NEW YORK, May 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BusinessWeek and Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, have joined forces to launch the Company Insight Center (CIC), one of the most comprehensive free business and financial information resources on the Internet. The CIC combines BusinessWeek's influential and award-winning editorial content with Capital IQ's global research to provide deep perspectives on companies, industries, and personalities to a worldwide audience. BusinessWeek and Capital IQ are both market-leading brands of The McGraw-Hill Companies, a leading global information services provider.

The CIC will nearly triple the size of BusinessWeek's Web site and is free-of-charge. The exciting new offering will bring Wall Street to Main Street by providing professional-grade business and financial information to a mass audience in a user-friendly manner. The CIC will enable individual investors, researchers, students, managers and other business professionals to access Capital IQ's global coverage of companies, markets, and people. The CIC can be found at: http://investing.businessweek.com/

Highlights of the Company Insight Center: -- Deep Global Private and Public Company Coverage: Includes detailed information on more than 42,000 active public companies and 322,000 significant private companies as well as over a million executives and board directors who run these companies. Moreover, the CIC provides data on thousands of M&A/financing transactions as well as perspectives on all industry sectors. -- Extensive Coverage of International Stocks: The CIC offers market data from more than 50 of the world's largest stock exchanges. Users can easily track how companies trade on multiple exchanges around the world, and can access that information around the clock. -- Beyond the Numbers: CIC presents information and news in the context of peers, competitors, and industry. Each page highlights what is most relevant and meaningful, providing an easy-to-understand framework for even the layperson to research and assess companies. -- Degrees of Separation: See how executives are connected and how they intersect across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. -- Transparency of Corporate Boards: View detailed information on every member of a company's board of directors as well as who sits on each committee and what role they perform. The information will allow users to spot any irregularities or conflicts of interests. -- BW Beat the Street: Compare the wisdom of crowds versus Wall Street analysts' ability to forecast company performance. CIC allows users to vote and tell the market whether a company will meet, miss, or beat Wall Street's consensus earnings estimates.

"CIC provides the greatest size, depth, and scope among free online destinations," said Roger Neal, general manager of BusinessWeek.com. "With up to 33 pages of information per company and a wealth of other information on competitors, industries and performance, the CIC will provide insights and perspectives that will allow users to understand the 'story' of each company or individual. We are confident that the CIC will quickly become an invaluable resource for business professionals all over the world."

"The CIC is truly the premier free information resource, comprised of Capital IQ's robust private and public capital market data and technology. The CIC allows everyone-from investors to students to reporters-to view critical financial information that was previously only available for Wall Street professionals," said Jay Zachter, senior vice president of Capital IQ.

BusinessWeek is a leading global business media organization, providing unparalleled insight and analysis to a worldwide audience of business leaders. Founded in 1929 and published by the McGraw-Hill Companies, BusinessWeek magazine is the market leader, with more than 4.7 million readers each week in 140 countries. Local language editions include Chinese, Russian, and Bahasa Indonesian. Launched in 1994, BusinessWeek.com is the preeminent provider of daily, essential business news, information, and services to business decision-makers. Reaching 85% of the nation's households, BusinessWeek Weekend delivers important business, consumer and financial news to television viewers every week.

Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, provides high-impact information and workflow solutions to over 1,800 leading financial institutions, advisory firms, and corporations. Its solutions are based on the Capital IQ Platform, a unique combination of global private and public capital market data and technology that enables end-users to draw deep market insights, generate better ideas, leverage relationships, and simplify workflow. Clients can deploy the Capital IQ Platform either as a standalone solution or seamlessly integrate its components into existing business applications and portals via systems integration and data feeds. For more information, please visit Capital IQ's web site at http://www.capitaliq.com/.

CONTACT: Patti Straus
BusinessWeek,
+1-212-512-2882,
patti_straus@businessweek.com;
or
Kate Zimmerman
Capital IQ,
+1-212-751-3375,
kzimmerman@groupsjr.com

Web site: http://www.businessweek.com/
http://www.capitaliq.com/