OREANDA-NEWS. On 15 April 2008 Standard & Poor’s, the world's leading index provider, announced the signing of a commercial agreement with Credit Suisse granting the latter with the right to use the main indicator of the Russian stock market - the RTS Index – for creating and launching a series of structured products linked to Russian equities.

"Apart from being Russia’s flagship benchmark, the RTS Index is also a full-fledged investment tool as evidenced in its growing use as an underlying for structured products and in the availability of a well-developed derivatives market based on it. As of late, the international market players have been showing a growing appetite for investing into Russian stocks. A modern global approach includes both direct investing into selected stocks and creation of structured products which combine reliability with high yield potential. Availability of such products makes the Russian stock market even more appealing in the investors’ eye and helps its further growth. The fact that the RTS Index is chosen by major global financial institutions underscores its highly representative nature as the main indicator of the Russian market", said Roman Goryunov, Chairman of the Board of RTS.   

"This agreement with Credit Suisse is a direct result of successful cooperation between S&P and RTS under our existing index partnership. As of recent, S&P signed a number of similar agreements with leading European financial institutions that chose the RTS Index as the basis for implementing their investment management strategies in the region", said Alexander J. Matturri, Executive Managing Director of Standard & Poor’s Index and Portfolio Services.

 "Credit Suisse is pleased to be partnering with S&P and RTS on this important index. We can now provide our clients with access to the entire RTS Index and Russian Futures. We look forward to offering our clients the ability to use OTC SWAPs to achieve their investment goals. This offering is further evidence of our strong commitment to provide our clients unparalleled access to the Russian Equities market", said Charlie White-Thomson, Head of Russia Equities at Credit Suisse.

About Standard & Poor’s Index Services

Standard & Poor's Index Services, the world's leading index provider, maintains a wide variety of investable and benchmark indices to meet an array of investor needs. Its family of indices includes the S&P 500, an index with \\$1.3 trillion invested and \\$4.8 trillion benchmarked, and the S&P Global 1200, a composite index comprised of seven regional and country headline indices. For more information, please visit http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

About RTS

Russian Trading System Stock Exchange is one of the leading stock exchanges in Russia. RTS Index is the main benchmark for the Russian stock market and is based on the 50 most liquid and capitalized shares of Russian companies. FORTS (Futures and Options on RTS) is the leading Russian derivatives market. FORTS combines the developed infrastructure with reliability and advanced trading technologies conformed to more than ten years of successful market development. It offers 65 futures and options contracts on shares of Russian companies, bonds, RTS Index, short-term interest rates, currency, sugar, oil, gas oil, silver and gold. In 2007 trading volume on FORTS grew threefold and reached 297.41 bln dollars or 144.9 million contracts.

About Credit Suisse

As one of the world's leading banks, Credit Suisse provides its clients with investment banking, private banking and asset management services worldwide. Credit Suisse offers advisory services, comprehensive solutions and innovative products to companies, institutional clients and high-net-worth private clients globally, as well as retail clients in Switzerland. Credit Suisse is active in over 50 countries and employs approximately 45,000 people. Credit Suisse's parent company, Credit Suisse Group, is a leading global financial services company headquartered in Zurich. Credit Suisse Group's registered shares (CSGN) are listed in Switzerland and, in the form of American Depositary Shares (CS), in New York. Further information about Credit Suisse can be found at http://www.credit-suisse.com/.