Commerce receives $7 million gift

By Charlotte Crystal

Bridge Information Systems, the largest provider of financial information services in North America, has given the McIntire School of Commerce real-time financial data and information services valued at $7.3 million, making the package the largest gift ever received by the McIntire School.

The gift makes possible a new, high-tech financial center, the Bridge Center for Financial Markets. The 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. It will include a simulated trading room featuring BridgeStation, Bridge's most comprehensive package of market data, analytical tools, advanced charting capabilities and news. A capital markets room will feature workstations from Telerate Inc., a Bridge subsidiary, offering access to comprehensive capital markets data and news.

"The Bridge Center promises to fundamentally transform the teaching of business and finance at McIntire," said Dean Carl P. 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.

"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 said. "It will serve both as a classroom and as a hands-on lab for McIntire students in all concentrations."

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

Bridge, together with its principal 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, with more than 5,000 employees.