News Releases

London: 4 September 2012 – NYSE Liffe, the European Derivatives business of NYSE Euronext, announces the launch of futures contracts on the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index on its market leading wholesale derivatives service, Bclear. The futures contract will be launched on 1 October 2012.

The Russell Europe SMID 300 Index contains the 300 most rapidly tradable constituents from the small- and mid-cap (SMID cap) opportunity set in developed European markets and was designed with considerable input from the trading community to ensure ease of use in the trading environment. It also represents a low implementation cost alternative to existing indexes. The Index is the first of its kind and is unique in that it is built to minimise the length of time it takes to trade a basket of stocks that replicates the index constituents and their weights.

“With the launch of this futures contract on the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index we are providing our customers with a unique product to access Europe’s small and mid-cap companies.” said Ade Cordell, Executive Director of Equity Derivatives, NYSE Liffe. “Launching the futures contract on our innovative and award winning Bclear service highlights our continuing commitment to meeting the needs of our customers.”

“We are very excited that NYSE Liffe is launching futures on the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index, a highly tradable index of small- and mid-cap European stocks,” said Scott Stark, head of Russell Indexes Europe.   “We designed our new index to meet a clear need in the marketplace, and are pleased we are already seeing a strong acceptance.”

During the development process for the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index, Russell consulted with a number of large financial institutions in Europe including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS.

Bclear has processed over 1.4 billion equity derivative contracts since launch in 2005 with a value of € 15.4 trillion. Bclear is NYSE Liffe’s service for processing and clearing OTC derivatives within the secure environment of a Recognised Investment Exchange and a Recognised Clearing House. This reduces the counter-party credit, legal and operational risks associated with OTC transactions.

About NYSE Euronext
NYSE Euronext (NYX) is a leading global operator of financial markets and provider of innovative trading technologies. The company's exchanges in Europe and the United States trade equities, futures, options, fixed-income and exchange-traded products. With approximately 8,000 listed issues (excluding European Structured Products), NYSE Euronext's equities markets - the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext, NYSE MKT, NYSE Alternext and NYSE Arca - represent one-third of the world’s equities trading, the most liquidity of any global exchange group. NYSE Euronext also operates NYSE Liffe, one of the leading European derivatives businesses and the world's second-largest derivatives business by value of trading. The company offers comprehensive commercial technology, connectivity and market data products and services through NYSE Technologies. NYSE Euronext is in the S&P 500 index. For more information, please visit: http://www.nyx.com.

About Russell Investments
Russell Investments (Russell) is a global asset manager and one of only a few firms that offer actively managed multi-asset portfolios and services that include advice, investments and implementation. Working with institutional investors, financial advisors and individuals, Russell’s core capabilities extend across capital markets insights, manager research, portfolio construction, portfolio implementation and Indexes.

Russell has about $152 billion in assets under management (as of 6/30/2012) and works with 2,400 institutional clients, more than 580 independent distribution partners and advisors, and individual investors globally. As a consultant to some of the largest pools of capital in the world, Russell has $2.4 trillion in assets under advisement (as of 12/31/11). It has four decades of experience researching and selecting investment managers and meets annually with more than 2,200 managers around the world. Russell traded more than $1.5 trillion in 2011 through its implementation services business. Russell calculates more than 80,000 benchmarks daily covering 98 percent of the investable market globally, 85 countries and more than 10,000 securities.  Approximately $3.9 trillion in assets are benchmarked to the Russell Indexes. 

Russell is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA, Russell has offices around the world including Amsterdam, Auckland, Chicago, Frankfurt, London, Melbourne, Milan, New York, Paris, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto. For more information about how Russell helps to improve financial security for people, visit www.russell.comor follow us @Russell_News.

Disclaimer and Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements                             
This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements concerning NYSE Euronext's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and other statements that are not historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements are based on NYSE Euronext's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause NYSE Euronext's results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to: NYSE Euronext's ability to implement its strategic initiatives, economic, political and market conditions and fluctuations, government and industry regulation, interest rate risk and U.S. and global competition, and other factors detailed in NYSE Euronext's 2011 Annual Report on Form 10-K and other periodic reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers. In addition, these statements are based on a number of assumptions that are subject to change. Accordingly, actual results may be materially higher or lower than those projected. The inclusion of such projections herein should not be regarded as a representation by NYSE Euronext that the projections will prove to be correct. This press release speaks only as of this date. NYSE Euronext disclaims any duty to update the information herein.