NASDAQ OMX, 9 MAJOR FINANCIAL FIRMS PLAN PLATFORM FOR 144-A SECURITIES TRADES

Posted September 8, 2009

NEW YORK – The Nasdaq OMX Group, in conjunction with nine major financial firms, has formed The Portal Alliance LLC to operate a platform for over-the-counter trading of 144-A equity securities [a type of more liquid, unregistered private securities] by qualified institutional buyers (QIBs).

The founding firms are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wells Fargo Securities.

“The members of The Portal Alliance believe that an institutional equity market will form an important part of the capital markets landscape in the future,” says Bob McCooey, Senior Vice President, Capital Markets Group, The Nasdaq OMX Group. “It is important to create an improved method for issuers and institutional investors to communicate to support expected growth in the 144A equity market.”

The Portal Alliance founding members contributed their expertise gained in connection with the development of legacy 144A trading and transfer platforms (including the 144A PLUS, GSTrUE, OPUS-5 and the Portal Electronic Marketplace) to create a trade negotiation platform for issuers and QIBs to bring greater efficiency and transparency to the 144A equity market.

The Portal Alliance also plans to expand to meet growth in the 144A equity market by ultimately providing issuers of 144A equity securities and QIBs an electronic over-the-counter trade negotiation system, a broad suite of trade data generated by the Portal Alliance platform and resources to access issuer information.