Deutsche Börse Publishes Performance Ratings Of Designated Sponsors In Xetra - 50 Designated Sponsors Achieve AA Rating - All Nemax 50 Companies Have At Least One Designated Sponsor With An AA Rating

On Thursday, Deutsche Börse published the quarterly ratings for the current 65 Designated Sponsors in Xetra. They show that during the second quarter of the year 50 Designated Sponsors, representing 97 percent of the companies, fulfilled the criteria for the highest performance rating, "AA." They thus achieved the best rating with regard to quotation time and the prescribed spreads. Only three Designated Sponsors were not issued a rating because they failed to meet the minimum requirements last quarter - four fewer than in the first quarter of 2001. In the case of three Designated Sponsors, no rating was issued because they had been active as Designated Sponsors for less than three months.

The Designated Sponsors in Neuer Markt performed especially well: 335 of the 342 companies in this segment have at least one Designated Sponsor with an AA rating. In the Nemax 50, with one exception, every company has at least two Designated Sponsors with the highest performance rating.

The first letter of the rating stands for the quotation time. Sponsors who enter quotes for more than nine and a half hours a day are rated "A". Sponsors who enter quotes for less than one hour a day, on the other hand, are rated "D". The second letter of the rating stands for the difference between the bid and ask price, the so-called spread. Sponsors who have quoted prices that, as a whole, are at least one fourth narrower than the maximum permissible spread are rated "A". If a Designated Sponsor fails to meet the minimum criteria in 10 percent of the equities for which it is a sponsor, it drops out of the rating with all of its designated stocks.