Background

Collins Stewart Tullett is a global financial services group listed on the London Stock Exchange, a constituent of the FTSE mid 250 index. The Group comprises the world's second largest inter-dealer broker and the leading independent UK stockbroking business.

The stockbroking business was established in 1991. It floated on the main market of the London Stock Exchange in October 2000. The acquisition of Tullett Liberty was completed on 10 March 2003 and that of Prebon completed on 13 October 2004.

IDB Business

The Group's IDB business operates under the Tullett Prebon brand as one of the world's largest inter-dealer brokers.

Tullett Prebon operates as an intermediary in wholesale financial markets facilitating the trading activities of its clients, in particular commercial and investment banks. In certain product areas the customer base also includes financial institutions and other professional investors.

Tullett Liberty was founded in 1971 and focused during its early years on foreign exchange markets. During the 1970's and 1980's, Tullett developed a number of overseas offices. In 2000 Tullett merged with Liberty Brokerage to create Tullett Liberty.

Prebon was formed in 1990 following the merger of three leading London-based money broking businesses - Babcock & Brown, Kirkland-Whittaker and Fulton Prebon. In acknowledgement of the firm's close business alliance with the Tokyo-based Central Tanshi, formerly Yamane Tanshi, the group trading name was changed in 1992 to its current title of Prebon Yamane. Evidencing the strength of this relationship, in 1993 the name of the international moneybroking division of Yamane Tanshi was changed to Yamane Prebon.

The IDB business has its principal offices in London, New York/New Jersey, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, with other offices in Frankfurt, Paris, Luxembourg, Sydney, Toronto, Warsaw and Zurich. It also has joint ventures in Bahrain, Bangalore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Mumbai .

The IDB business covers five major product groups: Fixed Income Securities and their derivatives, Interest Rate Derivatives, Treasury Products, Equities and Energy. In addition, the business has an information sales activity.

Tullett Prebon has a "hybrid" model with its voice broking services being provided to clients through direct lines to trading desks supported by proprietary screens which display historical data, analytics and real time prices. The business brokes a broad range of financial market products on either a "name give-up" basis (where the counterparties to a transaction settle directly with each other) or a "matched principal" basis (where Tullett Prebon are the counterparty to each leg of a transaction).

Tullett Liberty developed a proprietary multi-product broking platform, Data:marker, which supports both brokers and clients with capabilities such as on-screen price display, analytics, access to historical price information and automated post-trade feeds. It is intended that this model shall be rolled out across the entire Tullett Prebon business in the forthcoming months.

Collins Stewart Europe Limited

The activities of Collins Stewart Europe Limited span institutional and private client stockbroking, market making, corporate finance, fund management and the supply of on-line financial information. It was founded in 1991 as a partnership with Singer & Friedlander and was part of them until the management buy-out in May 2000. Since its formation Collins Stewart has grown rapidly, partly through acquisition (Greig Middleton’s Channel Islands business in 1996 and the private client division of NatWest Stockbrokers in 2001) and partly through organic development. The firm has established itself as one of London’s leading independent UK stockbrokers. Collins Stewart now employs some 400 staff operating in offices in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, New York, The Channel Islands, Isle of Man, and Uxbridge.

Collins Stewart’s main quantitative research is its Quest™ on-line share evaluation system which is currently supplied to institutional investors in the UK, Europe, North America, and the Middle and Far East. In 2003 Collins Stewart completed a two year development project to expand the coverage of stocks by Quest™ from European to Asian and North American companies.

Further information on the services of Collins Stewart Europe Limited can be found on its website,http://www.collins-stewart.com, which also has links into the Channel Islands, New York and Quest™ websites.