OM Increases Its Holdings In Research & Trade And Plans A Stock Market Flotation Of The Company In 2000

OM increases its holding in Research & Trade and plans a stock market flotation of the company in 2000 OM Technology has signed an agreement with the other owners of Research & Trade (the founders, D. Carnegie AB, inter alia) for the acquisition of a further 2,250,000 newly issued Research & Trade shares. The agreement also covers OM's transfer to Research & Trade of its distribution operations for the ORC family of products. OM's ownership stake in Research & Trade will thus increase from 52.8 percent to 60.2 percent. A stock market flotation of Research & Trade on the OM Stockholm Exchange, together with a new issue, is planned for the second half of 2000. "ORC is a series of products that have enormous growth potential. In order to achieve a more focused direction for the products, as well as take advantage of the increasing market potential offered by the Internet and other types of on-line trade, we are now merging OM Technology and Research & Trade's ORC operations into one company. By integrating sales, development and support ORC will be given even greater scope to strengthen its market leading position", explains Magnus Karlsson Böcker, President, OM Technology. Research & Trade develops and markets the ORC technology. ORC is a so-called multi-market system for analysis, trading and risk management. With ORC Trader, a trader, for example in shares and derivative instruments pertaining to these shares, can, through one and the same screen, simultaneously trade on more than 20 different markets. At the same time risk exposure and income - regardless of currency - can be consolidated in real time. The latest addition to the ORC-family is iORC. iORC is a system which makes it possible to gain access, via the Internet, to the same electronic exchanges as with ORC Trader. This has become an increasingly important part of the customers' business operations. A large proportion of the Swedish Internet brokers currently use iORC. Research & Trade was founded in 1987 and since 1997 it has been part of OM Gruppen as a partially owned subsidiary. There are currently over 700 ORC stations in 15 countries. Carnegie Fondkommission will act as advisor for both the share issue and the stock market flotation of Research & Trade. OM Technology is the world's leading supplier of transaction technology. OM Technology is part of the OM group. OM operates exchanges (the OM Stockholm Exchange and the OM London Exchange) and develops technology that increases the efficiency of financial and commodity markets throughout the world. The Parent Company, OM Gruppen, is listed on the OM Stockholm Exchange.