Rob Archambault, Tradeline's president and CEO, said: "We have focused Tradeline's new business strategy on initiatives that capitalize on the company's greatest long-term business strengths. First of all, our products and services are now being tailored specifically to investment banking organizations and corporate financial departments—a vertical market where our reputation is unmatched. We have long-term customer relationships with industry-leading companies like Salomon Smith Barney, Chase Manhattan Bank, Merrill Lynch, J. P. Morgan, the New York Stock Exchange, and Dow Jones, and we will continue building on that strength. Secondly, we are transitioning Tradeline from a traditional data vendor to a total solution provider. For 25 years, the company has distinguished itself by providing the industry's most accurate pricing data, and that will certainly continue. But our organization is now more technologically focused … and our new products demonstrate that commitment."

For individual investors Tradeline.com provides historical securities pricing, corporate data, earnings estimates, and real-time news and quotes via the Internet to portals, banks, and brokerages. The company also offers a range of IT resources and expertise and has built the major components of a number of well-known retail investor Web sites. Besides releasing its data through established traditional outlets like Dialog, Dow Jones Interactive, and LEXIS-NEXIS, Tradeline.com also feeds data into the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition (WSJIE), Barron's Online, E*Trade, the New York Stock Exchange (http://www.nyse.com), Salomon Smith Barney Access (http://www.smithbarney.com), Chase Manhattan Bank, IBM (http://www.ibm.com), Merck (http://www.merck.com), International Paper (http://www.ip.com), and Caterpillar (http://www.cat.com). Tradeline.com's direct service, Tradeline Interactive, has been available via the Internet since 1995.
 
The TIP interface will support access to commonly used data charts and reports. The Tradeline Components suite will add tools that provide easy integration of Trademark's charts, quotes, news, financials, estimates, symbol matching, and Tradeline historical pricing data with Internet, intranet, and extranet environments. Tradeline.com already offers the Tradeline Add-in for Microsoft Excel that can create spreadsheet input out of Tradeline securities and data items as an Excel function and menu icon. The Add-in also handles ticker and data item lookups, screening, and a Template Wizard for specifying large ranges of data. It also accommodates integrated access to third-party databases including Standard and Poor's Compustat, Disclosure, First Call, I/B/E/S, Barra, et al.

With offices in Europe, Asia, and South America, Platinum Equity Holdings (http://www.peh.com) owns 14 technology-driven corporations with a total workforce of 10,000 employees operating in 100 countries. The acquisition of IDD Information Services (now Tradeline.com) in December 1999 constituted Platinum's first dot-com acquisition. According to the company, it fit into Platinum's core competencies and its strategy of acquiring companies with growth potential in specialized information technology markets. It also fit with Platinum's position in the financial services industry market. Dow Jones sold off IDD Enterprises as part of a program of divesting non-core assets.