Techniques for assessing risk and building client relationships will be shared by commercial banking specialist Omega Performance during Understanding Corporate Finance -- coming to Chicago and Cleveland this November.

CHARLOTTE, NC (August 20, 2008) - The key to long-term success in today's sophisticated commercial banking environment is knowing how to effectively assess credit risk and build profitable client relationships, two skills that credit training specialist Omega Performance will teach during Understanding Corporate Finance—its first U.S. public seminar to be held on November 6, 2008 in Chicago, Ill., and on November 13, 2008 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Designed for commercial lending staff who need to understand clients' investment and financing decisions or who underwrite and approve credit risk, the one-day, highly interactive seminar will enable participants to:

• Build stronger relationships by identifying corporate finance opportunities and assisting clients to appropriately assess options
• Better understand clients' capital investment options by using the principles of time value of money
• Assist clients in evaluating appropriate financing options by quantifying and evaluating a company's cost of capital
• Effectively advise clients by assessing corporate finance strategies
• Determine appropriate strategies by applying business valuation techniques
• Determine the most appropriate capital structure using corporate finance instruments, including debt and equity issues

Understanding Corporate Finance will be facilitated by 32-year commercial banking veteran, Dr. Jerry Crigger, Omega Performance's vice president and senior consultant: credit and risk management and Dr. Gary Powell DBA, CFA, a professor of finance who has taught at the university level for over 20 years.

"For over three decades, Omega Performance's world-renowned self-study, workshop, and online credit training solutions have helped clients improve credit quality and increase profitability," said Mario Berard, Omega Performance's president and CEO. "With our first public seminar, Understanding Corporate Finance, we're expanding our portfolio of credit training solutions and giving financial services companies another way to build commercial lending skills."

For more information about Understanding Corporate Finance, visit www.omega-performance.com.

About Omega Performance

Omega Performance has enabled more than 2,500 firms worldwide to drive and sustain improved business results. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Informa plc (INF on the London Stock Exchange), the leading international provider of specialist information and services for the academic and scientific, professional and commercial business communities. Informa has over 150 offices in more than 40 countries and employs over 7,000 staff around the world. Omega Performance is headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., USA, with major offices in Australia, Canada, China, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.