Standard & Poor's Announces Changes in S&P Euro and Euro Plus Indices

NEW YORK (PROTEXT) - Standard & Poor's will make the followingchanges in the S&P Euro and S&P Euro Plus Indices after the closeof trading Friday December 3rd, 1999: -- Hoechst AG will be deleted from both the S&P Euro and theS&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 atelecommunications services company in Finland. Its investableweight factor is expected to be 0.42. It will be added to the S&PTelecommunication Services sector. -- Rhone-Poulenc will be changing its name to Aventiseffective December 20, 1999. The S&P Euro Index covers the Eurobloc countries; the S&P EuroPlus Index covers Continental Europe by including the Euromarkets plus Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The S&PEuro Plus Index contains 200 constituents, and the S&P EuroIndex, a subset of Euro Plus, contains 160 constituents. TheIndices provide geographic and economic diversity over 10industry sectors. The indices are calculated real-time byReuters. Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies,Inc., provides financial, economic and investment information andanalytical services to the global financial community. S&Pcalculates and maintains the S&P Global Index, which includes theS&P Euro and Euro Plus for Continental Europe, the S&P/TSE 60 forCanada, the S&P 500 for the U.S., the S&P/TOPIX for Japan, theS&P Asia Pacific 100, the S&P United Kingdom 150 and the S&PLatin America 40. S&P also publishes the S&P MidCap 400, S&PSmallCap 600, S&P SuperComposite 1500 and S&P REIT Composite forthe U.S. and the S&P/TSE Canadian MidCap and S&P/TSE CanadianSmallCap Indices. Over $750 billion is indexed to S&P indices. Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies is a leadinginformation services provider meeting worldwide needs ineducation, business, finance, the professions and government. Thecorporation employs 16,500 people located in more than 400offices in 32 countries. Sales in 1998 were $3.7 billion. Company additions to and deletions from an S&P equity index donot in any way reflect an opinion on the investment merits of thecompany. ots Original Text Service: Standard & Poor's Internet:http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Carol Levine, CommunicationsManager, Index Services of Standard & Poor's, 212-438-3534Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/140902.htmlor fax, 800-758-5804, ext. 140902 Web site:http://www.spglobal.com

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