CDOVantage, LLC Launches New Web Site Offering Analytic Tools and Deal Data to CDO Market Participants

Business Wire, May 7, 2002

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 2002

CDOVantage, LLC today announced the introduction of www.cdovantage.com, a new service for the Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) market. The service is an Internet destination offering analytics and information for CDO market participants - investors, CDO collateral managers, rating agencies, underwriters and the investment banks structuring these transactions. The CDOVantage Web site was established to transform CDO deal management by combining superior analytic tools with consistent and complete Web-based CDO deal data.

"CDOVantage will provide users with unprecedented control and insight over their CDO transactions," said Steve Patterson, CDOVantage president. "The Web-based platform serves as a community for market participants who benefit from common modeling and reporting standards and marketplace efficiencies, while they retain their unique brand identities as providers."

CDOVantage's custom-designed Web-based tools were built with the superior analytics of RiskMetrics Group, Inc.'s (RMG) CDO Manager software. This combined expertise provides analytics that form a key component of CDOVantage.

In addition to administrative support, CDO market participants seek detailed information about underlying data on CDOs and associated components. They want analytic tools for using the data and CDO benchmarks against which they can measure new opportunities. Participants also want instant access to CDO market news. CDOVantage brings together all of these features in one place.

"By filling a market need for clarity, transparency and liquidity, CDOVantage aims to spur the growth of the overall CDO market," said Michael Eggert, CDOVantage senior vice president. "The site is a single source of capabilities vital to all the participants in the CDO community. No other system in the market today offers such end-to-end coverage."

CDOVantage product manager Eric Lokker added, "Collateral managers need the analytics to project CDO performance through the life of the offering, and investors need to monitor and evaluate the quality of their holdings."

The CDO is a structured finance instrument comprised of a portfolio of both bonds and commercial loans that first emerged in the 1980s in answer to lenders' search for new ways to spread risk and reduce capital requirements in the making of loans. With its diverse portfolio assets, the CDO offers expanded opportunities for a variety of risk/return profiles. This instrument offers more opportunities than do other investment instruments, making it particularly attractive to investors.

RiskMetrics Group, Inc.

RiskMetrics Group's risk management products enable customers to accurately understand, measure, and manage their financial risk. The group's analytics, technology, services and data are used by hundreds of the world's largest banks, hedge funds, asset managers, financial advisors, insurance companies, brokerage houses, corporations and many of the world's central banks.

Formerly a division at JPMorgan, RiskMetrics Group was spun off as an independent company in 1998. The company is headquartered on Wall Street, with seven offices in cities around the world including London, Tokyo and Singapore. Shareholders of the company include American Express, DB Capital Venture Partners, the Intel 64 Fund, JPMorgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, Reuters and Sony.

CDOVantage, LLC

CDOVantage operates www.cdovantage.com, a Web site dedicated to CDO transactions that allows CDO market participants to combine experience, insight, deal data and the best Web-enabled analytics, all in one place. CDOVantage creates one point of access for all of the CDO transaction needs for site clients, members and others interested in the growth and development of the CDO marketplace. CDOVantage, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase Bank.