Markit Opens New York Office

New York, 13 December 2004 - Markit, the world's first integrated daily pricing service for global credit derivative, cash and loan instruments, is extending its global reach and 'on the ground' client support by opening an office in Times Square Tower in New York City.

Kevin Gould, Executive Vice President, will run the New York office and will be responsible for business development and sales in North America. Joining Mr. Gould are eight professionals with industry experience ranging from 5 to 20 years, enabling the UK-based company to better serve its growing North American client base and capitalize on opportunities in the rapidly expanding U.S. OTC markets.

Mr. Gould comments, "We have created a unique business with considerable market reach and a high level of client service. These are exciting times for us and the opening of the New York office is consistent with our goal to ensure Markit is universally recognised as the leading provider of definitive market data and associated services across all asset classes."

Markit's powerful suite of pricing and valuation tools helps its clients better manage their risk. Markit works with over 250 institutions globally, of which the majority are banks or hedge funds, where there is an increasing focus on independent sources of data for valuation.

Andrew Feldstein, who runs Blue Mountain Credit Alternatives, a $2.5bn credit hedge fund based in New York, comments, "As a user of Markit's services, it is clear they lead the market in providing daily credit derivative price information for valuation and risk management purposes. They have a great opportunity to expand their platform and increase their reach across products, curves and credits. We look forward to working with them even more closely when they open their New York office."

Markit
Seven Times Square
Suite 2503
NY, NY 10036
Tel: 212-931-4900
Fax: 212-221-9860

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Markit

Note to Editors

About Markit

Founded early in 2001 with the support of contributing data partners ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Citigroup, CSFB, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, TD Securities, and UBS, Markit currently receives daily credit default swap (CDS) pricing on over 4,000 issues and receives pricing on over 27,000 cash securities. Partner banks and contributing data providers now total over 40 institutions globally. These institutions feed current and historical credit data into the Markit system on a daily basis, facilitating better decision-making and credit risk management within banks' credit operations.