BRIDGE Gives McIntire School $7.3 Million Gift, Largest Gift In Commerce School's History To Establish High-Tech Financial Center

February 24, 2000 -- Bridge Information Systems (BRIDGE), the largest provider of financial information services in North America, has given the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce a gift of real-time financial data and information services valued at $7.3 million, the largest gift ever received by the McIntire School.

The gift will create a new, high-tech financial center, the BRIDGE Center for Financial Markets at U.Va., which will be dedicated at a ribbon cutting in the lower level of Monroe Hall this evening at 6:30 p.m. The event will include remarks by BRIDGE Chairman and CEO Thomas M. Wendel and a demonstration of the center's technology.

"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."

"We are very pleased to partner with one of America's leading undergraduate business programs," said BRIDGE Executive Vice President Angus Robertson. "We look forward to building a long-term working relationship with McIntire's outstanding students and faculty."

The BRIDGE 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. The center 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 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 worldwide, and more than a quarter of a million users in over 65 countries, BRIDGE is headquartered in New York City, with the BRIDGE Trading and Technology Center in St. Louis, and major regional centers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific Rim. For more information, visit the BRIDGE web site at: http://www.bridge.com.

The University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce is ranked fifth in the country among undergraduate business schools by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to an undergraduate program leading to a bachelor's degree in commerce, the school offers two graduate degrees -- a master's degree in accounting and a master's degree in management of information systems. For more information, visit McIntire's web site at: http://www.commerce.virginia.edu.

For more information, call Senior Associate Dean Robert I. "Bob" Webb at (804) 924-3174.

Contact: Charlotte Crystal, (804) 924-6858, University of Virginia; Jim Travisano, (804) 924-7005, University of Virginia; Deanna Masella, (212) 372-7346, Bridge Inforamtion Systems

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: please contact the Office of University Relations at (804) 924-7116. Television reporters should contact the TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.
SOURCE: U.Va. News Services

2000 NEWS RELEASES
1999 NEWS RELEASES

Top news site edited by Jane Ford (jford@virginia.edu); maintained by Karen Asher (kac@virginia.edu); releases posted by Suzanne Raileanu (sr3r@virginia.edu).
Last Modified: Thursday, 24-Feb-2000 11:22:36 EST
© 2000 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
Topnews Information: (804) 924-4298.