Information Today
Volume 18, Issue 8 — September 2001
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Data Downlink Changes Name to Alacra, Inc.; Alacra Adds Mergerstat Data to PortFolio

Data Downlink Corp., a privately held global provider of business and financial information, has announced the change of its corporate name and brand identity to Alacra, Inc. The company's portfolio of service offerings, which includes the business search engine Portal B and its premium database service .xls, will now be packaged as Alacra. Alacra, Inc. has also announced that Mergerstat, a leading supplier of U.S. mergers and acquisitions (M&A) data, will provide Alacra with U.K. and European M&A information.
 

Name Change
"Our change to Alacra represents much more than a new name," said Steven Goldstein, CEO of Alacra, Inc. "Five years since our founding, we have evolved from a mere provider of other publishers' data to a primary source of varied information solutions for more than 500 financial institutions and professional services firms around the world. We have developed tremendous expertise in packaging business information to specifically meet our customers' needs. Our new brand identity reflects this evolution."

Indicative of substantive changes to the company's offerings, Alacra has introduced a new service, Alacra Book, a Web-based publishing platform that quickly collects and packages business information from multiple sources into a single Adobe PDF document. Alacra Book is intended for use by investment banks, law firms, consultancies, and other corporations in the daily preparation of Public Information Books (PIB) and other presentations. Accessible via the Internet and a company's intranet, Alacra Book reportedly reduces to fewer than 10 minutes a critical compilation task that used to take multiple staff members hours to complete.

Alacra's business search engine, previously known as Portal B, has been enhanced as well. Now called Alacra (http://www.alacra.com), the sophisticated online search service has far greater functionality in finding and sorting results, puts information together in more meaningful ways, and is easier to use than the Portal B service the company launched 1 year ago.
 

Mergerstat
Mergerstat has leveraged its recent merger with Corpfin, Ltd., a leading provider of U.K. and European corporate finance information, to extend its coverage to international M&A. The European data supplied will complement the U.S. and U.S. cross-border information currently available from Alacra. According to the announcement, the expanded coverage combines Mergerstat's well-recognized wealth of accurate and detailed financial information supplemented by Corpfin's acknowledged expertise in reporting deal structures and advisors.

"This data extension is one of the first fruits of collaboration between two powerful suppliers of transaction-critical information, allowing Mergerstat to effectively cover M&A activity globally," said Brian Rarity of Corpfin and CEO of the recently merged companies. "By offering Mergerstat through Alacra we will capitalize on their international reach into professional service organizations."

Source: Alacra, Inc., New York, 212/363-9620; http://www.alacra.com.

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