Standard & Poor's will make the following changes in the S&P Euro and S&P Euro Plus Indices after the close of trading Friday December 3rd, 1999: -- Hoechst AG will be deleted from both the S&P Euro and the S&P Euro Plus Indices, following its acquisition by Rhone- Poulenc. Rhone-Poulenc already owns 96% of Hoechst AG. -- Sonera OYJ will replace Hoechst AG. Sonera OYJ is a telecommunications services company in Finland. Its investable weight factor is expected to be 0.42. It will be added to the S&P Telecommunication Services sector. -- Rhone-Poulenc will be changing its name to Aventis effective December 20, 1999. The S&P Euro Index covers the Eurobloc countries; the S&P Euro Plus Index covers Continental Europe by including the Euro markets plus Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The S&P Euro Plus Index contains 200 constituents, and the S&P Euro Index, a subset of Euro Plus, contains 160 constituents. The Indices provide geographic and economic diversity over 10 industry sectors. The indices are calculated real-time by Reuters. Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., provides financial, economic and investment information and analytical services to the global financial community. S&P calculates and maintains the S&P Global Index, which includes the S&P Euro and Euro Plus for Continental Europe, the S&P/TSE 60 for Canada, the S&P 500 for the U.S., the S&P/TOPIX for Japan, the S&P Asia Pacific 100, the S&P United Kingdom 150 and the S&P Latin America 40. S&P also publishes the S&P MidCap 400, S&P SmallCap 600, S&P SuperComposite 1500 and S&P REIT Composite for the U.S. and the S&P/TSE Canadian MidCap and S&P/TSE Canadian SmallCap Indices. Over $750 billion is indexed to S&P indices. Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies is a leading information services provider meeting worldwide needs in education, business, finance, the professions and government. The corporation employs 16,500 people located in more than 400 offices in 32 countries. Sales in 1998 were $3.7 billion. Company additions to and deletions from an S&P equity index do not in any way reflect an opinion on the investment merits of the company. ots Original Text Service: Standard & Poor's Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Carol Levine, Communications Manager, Index Services of Standard & Poor's, 212-438-3534 Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/140902.html or fax, 800-758-5804, ext. 140902 Web site: http://www.spglobal.com