Thomson Financial has created a new team dedicated to the UK hedge fund community and has launched a package of services for European managers.

The UK team will be led by Mark Jackson, Sales Manager reporting to Richard Garnier, Managing Director, European Sales and Account Management.

Thomson Financial already counts over 100 hedge funds clients in the UK alone, including UK's largest hedge funds and the recently launched Cologico Capital LLP, which began trading in May 2004 with its Market Neutral European Equity Long/Short fund.

The hedge fund offering for UK and the rest of Europe will provide a combination of Thomson Financial's market leading products and content sets, such as I/B/E/S, First Call, AutEx and Worldscope drawn from across the Thomson ONE application suite and Thomson Datastream, which itself is being integrated into Thomson ONE.  This can be integrated with portfolio management tools from Thomson PORTIA. The service can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the hedge fund community including:

* Scalable, modular pricing to reflect the evolutionary process of each hedge fund
* Flexible options for the delivery of Thomson Financial content and applications
* Integrated front to back office solution encompassing the hedge fund workflow including research and analytical tools, trading connectivity, post-trade to pre-trade settlement solutions, portfolio accounting and portfolio analysis
* Up to 50 years of historical content across all key asset classes to allow hedge funds to validate their investment strategy through back-testing
* Long-term partnership to meet the changing needs of hedge fund clients, as they grow over time.

David Bilbe, Commercial Director - Europe, Thomson Financial, said: "We understand how crucial it is for hedge funds to evidence the systems that underlie their investment process, as part of the due diligence procedure needed to attract institutional clients.  Thomson Financial's applications are recognized throughout the industry and are a key component in this process."

Background Note: Thomson Financial is a USD 1.5 billion provider of information and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community. Thomson Financial is part of The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), a leading provider of value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate training and assessment, scientific research and healthcare, with revenues of USD 7.6 billion.