institutional Investor Targeting, Relationship Paths, and Overall

Workflow Also Enhanced

Capital IQ today announced a comprehensive platform update centered on a significantly revamped Excel Plug-In, a new company and person screening tool, a new Relationship Tree feature that maps a professional's web of relationships up to two degrees of separation, and a new version of the Outlook Plug-In.

Excel Plug-In

Significantly revamped from the previous version, Capital IQ's new Excel Plug-In drastically reduces the number of man-hours required to build and maintain comparable company and financial statement analyses, M&A and financing models, and various charts and estimates. Additionally, much of the financial data fed into Excel from Capital IQ is auditable with a mouse-click to the underlying SEC filings, ensuring accuracy.

"Many investment banks and fund managers are frustrated that cost-effective and accurate financial modeling solutions are unavailable. However, overwhelming early feedback from clients indicates that our new Excel Plug-In is much easier to use, produces better results -- and costs substantially less than other competing products," said Neal Goldman, Managing Principal of Capital IQ.

Company & Person Screening

In what is believed to be the world's first such functionality, Capital IQ's new screening tool enables clients to quickly design and run complex screens using more than 40 search categories that include both quantitative information, such as company financials, and qualitative information, such as corporate actions, professional backgrounds, and relationships. As a result, this screening functionality greatly enhances clients' ability to conduct sector research as well as identify potential prospects, partners, investments, and other business opportunities.

"Now our clients can target firms and professionals far more efficiently and effectively than ever before. For example, you can run a Capital IQ screen to find all the private companies, public companies, and investment firms that meet certain financial criteria and took certain corporate actions over a certain time frame such as a management change or new product announcement. You can then further refine the search to identify only firms where the key decision makers not only graduated from the same school as you did, but are also located within driving distance of your office. This kind of highly focused information lets our clients act quickly to significantly expand their books of business," said Neal Goldman.

Relationship Tree

Capital IQ's new Relationship Tree allows clients to instantly map a professional's web of relationships up to two degrees of separation. The relationships are weaved from a universe of over 400,000 investment professionals, advisory professionals, company managers, and public and private company board members.

"The Relationship Tree functionality works in tandem with our screening tool. After screening a universe of firms or people, our clients can use the Relationship Tree feature to instantly analyze both the direct and indirect relationships of any person in our database. Doing so may result in the discovery of soft leads or other forms of intelligence that are relevant to a particular opportunity," said Neal Goldman.

Outlook Plug-In

With the new version of Outlook Plug-In, Capital IQ is now fully integrated with Microsoft Outlook. As a core component of Capital IQ's suite of relationship development and workflow functionality, the Outlook Plug-In enables the synchronization of contacts, tasks, and emails in Outlook with person profiles, tasks, and projects in Capital IQ.

"More and more clients are using Capital IQ to manage some of the most critical elements of their business. Our clients - bankers, investors, and senior corporate executives - rely heavily on information, knowledge, and relationships to operate effectively. For these professionals, Capital IQ represents a technology infrastructure that enables them to draw insights, generate ideas, manage relationships, and semi-automate the bulk of their workflow," said Neal Goldman.

Other Enhancements

Others enhancements to the Capital IQ platform include:

-- Additional public capital market data including calendarized

estimates and the ability to "click through" audit financials

to the underlying SEC filings in far more places;

-- Additional private capital market data including more private

company profiles and broader coverage of institutional

investors. As a result, Relationship Paths, or degrees of

separation searches among firms and professionals, are now

more robust than ever;

-- A much wider selection of Public Information Book (PIB)

formats as well as customizable company reports;

-- Broad set of predefined idea generation screens to help

investment professionals identify potential transaction

opportunities; and

-- A new private equity limited partner targeting engine to help

clients to quickly identify potential sources of institutional

private capital and analyze asset allocations.

About Capital IQ:

Capital IQ enables leading financial, advisory, and corporate professionals to efficiently make more intelligent business decisions. Its products integrate public and private market information with software applications for research, analysis, idea generation, workflow management, and relationship development. Clients use these products to generate new business, reduce costs, and increase productivity. Capital IQ serves over 400 clients including the market leaders in investment banking, investment management, private equity, and related professional services, as well as some of the world's largest corporations. Capital IQ's strategic shareholders include Bear Stearns & Co. Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, FleetBoston Financial Corp., JP Morgan Chase & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co. and SoundView Technology Group, Inc. For more information, please visit Capital IQ's web site at www.capitaliq.com