Markit Launches Leveraged Loan Index

NEW YORK and LONDON--Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced the launch of the Markit iBoxx USD Leveraged Loan Index ("Markit LLI"). The index is designed to serve as a benchmark for investors' cash loan portfolios and to enable comprehensive performance attribution analysis.

Armins Rusis, Executive Vice President and Global Co-Head of Fixed Income at Markit, said: "The Markit iBoxx Leveraged Loan Index capitalizes on Markit's extensive experience in the loan asset class and as a provider of benchmark and tradable indices. The index leverages our market-leading dataset from Markit WSOData and Markit Loan Pricing to provide asset managers with a benchmarking tool that will enhance their performance management capabilities. We also expect the index will encourage new investors to enter the loan asset class by offering them a more accurate, transparent representation of the loan market."

The Markit index is the first leveraged loan index to use up-to-date reference and transaction data in its daily calculation. At launch, the index will consist of approximately 800 loans from over 700 issuers. The index will have minimum size requirements, liquidity measures and weighting caps at the issuer, facility and sector level to ensure proper representation within the index.

The Markit LLI complements Markit's existing loan products and services and will serve as the basis for expanded offerings during 2010 including European leveraged loan indices, customized leveraged loan indices and performance attribution and analytics products.

Gunther Stein, Chief Investment Officer of Symphony Asset Management, LLC, said: "We are pleased to see Markit's extension into the leveraged loan index space. As the manager of a variety of leveraged loan strategies, we feel that this new product offers an attractive tool for both loan managers and their clients."

Markit's indices are objective, transparent and rules-based. Daily index closing prices are published on http://indices.markit.com.

About Markit
Markit is a leading, global financial information services company with over 1,400 employees. The company provides independent data, valuations and trade processing across all asset classes in order to enhance transparency, reduce risk and improve operational efficiency. Its client base includes the most significant institutional participants in the financial market place.

For More Information, Please Contact
Michael Gormley
Director
Markit
Telephone: +1 212 205 1310
Email: michael.gormley@markit.com