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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, DC 20549
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FORM 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE
SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
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Date of report (Date of earliest event reported): August 2, 1999
BARRA, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
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DELAWARE 0-19690 94-2993326
<S> <C> <C>
(State or Other Jurisdiction (Commission (IRS Employer
of Incorporation) File Number) Identification No.)
2100 MILVIA STREET, BERKELEY, CA 94704-1113
(Address of Principal Executive Offices) (Zip Code)
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Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (510) 548-5442
NOT APPLICABLE
(Former Name or Former Address, if Changed Since Last Report)
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ITEM 5. OTHER EVENTS.
Filed as Exhibit 99.1 is a copy of the Registrant's press release,
issued August 2, 1999, regarding the appointment of a new Chief Executive
Officer of BARRA, Inc..
ITEM 7. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, PRO FORMA FINANCIAL INFORMATION AND EXHIBITS.
(c) Exhibits
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<CAPTION>
Exhibit No. Description
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<S> <C>
99.1 Press Release of BARRA, Inc. dated August 2, 1999
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2
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SIGNATURE
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the
registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the
undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
BARRA, INC.
Date: August 2, 1999 By: /s/ James D. Kirsner
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Name: James D. Kirsner
Title: Chief Financial Officer
3
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EXHIBIT INDEX
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<CAPTION>
Exhibit No. Description
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<S> <C>
99.1 Press Release of BARRA, Inc. dated August 2, 1999
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4
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
James Kirsner Jennifer Hinchman
Chief Financial Officer Manager, Corporate Communications
510.548.5442 510.649.4548
BARRA APPOINTS KAMAL DUGGIRALA
AS NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
BERKELEY, Calif., August 2, 1999--BARRA, Inc. (NASDAQ: BARZ) today announced
that its board of directors has unanimously appointed Kamal Duggirala chief
executive officer, effective immediately. The appointment of Mr. Duggirala
is one in a series of strategic changes that promises to bring about a
stronger, more focused BARRA.
Duggirala became BARRA's president in 1994 and has spearheaded a number of
successful strategic initiatives for BARRA. Duggirala's career at BARRA has
included management responsibility for the Company's electronic brokerage,
trading systems, enterprise risk and consulting businesses. In addition,
from 1995 to 1997 he headed BARRA's institutional analytics business in the
Americas. Duggirala, 40, holds an M.S. in Operations Research and an M.B.A.
in Finance from the University of California at Berkeley.
"Kamal is and always has been a shining star among the innovative minds at
BARRA. His knowledge of the financial industry and of BARRA's various
businesses is exhaustive. Kamal's forward thinking and proven leadership
have resulted in a number of home runs and dramatic turn-arounds for BARRA,"
said M. Blair Hull, a member of BARRA's board of directors and chairman and
chief executive officer of The Hull Group.
Duggirala was instrumental in the development of the POSIT system (Portfolio
System for Institutional Trading) and has led BARRA's initiatives with the
POSIT Joint Venture since its inception. Today POSIT is the largest
intra-day crossing network in the United States, with a volume of 5.8 billion
shares matched in 1998. In recent years POSIT has been successfully launched
in the European, Australian and New Zealand equity markets as well as Forward
Rate Agreement (FRA) markets in the U.S. and Asia.
During Duggirala's tenure managing BARRA's institutional analytics business,
that business realized record revenues and the Company had its most
successful product launches-the BARRA Aegis System(TM) and the BARRA Cosmos
System(TM). Aegis and Cosmos, BARRA's suite of Windows-based analytics for
equity and fixed income portfolio management, respectively, remain the
Company's
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largest revenue producing products. Duggirala was also responsible for
creating BARRA's equity trading division with the mission of extending
BARRA's analytics business to the broker dealer community. He has led that
division since its inception. Last year the equity trading division had the
highest profit margin within BARRA's analytics business and increased its
revenues by more than 50 percent.
Duggirala has also managed BARRA's Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)
initiative since its inception. He led BARRA's acquisition of assets from
Redpoint Software Inc. and the successful integration of BARRA's analytics
with Redpoint's technology. Duggirala was also a key force behind BARRA's
decision earlier this year to discontinue certain U.S. fixed income products.
He was an early and forceful advocate of the need to refocus BARRA's fixed
income research and development efforts on one integrated platform to be
delivered via global or enterprise wide systems. Duggirala successfully
promoted the idea among BARRA's senior management and, as president,
implemented the restructuring in the U.S.
More recently, Duggirala has been responsible for BARRA's investment
consulting business. He spent over a year dividing his time between coasts
to integrate the businesses acquired from Rogers Casey & Associates, Inc.
into BARRA's business model. Duggirala developed a focused strategy,
implemented significant organizational changes and installed a new management
team. Today, investment consulting is a profitable and growing business for
BARRA.
"BARRA has built a tremendous global franchise based on continuous
innovation. It is now time to capitalize on these accumulated assets through
a stronger market and business focus," said Duggirala. "We are witnessing
unprecedented change and the consequent opportunities in the investment
business worldwide. BARRA is uniquely positioned to take advantage of these
opportunities with a comprehensive range of products and services spanning
the investment and business needs of our clients. Our new products for
performance analysis and transaction cost analysis represent a significant
avenue for growth. And our Enterprise Risk systems position us very strongly
to address the rapidly growing risk management needs of the large global
investment organizations."
Duggirala also plans to implement a series of internal changes, including the
addition of new executives to the management team. "Over the past six months
we have made and implemented a series of tough decisions that will sharpen
our strategic focus and execution. We will take additional steps to organize
ourselves and realign management responsibilities to this end," said
Duggirala. "In particular, we will move from our current organization along
product and geographic lines towards a focus on customer segments on a global
basis. We will expand the management team with new talent. The likely
additions
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in the near term are a chief operating officer, a global head of sales and a
senior marketing executive who can leverage the BARRA brand."
BARRA first announced its search for a new CEO in March of 1999. A search
committee, formed by the board of directors and consisting of three senior
executives and two independent directors, retained SpencerStuart, a leading
international executive search firm. After a world-wide search,
SpencerStuart, identified a long list of candidates. After talking with
about 20 of them, SpencerStuart passed a subset of the candidates on to the
search committee for interviews. The search committee presented its
recommendations for a short list of candidates to the entire board of
directors, which unanimously elected Duggirala.
"We set out six months ago with an open mind and a commitment to finding the
right candidate and change agent for BARRA. We found ourselves comparing
every candidate to Kamal. While we interviewed many talented individuals
with vast experience in relevant industries, there was simply no other
candidate that had the combination of industry expertise and client knowledge
that spans all of the businesses currently conducted by BARRA," said Andrew
Rudd, chairman of BARRA.
Andrew Rudd continues to be chairman of BARRA's board. It is anticipated
that he will serve in a scientific advisory role and will provide key client
and research support and other services as requested by the CEO. As part of
the analysis driving the CEO search process, BARRA's board of directors
identified a need to expand its membership to bring in new talent with
significant industry knowledge and relevant experience. It is expected that
Rudd will also work to enact the board's mandate to find such qualified
additional members.
BARRA, founded in 1975, provides innovative analytical models, software,
consulting, investment data and money management services that enable its
clients worldwide to make superior investment and trading decisions. Based
in Berkeley, California, BARRA also has offices in major financial centers
throughout the world. Information on BARRA is also available on-line at
http://www.barra.com.
Each statement in this news release containing any form of the words "will,"
"can," "promise," "potential," "anticipate," "plan," "near terms," "likely"
or "expect", or any future verb tense, is a forward-looking statement that
may involve a number of risk factors and uncertainties. Among other factors
that could cause actual results to differ materially are: the ability to
implement the new chief executive officer's additional strategic changes in a
timely and efficient manner; the specific details of the new chief executive
officer's business plan; and the ability to attract and retain qualified
candidates with relevant industry experience for the chief operating officer,
international head of sales and senior
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marketing executive positions and for the board of directors. Further
information on potential factors that could affect the Company's financial
results is included in the Company's Form 10-K for the 1999 fiscal year filed
with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For further information,
please refer to the Company's SEC filings, copies of which are available from
the Company without charge or online at http://www.barra.com.
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