Fitch Ratings Included in New NASD-Bloomberg Corporate Bond Indices

Business Wire, Nov 7, 2005

NEW YORK -- Fitch Ratings announces that their credit ratings are being used in the newly launched NASD-Bloomberg Active U.S. Corporate Bond Indices. NASD added Fitch to its criteria to determine TRACE dissemination earlier this year and has extended that use to the newly launched set of cobranded corporate bond indices with Bloomberg.

As of Feb. 1, 2005, the NASD added Fitch alongside Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, as part of the process to determine classification of those securities that are investment-grade and high yield to the over 30,000 TRACE publicly traded TRACE-eligible securities. Now, Fitch has also been integrated into the methodology of the NASD and Bloomberg's family of U.S. corporate bond indices geared toward individual investors. These indices help individual investors to gauge the performance of their corporate bond holdings against broad benchmarks representing the most liquid bonds in the market.

'Investors are reexamining how they look at ratings and the major rating agencies,' said Peter Jordan, Group Managing Director. 'Many leading global institutions are changing the way they do business to utilize Fitch in their investment process. We are enthused by the inclusion of Fitch in determining eligibility of bonds in the new NASD-Bloomberg indices.'

About the NASD-Bloomberg Indices

The new indices are available on the Bloomberg Professional and for individual investors on NASD's web site www.bondinfo.com.

About Fitch Ratings

Fitch Ratings is a leading global rating agency committed to providing the world's credit markets with accurate, timely, and prospective credit opinions. Built on a foundation of organic growth and strategic acquisitions, Fitch has grown rapidly during the past decade, gaining market presence throughout the world and across all fixed-income markets.

Fitch is dual-headquartered in New York and London, operating offices and joint ventures in more than 50 locations, and covering entities in more than 80 countries. Fitch Ratings is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fimalac, S.A., an international business support services group headquartered in Paris, France.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria, and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance, and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.