OREANDA-NEWS. On 24 April 2008 the MICEX Stock Exchange, Russia’s leading stock exchange, announces the launch of the MICEX Corporate Bond Index. The new index will comprise issuers of corporate bonds that are admitted to trading on the MICEX SE and are rated by an accredited international credit rating agency such as Standard & Poor's (S&P), Moody’s or Fitch.

The issuers qualifying for inclusion in MICEX CBI must also satisfy criteria on minimum size, maturity, and liquidity as set by the Exchange. Specifically, the following conditions must be met by issuers for inclusion:

Minimum rating of B+ (in the case of S&P or Fitch) or B1 (in the case of Moody`s) for the issuer’s foreign currency bonds, if any;

Minimum issue size of RUR 3 billion;

Minimum term to maturity of at least one year;

Minimum average daily transaction volume, as calculated for the preceding quarter, of RUR 10 million

The weighting of the issuer in MICEX CBI will be determined based on the size of the issue and the credit rating assigned to the issuer by S&P, Moody's or Fitch. At no time can the weighting of any one issuer in the Index exceed 30%.

Under the new methodology, the index will be calculated in three different ways, net price index, gross price index and an aggregate income index. The net price index will reflect changes in the clean value of bonds – exclusive of their accrued coupon income; the gross price index will represent changes in the value of the bonds and accrued coupon income, and the aggregate income index will represent the changes in the value of bonds and accrued coupon income assuming that income is reinvested – the total return.

Calculation of MICEX CBI will be in real time, throughout the day between 10am and 6pm (Moscow time). The base date and base value for index calculation are taken as 31 December 2002 and 100, respectively.

The composition of MICEX CBI will be revised quarterly, with the first revision date scheduled for the last trading day of July 2008.

The Exchange has also announced the launch of sub-indices for short-term issuers (1 to 3 years) and medium-term issuers (3 to 5 years).

These indices will replace the Russian Corporate Bond Index (RCBI) that the Exchange has calculated since 2003.

All the constituents of the sub-indices are selected from the main index – MICEX CBI. The number of constituents in each sub-index cannot exceed 30. There is no limit to the number of constituents comprising the MICEX CBI.

For the first quarter of 2008, the composition of MICEX CBI includes 40 bond issues from 22 issuers.

The companies that are issuers of the bonds comprising MICEX CBI are:

1. Gazprom

2. LUKoil

3. Federal Grid Company

4. Gazprombank

5. AIZhK

6. Rosselhosbank

7. Vozrozhdenie Bank

8. Vimm-Bill-Dann

9. NOMOS Bank

10. VolgaTelecom

11. Dalsvyaz

12. IRKUT Corporation

13. Mosenergo

14. Russian Railways

15. Sibirtelecom

16. SIBUR Holding

17. TransCreditBank

18. CenterTelecom

19. Moscow United Power Grid Company (MUEGC)

20. OGK-5

21. HK F Bank

22. URSA Bank