assemblea

The General Meeting of Shareholders of Borsa Italiana Spa yesterday approved the parent company's individual financial statements for 2003 which ended with net earnings of € 23.4 million on a turnover of € 123.8 million. The Meeting also approved the consolidated financial statements for 2003 which ended with net earnings of € 19.6 million on a turnover of € 180.2 million.

The General Meeting of Shareholders also approved a number of changes to the Market Rules, which will now be submitted to Consob for approval.

The main changes concern:

In order to guarantee the successful conclusion of transactions performed on the MOT market, the central counterparty guarantee system, which is designed to protect dealers from the risk of insolvency of the counterparty, is also extended to the MOT market.

It is envisaged that the performance guarantee for trades may be limited to single segments of the market (identified in the "Instructions") so that the system can be gradually introduced.

The date on which this change comes into effect will be notified in a "Borsa Italiana Announcement" once the migration of trading on the MOT to the "Affari" platform is completed. As from that date, trades will occur anonymously for the identified segments (the identity of buyers and sellers will not be disclosed).

In order to assure liquidity to the instruments listed on the MOT market, it is envisaged that trading in bonds belonging to segments identified by the Borsa Italiana Instructions may be carried out with the assistance of a specialist.

The liquidity support may be performed by the issuer or at the request of the issuer or on the initiative of an admitted dealer, and may relate both to newly admitted financial instruments and financial instruments already listed.

Furthermore, in order to encourage the activity of MOT market specialists, special trading procedures may be allowed in specific segments or classes (for example trading procedures which give the specialist dealer a book management advantage). The entry into force of the relevant regulations, contained in the Instructions, is subject to formal authorization from Consob.

The new discipline will come into effect once the migration of trading on the MOT to the "Affari" platform is completed.

Current Borsa Italiana Market Rules prohibit any direct or indirect trading in financial instruments on which Borsa Italiana has placed trading suspension measures only for intermediaries admitted to trading on markets managed by Borsa Italiana.

The introduced change makes a distinction between temporary suspension and indefinite suspension and only prohibits trading with regard to temporary suspensions, thus leaving dealers free to trade over the counter in financial instruments which are indefinitely suspended.

Temporary suspension is designed to prohibit trading in the presence of reporting irregularities which could instigate insider trading. Trading on the stock will be reactivated only when information parity has been restored, after the issuer (or the bidder in the case of a tender offer) has released a report. This kind of suspension is generally time-limited (a few hours or at most a day) and is dropped as soon as the report is published.

Indefinite suspension is designed to exclude trading on securities issued by companies in economic/financial difficulty, is generally long-term and is characterised by a general lack of information on the economic/financial development and on the issuer's future business plans.

Exclusion from trading in suspended securities is designed to protect market integrity only in cases of temporary suspension, as information irregularities can be prejudicial. As regards indefinite suspension, there is no evident risk of abuse of privileged information and, therefore, no need to prevent freedom of trading for dealers.

The change also extends to the Nuovo Mercato.

Milan, 30 April 2004