Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. Announces Filing Of Registration Statement For Secondary Offering Of Class A Common Stock

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME) announced today that it filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a secondary offering of its Class A common stock by its shareholders. The offering is being conducted in accordance with the company's charter in connection with the termination of the transfer restrictions on the company's Class A-2 common stock. The company will not sell any shares or receive any proceeds from the sale of stock by its shareholders. The number of shares initially included in the registration statement is equal to the number of outstanding shares of Class A-2 common stock and may not be indicative of the number of shares to be sold in the offering. The actual number of shares to be included in the offering will depend on the interest of the company's shareholders in participating in the offering, which will be determined at a later date.

Morgan Stanley will act as the book-running manager for the offering with Goldman, Sachs & Co. and UBS Securities LLC as senior co-managing underwriters. Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Securities and William Blair & Company will act as co-managing underwriters.

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This announcement shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.

When available, copies of the preliminary prospectus may be obtained from Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, 1585 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10036.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. became the first publicly traded U.S. financial exchange on Dec. 6, 2002. The company was added to the Russell 1000® Index on July 1, 2003. It is the parent company of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., the largest futures exchange in the United States. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX® electronic trading platform. CME offers futures contracts and options on futures primarily in four areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moved about $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments in the first half of 2003 and managed $29.1 billion in collateral deposits at June 30, 2003. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME and GLOBEX are registered trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.