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.