NEW YORK, June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- TheMarkets.com, a leading provider ofresearch, estimates and workflow solutions to the buy-side, today announcedthe launch of a meeting management system that enables buy-side professionalsto manage and track the meetings they set up through their brokers. Thesystem is available as an add-on to the Company's broker voting platform,MeritMark, or as an independent workflow tool.

The meeting manager streamlines the process of handling meeting calendars,while enabling users to track their feedback on broker meetings over time. Itoffers a single view both of what the brokers have offered, as well as whichmeetings have been attended. Key features of the system include:

    -- Historical and forward-looking calendar of broker event data    -- Meeting data populated by direct feeds from the sell-side, taking the       onus off the buy-side to manage this data and automating the       calendaring process    -- Function to manually add additional meetings or upload them from Excel    -- Ability to integrate meeting details into calendar in Microsoft Outlook       or Lotus Notes    -- Historical repository of meetings-both invited and attended-for client       reference and compliance    -- Rating functionality, enabling the buy-side to determine the value of       meetings provided by their brokers and to track this information over       time    -- Integration with MeritMark; meeting ratings flow into the broker vote       automatically

'We added the meeting management capability in response to client feedbackshowing that this tool would provide significant time-savings in the buy-sideworkflow,' said Bryan Lewis, General Manager of MeritMark. In a recent surveyof the buy-side conducted by TheMarkets.com, nearly 90% of 400 respondentsfrom over 200 institutions indicated that this would be a valuable innovation.'For individual users, the meeting manager streamlines the time spent managingtheir calendars. At the same time, buy-side firms are able to assess theoverall value their brokers provide,' said Lewis.

About MeritMark and TheMarkets.com

MeritMark is the broker vote standard developed by institutionalinvestors, leading investment banks, and TheMarkets.com. TheMarkets.com is aleading provider of research and estimates services to over 2000 institutionalinvestment management firms worldwide. TheMarkets.com is owned by: Banc ofAmerica Securities, LLC (NYSE: BAC), Citi (NYSE: C), Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS),Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), Dresdner Kleinwort, part of Dresdner Bank AG and amember of the Allianz Group (NYSE: AZ), The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS),JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH), Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), UBS Investment Bank (NYSE: UBS), and Reuters(Nasdaq: RTRSY, LSE: RTR). In addition to the founding investment banks ofTheMarkets.com, MeritMark is also sponsored by Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC). Formore information, visit www.TheMarkets.com or www.MeritMark.com.

     Press Contact:     Jasmine Swann     TheMarkets.com     +1.212.812.4631     jswann@TheMarkets.com

SOURCE TheMarkets.com