Eurex Enters Broad Index Licensing Agreement With Russell - Eurex Global Liquidity Network To Expand Into U.S. Equity Index Products - Eurex And Russell To Leverage Benchmark Success Into Futures Liquidity - Ferscha: Combination Of U.S. Benchmark Indices

The international derivatives market Eurex and the U.S. index provider Russell have signed today an agreement to license Russell indexes as the basis for index derivatives. The agreement covers the entire Russell index family, including the U.S. large cap index Russell 1000®, the U.S. small cap index Russell 2000® as well as the broad based Russell 3000® index and their respective growth and value indexes. Both Eurex and Eurex US are licensed under this agreement with initial listings anticipated on Eurex US.

"This agreement marks the beginning of the expansion of the Eurex global liquidity network into U.S. equity index products. Combining Russell's benchmark indexes and Eurex's global liquidity network creates low cost trading and arbitrage opportunities on our global liquidity network,"said Rudolf Ferscha, CEO of Eurex. "We are in the unique position to offer our customers leading European and U.S. equity index derivatives on the same platform. Investors will benefit from the cheapest way to equitize cash positions." Eurex has developed its share in the European equity index market from below 50 percent in 2000 to over 70 percent in 2003, which offers prime opportunities for arbitrage, cross product spreads and capital savings.

"Eurex Russell futures will provide the continuously growing number of investors using Russell indexes with an excellent portfolio risk management tool" said Kelly Haughton, Strategic Director, Russell Indexes. "These users will benefit from Eurex's low cost equal access market model and global distribution."

The Russell index family currently consists of 22 indexes. All 22 indexes are free float market cap-weighted and subsets of the Russell 3000 Index which represents approximately 98 percent of the U.S. equity market.