SNL Financial LC announces new Merger Model

First of its kind rich Internet application uses Macromedia® Flash®-technology to accelerate merger deal processing

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. -- SNL Financial, a premier sector-specific information and research firm in the financial information marketplace, today announced the new SNL Merger Model from SNL Financial LC and its application provider Teknision Inc. Compiling and evaluating an array of data and mergers scenarios for the highly acquisitive banking industry can now be completed easily and quickly with the SNL Merger Model, a rich Internet application based on Macromedia Flash technology.

Within minutes analysts, investment bankers and other merger advisors can now simultaneously analyze, manipulate and create reports for multiple merger scenarios that would have previously taken hours to complete.

“The SNL Merger Model provides an advanced merger analysis product to a broad audience with a varied skill-set including our core power users,” says Steve Duong, associate director, Financial Institutions Group for SNL. “We now have a platform effectively connecting a robust and potentially complex product to a broad user group that presents data in a way that is both intuitive and powerful.”

“The SNL Merger Model uses Macromedia Flash technology to deliver a more effective and productive experience for the end-user, ”says Gabor Vida, president of Teknision. “By creating new interface concepts, we were able to present extremely complex data in a simple and intuitive manner.”

“We have developed an extremely advanced rich Internet application that simplifies a very complex task. Imagine taking the financial data of 50 different banks, instantly calculating what would happen if any one bank bought any of the 50, and then project those results over the next five years,” says Vida. "That's basically what the application does in seconds. Users are then able
to adjust criteria and see results in real-time. This allows users to zero in on the best deals and filter out the deals that don't make sense. This kind of speed and flexibility was simply not possible until now."

Last year the banking industry saw some 264 mergers totalling more than $130 billion in deal volume (according to SNL Datasource).

Macromedia Flash technology allowed SNL and Teknision’s development team to break down a complex M&A model into its core processes, building an underlying methodology to support new interface concepts. The result is a rich Internet application that blends the speed of a desktop application with instant connectivity to the specialized content, tools and services that SNL provides.

“The financial services industry requires data to be presented in a way that deepens insight and accelerates decision-making,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president of product management, Macromedia. “The SNL Merger Model is a powerful example of how Macromedia Flash technology can make financial data come to life.”

About SNL Financial

SNL collects, standardizes and disseminates all relevant corporate, financial, market, and M&A data — plus news and analysis — for the Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Real Estate, Energy and Media & Communications industries. For more information, visit www.SNL.com.