PRESS RELEASE

SeDeX, the Borsa Italiana’s securitised derivatives market (covered warrant and certificates), recorded in July a 339,5% increase in turnover in comparison with July 2004; the average daily turnover was equal to 201 million euro and the average daily number of contracts equal to 16.000 (+19% vs July 2004). In the first seven months of the year the market recorded an increase of 159% from the same period of 2004: the daily average turnover was 161,1 million euro and 16.300 the contracts (+4% if compared with contracts in the same months of 2004). On the 21 of July SeDeX recorded the all time high daily turnover with 326.1 million euro; on the 7 of July the market reached the yearly top for contracts:27,301.

At the international level, according to the official surveys of FESE (Federation of European Securities Exchanges), Borsa Italiana’s SeDeX is leader in Europe: with 335,803 contracts and 4.2 billion euro exchanged in July on its electronic systems it exceeded once again the volumes achieved by Swiss Exchange (95,984 contracts and 1.5 billion euro) and OMX (34,288 contracts and 121 million euro).

While the markets, in the first part of the year, recorded an increase in volatility favouring short term investors, issuers worked with the aim of spreading the range of listed instruments, especially "investment certificates", dedicated to mid-long term investors.

At the end of July listed instruments on SeDeX are 4,059 among whom 3,314 covered warrant plain vanilla, 44 covered warrant strutturati/esotici, 241 leverage certificates and 460 investment certificates, following the market segmentation introduced in April 2004 aimed to ease the identification of the financial instruments listed.

The SeDeX segments are the following:

• These are covered warrants based on a call or put option

B) STRUCTURED/EXOTIC COVERED WARRANTS

• These are covered warrants whose main feature is a combination of options

C) LEVERAGE CERTIFICATES

• These are certificates tracking an underlying activity allowing a holder to participate to its performance with leverage

D) INVESTMENT CERTIFICATES

• Includes certificates tracking an underlying activity without leverage and

• certificates tracking an underlying activity with one or more accessory options

Milan, 16 August 2005