Sophis partners with Markit in a push on Credit Derivatives

Paris, 17 March 2005 - Today, Sophis announced that it has entered a strategic partnership to integrate Markit's credit price and reference entity data (RED) together with their dividend forecasting (formerly DaDD) and index management services to enable Sophis trading and risk management system to better support key trading, risk and operational processes for their mutual customers. Markit data will be available via Sophis brand new data management module, the Data Service, which collects data from any source type (vendor or proprietary) and allows customised extractions. Thanks to this standard interface, users will have automatic access to over 12,000 daily CDS curves, over 8,500 global indices and ETFs, 4 year's dividend forecasts and to market standard reference entity names, reference bonds and codes.

Commenting on this partnership, Hervé Vinciguerra, CEO of Sophis said 'This agreement is another step in Sophis strategic move into credit derivatives, and follows Sophis collaboration with AXA IM, announced in December 2004. Data management is a critical issue in our industry; along with our platform, we need to provide access to the best data sources on the market to ensure that we fuel our pricing and risk management engines with quality information. I am confident that this partnership will bring a significant added value to our customers.'

"The combination of Sophis cross-asset, front to back office capability and exposure in the derivatives area is an ideal fit for Markit's derivative, dividend forecasting, index price and reference data services. It will give mutual customers real benefits by accurately modelling their trade activity, measure risk profiles more effectively and reduce operational overheads as the growth of the credit derivatives area expands in terms of interest and customer demand" added Mark Hunt, Director of product development at Markit.

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Notes to editors

About Sophis

Sophis provides cross-asset and fully integrated trading and risk management solutions to the buy and sell sides. Sophis was founded in 1985 and is established in London, Paris, New York, Frankfurt, Dublin, Hong Kong and Tokyo. The company's philosophy is to design flexible, open and scalable solutions. Sophis systems are used by 100+ leading financial institutions worldwide, including Abbey National, ADI, AXA IM, Barclays Capital, Bank of China, BNP Paribas AM, CALYON, Ixis CIB, Fortis, HSBC, HVB, ING, KBC, RaboBank, Royal Bank of Canada, SEB...

About Markit

Markit is the leading industry source for asset valuation data and services supporting independent price verification and risk management in global financial and energy markets. Founded in 2001, the company is an independent enterprise with which the world's leading financial institutions and energy traders work strategically to create price transparency.

Today, Markit enjoys the sponsorship of 13 financial institutions that manage assets in excess of $10 trillion, as well as data contribution relationships with over 45 dealing firms. Markit has designed, launched and acquired over 20 financial data services which are now used by over 300 institutions globally. Areas of product expertise and service include an independent valuation perspective on credit default swaps, syndicated loans and OTC derivatives (credit, equity, FX, rates, energy, power, metals and structured products), as well as dividend forecasting and index and ETF management.