Spyros Capralos, ATHEX Chairman, Lecturing at M.I.T - 13 April 2006

Announcement

Spyros Capralos, ATHEX Chairman lecturing at Μ.Ι.Τ

April 13 2006 - The Chairman of Athens Exchange and CEO of HELEX Mr. Spyros Capralos gave, on Wednesday April 12th, a lecture at the Sloan School of Management of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) with the subject 'Developments in the global exchange industry and the challenges for Hellenic Exchanges Group in southeastern Europe'.

On the subject of developments in the global exchange scene, Mr. Capralos mentioned the purchase of a minority interest in London Stock Exchange (LSE) by NASDAQ and noted that we live in interesting times as far as the exchange industry is concerned due to the strategic upheavals in the industry worldwide.

Next Mr. Capralos talked about the prospects of the Hellenic Exchanges Group in southeastern Europe and noted that the aim of HELEX is to become the exchange hub in the region either through the use of a common technological platform for trading or through the network interconnection of the exchanges in the region.

Finally, Mr. Capralos, talking about the recent example of the purchase of Turkish Finansbank by the National Bank of Greece, both during the lecture at MIT and on one to one discussions with institutional investors during the three day HELEX road show in New York and Boston, underlined the increased interest of foreign institutional investors in investing in the Greek exchange and in companies that show high growth and extroversion. An example in point is HELEX itself in which foreign institutional investors today own more than 35% while 12 months earlier their stake was just 16%.