Launch of Online Shipping Community Information

Clarkson (Horace) PLC 2 March 2000 www.clarksons.net launched Horace Clarkson PLC ('Clarksons'), the UK listed holding company for the world's largest shipbroking group, will be holding a presentation at 11.30am on Thursday 2 March at their Camomile Street offices to announce the launch of its new online shipping community information system, 'Shipping Intelligence Network' ('SIN'). To develop SIN, Clarksons linked up with two of the biggest internet platform suppliers. Autonomy provided a powerful information management system, the Autonomy Dynamic Reasoning Engine (DRE), and Morse-Hughes Rae, specialists in systems for financial institutions, then built the system to Clarksons specification. SIN is a real-time market intelligence service covering the world's shipping markets. It is updated by Clarksons' 32 analysts and 160 brokers operating from 7 offices worldwide and is complemented by a market news service, an industry diary and a contact database. By subscription, members gain additional access to Clarksons Fleet Register. This is a comprehensive on-line version of the existing paper and CD based registers. The bulk registers cover the tanker, dry bulk and liquid gas carriers whilst specialist publications cover liners, offshore service vessels and reefers. The subscription fee also offers access to Clarksons comprehensive range of weekly and monthly publications such as Shipping Intelligence Weekly, World Shipyard Monitor and Container Intelligence Monthly together with a range of dry bulk, oil and tanker reviews. The reference library contains research papers and an extensive collection of 6,000 graphs and spreadsheets. If clients prefer, a second version of SIN, known as SIN-INTRA, allows the development of their own tailor-made company information system using the SIN platform. Clarksons provides the intranet system and a market feed whilst the clients are able to adapt the other features to manage their own information requirements.