Silver Lake Partners' Acquisition of Instinet, The Institutional Broker, Completed

Business Wire, Dec 8, 2005

NEW YORK -- Instinet, The Institutional Broker(R), today announced the close of its acquisition by a group led by Silver Lake Partners and Instinet senior management. With completion of the deal, originally announced in April of this year, Instinet will operate as a private entity focused solely on its role as a leading provider of execution services to institutional clients around the globe.

"Our global customers can continue to count on us to help them achieve best execution," said Ed Nicoll, CEO of Instinet Incorporated. "As we begin this next chapter in our company's 36-year history, we remain committed to providing technologically sophisticated tools and services, supplied by our experienced and dedicated employee workforce, to the most demanding customers around the world."

"Over the course of more than three decades, Instinet has played a leading role in enabling its global customers to meet the needs of a dynamic and growing trading marketplace," said Glenn Hutchins, a co-founder and managing director of Silver Lake Partners. "We are extremely excited to build upon our longstanding relationship with Ed Nicoll and his talented management team as the company continues to provide excellent trading solutions to its customers."

Instinet has long been recognized for its execution quality in large size block trades, small trades, as well as trading in small-cap securities. According to Plexus Group, Instinet ranked No. 1 in "value-added," a measure of execution quality, for all block trades from 10,000 shares to 50,000 shares for the past six consecutive quarters. Similar Plexus Group studies evidenced that Instinet delivered better "value-added" execution quality for its clients' smaller trades, less than 2,000 shares, and ranked No.1 in execution quality for trading small-cap stocks (less than $1 billion). For more information, please visit www.instinet.com/knowledge_center/trading_notes/nov_15_05.shtml

About Instinet, The Institutional Broker

Instinet, The Institutional Broker, gives its customers the opportunity to use its sales-trading expertise and advanced technology tools to interact with global securities markets, improve trading and investment performance and lower overall trading costs. Through Instinet's electronic platforms, customers can access other U.S. trading venues, including NASDAQ and the NYSE, and almost 30 securities markets throughout the world. Instinet acts solely as an agent for its customers, including institutional investors, such as mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies and hedge funds.

About Silver Lake Partners

Silver Lake Partners is the leading private equity firm focused exclusively on large-scale investing in technology and related growth industries. Silver Lake seeks to achieve superior returns by investing with the strategic insight of an experienced industry participant, the operating skill of a world-class manager, and the financial expertise of a disciplined private equity investor. Specifically, Silver Lake's mission is to function as a value-added partner to the management teams of the world's leading technology franchises. Its portfolio companies include technology industry leaders such as Ameritrade, Avago, Business Objects, Flextronics, Gartner, Nasdaq, Network General, Seagate Technology, SunGard Data Systems, Thomson and UGS. Silver Lake also recently announced an agreement to acquire Serena Software. For more information, please visit www.silverlake.com.

(C) 2005 Instinet Incorporated. All rights reserved. INSTINET is a registered service mark in the United States. Instinet, LLC, member NASD/SIPC is branded as Instinet, The Institutional Broker.