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Archipelago Holdings Completes Pacific Exchange Acquisition - ArcaEx To Offer U.S. Industry Fully-Electronic Consolidated Trading Of Equities And Options

Date 26/09/2005

Archipelago Holdings, Inc. (PCX: AX), owner and operator of the Archipelago Exchange(SM) (ArcaEx(R)), today announced the closing of its acquisition of PCX Holdings, Inc. (PCXH) and its subsidiaries, the Pacific Exchange, Inc. and PCX Equities, Inc.

The total consideration paid by Archipelago to PCX Holdings shareholders in the transaction was $90.9 million, consisting of $66.3 million, the total dollar value of 1,645,415 shares of Archipelago common stock held by PCXH at the time of the closing, plus $17.0 million, plus a working capital adjustment of $8.0 million, minus an executive payment excess of $0.4 million.

"We believe strongly in the platform and connectivity we built for and with the trading community. We look forward to offering new opportunities to our clients and investors, and to further our strategy of trading multiple securities products on the ArcaEx platform," said Jerry Putnam, Chairman and CEO of Archipelago Holdings.

"We are very pleased to reach the end of a long journey," said Philip D. DeFeo, chairman and CEO of PCX Holdings and the Pacific Exchange. "Our alliance with Archipelago creates opportunities to better serve the interests of our customers and public investors that we could not offer on our own. It marks the fulfillment of a strategic course charted and followed for more than six years. We are proud of the progressive initiatives launched here that brought important change to the industry, and that positioned the Exchange to become part of a truly global marketplace."

DeFeo will continue to serve on the board of directors of both Archipelago Holdings, Inc. and the Pacific Exchange, Inc.

Putnam added, "Since our announcement in January, we have focused our transition planning on gaining a comprehensive understanding of the PCX options business, its current technology platform and the on-going needs of options customers. We would like to thank Phil and his team for their outstanding contributions to this process and for the successful partnership that has existed between the two companies since we aligned in 2000 to create ArcaEx."

The Archipelago-Pacific merger was approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 22, 2005.