First Call Corp. Offers Free Internal Distribution Solution to Brokers.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 24, 1998--First Call Corp., a division of Thomson Financial Services, now offers internal distribution solutions to contributing brokers - free of charge. Brokerage firms can distribute their own equity and fixed income research to all of their employees worldwide via First Call's third party distributors and/or the Web, at no cost. More than 4,750 analysts in the U.S. currently use First Call's complimentary Web delivery option alone to access their firm's research.

In addition to the Web, First Call provides analysts worldwide with access to their firm's own equity and fixed income research via one of the 28 third party distributors that carry First Call's research products. These distributors include Bloomberg, Bridge, ILX, and Reuters.

"We appreciate the fact that First Call provides us with free internal distribution," said Erin Evans, vice president at Furman Selz Inc. "We now access research notes generated by our firm right at our desktop, and in real-time. This is a great time management tool that saves us a significant amount of money and paper." Furman Selz uses ILX, a third party distributor of First Call products, to view its own research. More than 100 Furman Selz employees use the service.

"At First Call, our contributing brokers are highly valued customers," said Tim Bryan, executive vice president in charge of the Broker Services division of First Call. "We are continuously working to provide them with value-added services. Brokerage firms can witness significant savings by electronically distributing their research internally, which is much more time- and cost-effective than the traditional paper format."

FIRST CALL Research Direct allows clients to electronically access over 770,000 original, commingled, full-text equity research reports in real-time. The service is used by more than 22,000 institutional money managers worldwide. Over 240 brokerage firms from Asia, Australia, Europe, Japan, North America and South America use Research Direct to distribute their research reports. Analysts also can use this service to distribute their earnings models. All of Institutional Investor's top 20 ranked U.S. research firms currently contribute to the service.

FIRST CALL Notes electronically delivers real-time, commingled morning meeting comments, intra-day research broadcasts and special equity notes from over 250 brokerage firms worldwide. More than 2,000 institutional money management firms use Notes - it is currently viewed at over 11,300 desktops in the U.S. alone. All of Institutional Investor's top 20-ranked U.S. firms are current contributors. There is an average of 2,290 broker-sourced notes per day on the system and a peak of 3,600 broker-sourced notes per day during quarterly earnings reporting periods. Users can also access FIRST CALL Corporate Release(R) via FIRST CALL Notes. This service delivers full-text unedited news releases and investor messages to institutional investors and analysts.

FIRST CALL BondCall Direct is the one-stop source for global fixed income research from broker/dealers, rating agencies and other third parties. It allows clients to electronically access more than 100,000 commingled, original full-text, fixed income research reports -- including all text, charts, graphs, color and formatting - as well as intra-day research notes and analysis in real-time. The research available on BondCall Direct is focused on investment grade and high yield corporate bonds, convertible securities, international bonds, mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, strategy, structured debt, economics and municipal bonds.

All First Call services can be accessed through a desktop PC via a Windows(tm)-based LAN, via a dedicated terminal, through third partY services, or via the Internet from www.firstcall.com. FIRST CALL Notes, earnings estimates and recommendations are also available via FIRST CALL On Call(R) - a dial up service.

First Call Corp. delivers real-time, commingled research, earnings estimates and corporate information to the worldwide financial community. Its products include FIRST CALL Notes(tm), FIRST CALL Research Direct(R), FIRST CALL Insight(SM), First Call's Real Time EarnIngs Estimates Database, the FIRST CALL Fundamentals Database, the FIRST CALL Recommendations Database, FIRST CALL Estimates Direct, FIRST CALL BondCall Direct(R), FIRST CALL Custom Advantage, and FIRST CALL Corporate Release(R). For more information, visit First Call's Web site at www.firstcall.com.

Thomson Financial Services (TFS) is a leading provider of information services and work solutions to the worldwide financial community. TFS employs more than 6,000 people in more than 40 locations dedicated to the success of our clients and is part of The Thomson Corporation. The principal activity of The Thomson Corporation (TTC) is information and publishing, where in 1997 the Group had some 40,000 staff members and a revenue base approaching US$6 billion. TTC's common shares are quoted on the Toronto, Montreal and London stock exchanges. For more information, visit the TFS Web site at www.tfn.com.

CONTACT: First Call

Faye Fardshisheh, 617-856-1158

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Karen Witham, 617-856-2208

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