JPMorgan Offers New CDO Asset Pricing Service

Providing pricing for loan, bond or multi-sector assets

New York / London, 15 June 2004 - JPMorgan's Institutional Trust Services (ITS) Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) business announced it has introduced a comprehensive asset pricing solution that offers the U.S. CDO market independent pricing on individual assets in order to obtain the total portfolio value. JPMorgan can provide asset pricing whether or not it is the trustee on the deal.

JPMorgan, the market leader in CDOs, has teamed with Mark-it Partners Ltd., a London-based credit pricing information company that delivers accurate, third-party pricing information and related analytics. With this partnership, JPMorgan has become the only trustee to offer loan pricing through Mark-it Partners Ltd.'s LoanX platform, which gives JPMorgan the ability to provide its clients with quick and reliable pricing information.

"By allowing JPMorgan to handle the time-consuming task of gathering pricing information, clients can free up internal resources to concentrate on the data analysis, thus enabling efficiency gains," said Steve Patterson, Senior Vice President and head of JPMorgan's CDO business.

Since the inception of CDOs, financial institutions have relied on JPMorgan's services that include Trustee and Collateral Agent, Global Registrar and Paying Agent, Audited and Un-audited GAAP Financial Reporting, Tax Reporting for Offshore SPVs, Partnerships, Grantor Trusts Portfolio Administration, Loan Administration, and Warehouse Agent (pre-closing).

"Mark-it Partners always looks for the best avenues for increasing transparency and efficiency, and we look forward to assisting JPMorgan in providing its clients the ability to efficiently and accurately price their portfolios," said Mike Rushmore, Executive Vice President of Mark-it Partners.

Mark-it Partners was formed in 2001 to provide comprehensive and reliable data for risk management and to create a global benchmark for credit pricing.

JPMorgan Chase is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $801 billion and operations in more than 50 countries. The firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers and businesses, financial transaction processing, investment management, private banking and private equity. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, JPMorgan Chase is headquartered in New York and serves more than 30 million consumer customers nationwide, and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients. Information about JPMorgan Chase is available on the Internet at www.jpmorganchase.com.