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CalSTRS Selects FirstRain For Pension Governance Solution

Solution Reduces Risk, Automates Governance Analysis for Pension Funds

San Mateo, Calif., October 27, 2008 - FirstRain®, the leader in search-driven research for investment professionals and executives, today announced that the California State Employees Retirement System (CalSTRS) has selected FirstRain's pension governance solution. This solution provides two major benefits including reduced governance risk and comprehensive web mining for emerging data on governance principles, regulations and mandates.

Investment officers at large pension funds face overwhelming pressure to reduce governance risk. In order to protect their shareholders and to comply with mandates, pension firms are investing in automated research of four central areas:

  • Corporate Governance: Issues and developments including shareholder rights, board independence, proxy fights, anti-takeover measures, by-law changes, executive compensation, disclosure and regulatory compliance
  • Market Regulation: Rule proposals from the SEC, FASB, FINRA, NASDAQ, Department of the Treasury (US), and Internal Market and Services Commission (EU) as well as by self-regulatory entities such as NASDAQ, NYSE, OPRA and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange
  • Regulatory Comment: Commentary from major market participants including trade groups, financial firms, subject corporations, large investors, hedge funds and university endowments—on proposed rules and filings
  • Environmental and Social Responsibility (ESR) mandates including global principles and frameworks like the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), country- and market-level environmental, social and governance oversight standards, and ethical divestiture risks

"In this environment, and with the rapidly expanding data on the web, pension funds need automation to manage governance research," said Penny Herscher, president and CEO of FirstRain. "We are delighted to power governance analysis at pension funds like CalSTRS and South Dakota Investment Council, as well as across our more than 100 client firms."

FirstRain's pension governance solution is available immediately to FirstRain clients.

About FirstRain

As the leader in search-driven research, FirstRain provides global firms with a competitive advantage, revealing information and trends from the web that they would not otherwise see. FirstRain changes the rules of research by applying state-of-the-art extraction and pattern detection technology to the web. FirstRain is a privately held company with more than 150 employees, headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., with additional offices in New York, NY and Gurgaon, India. Contact FirstRain at www.firstrain.com. Visit CEO Penny Herscher's blog, Market Mine, at http://pennyherscher.blogspot.com.

Contact:

Todd Enders
FirstRain, Inc.
650-356-9064
tenders@firstrain.com

Evonne Lum
Ogilvy Public Relations
415-677-2704
evonne.lum@ogilvypr.com

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