The Empire Life Insurance Company Selects Thomson Financial's PORTIA; PORTIA To Serve as Portfolio Management Solution for Top Canadian Life Insurance Company.

Business/Technology Editors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 7, 2000

Thomson Financial Software Solutions (TFSS) today announced that it has licensed its global portfolio management solution, PORTIA(R), to The Empire Life Insurance Company (Empire), one of Canada's top fifteen life insurance companies which manages assets exceeding CAD $5 billion. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Empire was looking to replace its existing portfolio management system with a proven system that was progressive and comprehensive enough to grow with the industry and which would keep pace with the increasing sophistication of investment management technology. It was also looking for a portfolio management solution with robust modeling capabilities and powerful reporting tools.

According to Empire's Chief Investment Officer Jill Pepall, Empire considered a number of portfolio management systems, but only PORTIA provided the rich functionality it was seeking: "What particularly impressed us about the PORTIA system was not just the portfolio modeling functionality, but the report writing capability," says Pepall. "Our demands on a system are very high when it comes to report generation. We not only manage $5 billion of assets, but we are a significant financial products company with regulatory and fiduciary reporting requirements. PORTIA also ranked very high, when compared to its competitors, in back-office administration and implementation planning and support. Overall, we see PORTIA as an excellent fit for our immediate needs and are confident that it will accommodate our future needs as well."

According to Michael C. Slemmer, CFA, general manager of TFSS, The Americas, "Hundreds of clients, some of whom are among the world's largest financial institutions, utilize PORTIA as the foundation of their investment management enterprise, and Empire has just joined them. PORTIA is a logical and proven choice for investment management firms. The demands of competing in today's money management world require firms to make the best and most efficient use of their data and implement a system that will keep up with the industry: With its superior product functionality and depth as well as our associated professional services, PORTIA has met and will continue to meet that need."

PORTIA is the investment industry's leading portfolio management system, automating the trading, analysis and operations of more that US$4 trillion in assets for approximately 400 money managers in 40countries worldwide. Designed specifically for firms with large data volumes and sophisticated data integration requirements, PORTIA's robust functionality and innovative use of scalable client/server technology uses the Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise or Microsoft SQL Server relational databases.

Between The Empire Life Insurance Company (Empire), under the Empire Financial Group name, and its subsidiary, Concordia Life Insurance Company (Concordia), they provide a broad range of life insurance and investment products, employee benefit plans, and financial services to meet the needs of individuals, professionals, and businesses through a network of resource centers, sales offices and general agents, across Canada.

Thomson Financial Software Solutions is a premier provider of investment management software products and consulting services. An industry leader for more than a decade, Thomson Financial Software Solutions offers flexible, workflow solutions that leverage advanced and proven technologies, enabling over 400 clients worldwide to achieve their business goals. Thomson Financial Software Solutions has offices around the world, including Boston, Buenos Aires, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. For more information, visit www.TF-SoftwareSolutions.com.

Thomson Financial is a US$1.44 billion provider of e-information services and integrated work solutions to the worldwide financial community. Through a wide range of products and services in the industry, Thomson Financial helps clients in more than 70 countries make better decisions, be more productive and achieve superior results. Thomson Financial is part of The Thomson Corporation, a leading e-information and solutions business with annual revenues of more than US$5.8 billion. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the Toronto and London stock exchanges. For more information on Thomson Financial, visit www.thomsonfinancial.com.