Global Equity Research On More Than 34,500 Companies Now Available On FIRST CALL Research Direct; More than 17,000 New Research Reports Added to Research Direct Each Week.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 1999--

First Call Corp., a Thomson Financial company, now offers its Research Direct customers real-time access to equity research reports on more than 34,500 companies worldwide. There are now over 5,000,000 research documents available on the FIRST CALL Network, and more than 17,000 new reports continue to be added to the Research Direct database each week. The breadth and depth of global coverage available on Research Direct are unparalleled in the industry.

First Call has the largest institutional client base in the industry - more than 600 brokerage firms and 30,000 institutional money managers worldwide access its research services. To date in 1999, First Call has added more than 80 new brokerage firms to its vast list of Research Direct contributors. Of the U.S.-based brokerage firms that distribute their research over Research Direct, 65 use the First Call service exclusively to reach their institutional buy-side customers.

In addition to Research Direct, First Call also offers customers access to embargoed research reports via Research-by-Request. This service offers Web access to embargoed equity research documents from investment banks, brokerage firms and research firms. Institutional money managers now can access reports that they are not entitled to view in real-time, as well as reports from additional sources not previously available on the FIRST CALL Network. Users of this service are charged only for those reports that they access.

As the leading Web portal for the institutional marketplace, all First Call products and services are accessible from www.firstcall.com. In addition to equity research reports, First Call also offers money managers access to equity research notes, fixed income research notes and reports, earnings estimates, analyst recommendations, insider trading data, equity and fixed income ownership information, and buy-side contact data.

First Call recently expanded its FIRST CALL Interactive division to accommodate the growing demand for customized intranet and portal solutions. First Call's customers now have the option of accessing First Call's content, their own internal content, information from the Web, and content from other Thomson Financial companies via their corporate intranet. FIRST CALL Interactive has the ability to customize each intranet at the firm or user level.

Thomson Financial is a US$1 billion provider of information services and work solutions to the worldwide financial community. For more information, visit www.thomsonfinancial.com.