020227Star

PRESS RELEASE

The 37 STAR companies present 2001 results to analysts

On February 23rd, 2001 Borsa Italiana presented the STAR segment to the financial community. Today the 37 listed companies met the analysts to announce their 4Q2001 results.

On April 2001 the STAR segment counted with 20 companies; today it counts 37.

During its first ten months, STAR has achieved a constant positive growth trend: by the end of January 2002, the capitalisation rose to 8.2 billion euro with a monthly turnover of 212 million euro.

The 37 companies have a higher than average free float if compared with the STAR requirements of 35% free float for IPOs and 20% free float for companies already listed in other market segments. Ten of them have a free float between 20% and 30%, nine between 30% and 35%, five between 35% and 40%, ten between 40% and 50% and three above 50%.

The average capitalisation of the STAR companies is higher than the average mkt cap of SMAX companies (SMAX: the Deutsche Börse's small cap segment), and in line with the average mkt cap of NEXTPRIME companies, (NEXTPRIME: Euronext's small cap segment).

Equally, the MIBSTAR index performed better than other European small cap indices (SMAX form Deutsche Börse and FTSE SMALL CAP from LSE) and also better than the general blue chips index of the Borsa Italiana.

Last but not least, STAR's volatility was lower than the volatility of the all Italian electronic share market (MTA).

One of STAR's special features is the extensive coverage due to the high number of equity researches being published (438). During the course of 2001, 34 brokers and market specialists have strongly contributed to this impressive number.

During the last year a number of events were organised in Dublin, Edinburgh, London and Paris. Some of these events were run in co-operation with primary Italian brokers and banks, so to increase the visibility of STAR Companies in the international arena.

As far as corporate governance issues are concerned, STAR has also performed well, with 78% of the STAR companies' Boards of Directors being mainly formed by non-executive members, while 51% of the Boards of Directors count more independent members than the required number.

Milan, February 27th,2002