As it was already announced on December 20, 2002, the Athens Exchange (ATHEX) in cooperation with FTSE Group, the global index provider, is launching today a new benchmark index covering the Greek market, the FTSE / ASE 140 Index.

FTSE / ASE 140 index has an index base of 2,000 units and comprises the 140 stocks of the existing FTSE / ASE 20 (blue chips), FTSE / ASE Midcap 40 (medium capitalization) and FTSE / ASE Smallcap 80 (small capitalization) indices. The new index will be calculated every trading day in real time, and will be reviewed twice a year in April and October, according to the established FTSE Ground Rules.

The FTSE / ASE 140 index will represent a benchmark of ATHEX performance and will provide a high correlation between the Greek Index and other foreign Indices. As Peter de Graaf, Managing Director of FTSE Europe has mentioned: The addition of the FTSE / ASE 140 to the FTSE/ASE series provides overseas and domestic investors with an easy to use and reliable benchmark for the Greek market. According to Dr. Panayotis Alexakis, Chairman of the Athens Stock Exchange: The index will improve the profile of all Greek companies to both domestic and international investors.