FEA Announces Frank Cummings as President

BERKELEY, Calif., March 8, 2004 -- Financial Engineering Associates, Inc. (FEA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barra, Inc. (Nasdaq: BARZ), and a leading developer of derivative pricing and risk management technologies for the financial, energy and commodities industries, today announced that Frank Cummings has joined the company as president, effective immediately.

“I am delighted to take on this new challenge. FEA enjoys a strong brand, a reputation for being first to market and has an extremely talented team of financial engineers. I look forward to working with the people at both FEA and Barra to not only realize new opportunities for FEA, but to continue to deliver world-class financial analytics products and service,” said Mr. Cummings.

"We are very pleased to have Frank on board to lead FEA. His in-depth understanding of all major capital market functions and his reputation for being very client focused is an important addition for FEA, and will be instrumental in exploring new opportunities,” said Kamal Duggirala, chief executive officer of Barra.

Frank Cummings began his career in technology sales in Chicago. In 1986, he joined Knight-Ridder Financial and became product manager of quantitative applications. From 1992 to 1994, Frank was the manager of capital markets and data analysis for Kemper Securities. From there he joined Bridge Information Systems as vice president, data products. From 1998 to 2004, Mr. Cummings served as executive managing director, marketing and data solutions for Standard & Poor's Research Services, now Global Insight, as it was divested from McGraw-Hill in 2001. Mr. Cummings holds an MBA from Roosevelt University in Chicago, and a BA in computer science from Barat College in Lake Forest, Illinois.

About FEA

Focusing on the energy, financial, and commodities markets since 1989, Financial Engineering Associates, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Barra, Inc., is renowned for the development of option valuation models and market risk assessment software. Powered by constant innovation, aggressive release schedules, and superb technical support, FEA is routinely first-to-market with pricing models and authoritative risk management tools for the latest, most complex financial instruments. FEA is used at more than 700 sites by institutional clients that include: energy firms, money center banks, Fortune 500 companies, trading enterprises, and leading financial firms worldwide. FEA remains at the forefront of financial engineering through an ongoing commitment to meeting the needs of its clients worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.fea.com.