Press Releases

S&P RatingsXpress Integrated into AC CompanyMaster For Enhanced Basel II Credit Risk Data Management Solution

New York, NY, December 20, 2004

Asset Control, a leading provider of investment data management solutions to the financial industry, today announced that Standard & Poor’s credit rating information provided through S&P RatingsXpress has now been integrated into AC CompanyMaster. A highly customizable service, RatingsXpress delivers detailed credit ratings on both issuers and issues. Integrated with AC CompanyMaster, it provides a highly efficient means of gathering and monitoring current information and historical trends for Basel II credit risk compliance and counterparty credit risk management.

“Credit risk analysis and monitoring depend on ratings that are reliable and timely. S&P is an industry leader in this field, and we are pleased to incorporate the full range of this rich and flexible data service,” said Ken Payne, director of sales and marketing at Asset Control.

S&P RatingsXpress is available in several subscription options:  Global Issuers, Structured Finance and U. S. Public Finance.  The data is available at a variety of delivery frequencies including real-time, as well as one-time historical ratings information.

“Supporting our customers in the rapid integration of RatingsXpress is a high priority to us, and this alliance with Asset Control provides a means of instant availability to users of Standard & Poor’s ratings within AC CompanyMaster,” said Krishna Biltoo, Managing Director of Standard & Poor’s. “We are pleased with the outcome of the integration effort and look forward to supporting our shared customers.”

AC CompanyMaster
AC CompanyMaster gathers and verifies, consolidates and cleanses, and provides user access and manipulation of a full range of credit-related data including issuer reference data, legal entity hierarchies, credit pricing data and credit ratings, both vendor-supplied and proprietary.  A configuration of the modular AC Plus data management framework, AC CompanyMaster can easily be extended to other data types – such as instrument, pricing and counterparty data – and scales easily from departmental to enterprise solutions.  For more information about AC CompanyMaster or to schedule a visit to a customer site where it is in production, please contact  info@asset-control.com.

About Asset Control
Asset Control offers centralized data management to financial industry firms through a full range of in-house and outsourced options.  A choice of developer tools, turnkey software solutions and outsourced services enable users to optimize their investment data for efficiency, cost control, reduced operational risk and increased value from their data. 

Derived from the robust and reliable AC Plus modular framework, the Asset Control product set includes data solutions addressing market risk, counterparty credit risk, security master, research and corporate actions, as well as global data networking and administration. Handling data from vendors and in-house systems, these solutions collect, validate, normalize, and consolidate data into cleansed composite “golden copy” sets for business use.

Customers include the LCH.Clearnet, Abbey National, ABN AMRO, Barclays Capital, Bayerische Landesbank , BBVA, Commerzbank, IBM (Dresdner Bank), Harvard Management Company, HSH Nordbank, HypoVereinsbank, Grupo Santander, ING, Robeco Groep, Société Générale, Standard Chartered and Union Investment, as well as a super-major global energy group. Established in 1991, Asset Control is a privately held firm with operations in London, New York and the Netherlands.  For more information, please visit  www.asset-control.com.

About Standard & Poor’s
Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE:MHP), is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research, data and valuations. With approximately 6,000 employees located in 21 countries, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for more than 140 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. For more information, visit  www.standardandpoors.com.