Online Investing Guru Joins Actifunds

May 5, 2001 -

Doug Gerlach, founder of ICLUBcentral, appointed as Senior Contributing Editor for iclub.com

CAMBRIDGE, MA, May 5, 2001 — Actifunds Corporation, the leader in investment club technologies, today announced the appointment of Douglas Gerlach, founder of online finance sites ICLUBcentral.com, Investorama.com, and ArmchairMillionaire.com. Gerlach will serve as Senior Contributing Editor at www.iclub.com, focusing on features that help build the group dynamics that make club investing enjoyable and profitable. He will also pen a newsletter on club investing and host a message board as the "ICLUB Therapist."

An online investing pioneer, Gerlach founded financial site Investorama.com in 1995 and investment club information site ICLUBcentral.com in 1997. In addition to directing these sites, Gerlach has created several more, including DRIPcentral.com, a resource for direct investing, and ArmchairMillionaire.com, a site committed to investor education. He has authored several books on investing, including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Online Investing, and been featured in numerous programs and publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Individual Investor, The Boston Globe, New York Times, Worth, CNNfn, and Yahoo! FinanceVision. Gerlach's sites have garnered accolades from Forbes, Barron's, BusinessWeek, Money Magazine, The Economist, US News & World Report, and Fortune. Long affiliated with the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC), a 600,000-member non-profit organization that provides investment education for investment clubs and individual investors, Gerlach serves as contributing editor of the NAIC Web site and as Secretary and a Director of the NAIC's Computer Group. Gerlach remains Consulting Editor (Online Investing) for Mutual Funds Magazine and consults for several financial institutions.

"We're delighted to have Doug working with us," said Robert Brooker, CEO of Actifunds. "As the leader in software for club investing, we want to ensure that our products help groups better manage their finances. Doug will help us achieve these goals by deepening our insights into investment club operation. His appointment also reflects our commitment to offer a range of personalized help resources to the clubs using our services."

"I am delighted to be part of Actifunds. Since joining the world's first online investment club in 1994, I have believed in the Internet as a tool that all investment clubs can benefit from using," added Gerlach. "Actifunds greatly increases these benefits, with Internet tools to make club administration and accounting easy."

Currently, more than 1.25 million Americans participate in investment clubs, a number that has quadrupled over the past decade, partially due to rapid adoption of email and increased availability of investment information online. Actifunds offers both online and desktop applications to satisfy the administration and communication needs of these investment clubs.

Actifund's online tools are available free of charge through the National Association of Investors Corporation, at Actifunds' site www.iclub.com, and through online brokerage The Financial Cafe. Actifunds enables successful online group investing by making it simple for personal investors to form investment clubs online with minimal effort from club members and no compromise of club security. The software offers an intuitive user interface that facilitates communication and collaboration, regardless of location. Actifunds also helps encourage a stronger social and financial community for investors by offering each investment club access to features, including discussion boards, portfolio tracking, tax accounting, member voting, file storage, personal profiles and access to Actifunds' partner brokers.