Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, New York, 27 March 2012: FTSE Group (“FTSE”), the award winning global index provider, today announces that NYSE Euronext (NYX), a leading global operator of financial markets and provider of innovative trading technologies, will be adopting the widely-used international sector classification standard – Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) – across its affiliated exchanges in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and the US.

NYSE Euronext compiles around 100 ICB classified sector-specific indices in the US and Europe, providing international investors with a range of accurate and robust sector investment options. More than 1,450 companies listed on the NYSE Euronext European Regulated Markets are assigned an ICB classification using the robust methodology, which categorises over 75,000 securities across 73 countries worldwide. NYSE Euronext joins several leading stock exchanges and index providers worldwide to have adopted ICB, altogether representing over 65% of the world’s market capitalisation.

George Patterson, Managing Director, Global Index Group at NYSE Euronext, said: “ICB remains at the cutting edge of offering its client base increased clarity and better structure and we have been using their methodology as part of a global market standard for analysis, listing, stock selection and performance measurement for almost ten years.”

“We are pleased that NYSE Euronext has adopted ICB across its worldwide exchanges. We are confident it will provide its clients with access to accurate and relevant classification,” said Sudir Raju, Managing Director of ICB at FTSE Group. “The fast-growing use of ICB amongst numerous exchanges worldwide reflects its global importance and marks another milestone in ICB’s global expansion as an industry standard.”

Emily Mok, Tel: +852 2164 3333 or emailmedia@ftse.com

Annie Evangeli, Tel: +44 20 7866 1821 or email media@ftse.com

Laurel Manning Tel: +1 212-314-1141 or email media@ftse.com

Amy Fong, Tel: +61 2 92 93 2867 or email media@ftse.com

Stewart Ueno/Kentaro Kamei, Tel: +81 3 35 81 3444 media@ftse.com

FTSE Group (“FTSE”) is a world-leader in the creation and management of indices. With offices in London, Beijing, Dubai, Milan, Mumbai, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Sydney, Shanghai and Tokyo, FTSE works with investors in 77 countries globally. It calculates and manages a comprehensive range of equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity and non market-cap indices, on both a standard and custom basis. The company has collaborative arrangements with a number of stock exchanges, trade bodies and asset class specialists around the world.

FTSE indices are used extensively by investors world-wide for investment analysis, performance measurement, asset allocation, portfolio hedging and for creating a wide range of index tracking funds.

FTSE is an independent company owned by the London Stock Exchange Group.