NEW YORK (Oct. 28, 2003) — Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced that it will expand its index services through Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes, Inc. (DJHFI). Beginning in November, DJHFI will begin publishing the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks that were created to underlie investable products.

Mike Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes/Ventures and director of DJHFI, said, “The Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks represent the unique returns of five robust hedge fund strategies, offer risk control through diversification and leverage guidelines, and provide the transparency needed by this growing investment class.”

DJHFI has assumed ownership of the indexes from Lyra Capital LLC. DJHFI will be responsible for the ongoing design, construction and maintenance of the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks.

Garry Crowder, CEO, Lyra Capital LLC, said, “Lyra Capital is the successor firm to Zurich Institutional Benchmarks Management LLC. Over the past three years, we have been a leader in the research and development of meaningful hedge fund structures for institutional clients. The assumption by Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes as the owner and provider of the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks ensures that these indexes will continue to be at the forefront of the hedge fund indexes marketplace.”

The Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks are designed as a measurement tool for individual hedge fund strategies and cover five distinct areas — Equity Market Neutral, Convertible Arbitrage, Distressed Securities, Merger Arbitrage and Event Driven. Dow Jones Indexes provides style pure hedge fund index strategies with highly correlated and clustered component returns, and avoided constructing a broad composite index that would crowd a wide-ranging variety of funds under one designation. The index methodology and the index components will generally be publicly available on the Dow Jones Indexes Web site at www.djindexes.com.

DJHFI has established an index advisory committee to ensure that the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks remain innovative, methodology is consistent and that an objective process for index composition is always followed. The committee has nine members including representation from DJHFI, Dow Jones Indexes and seven representatives of institutional plans and programs with active hedge fund investment strategies.

Dow Jones Indexes Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmark Advisory Committee Members

• John A. Prestbo, Editor, Dow Jones Indexes, Chairman of the Dow Jones index oversight committee
• Ridgely Walters, President of Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes, Inc. and Senior Director, Client Development and Sales, Dow Jones Indexes
• Garry Crowder, Founder and CEO Lyra Capital LLC
• Nancy Everett, Chief Investment Officer, Virginia Retirement Systems
• Philip Halpern, Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, The University of Chicago
• Neil J. Petroff, Senior Vice President, International Equities Indices, Fixed Income and Alternative Investments, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan
• Laurence Siegel, Director, Investment Policy Research, The Ford Foundation
• Edgar J. Sullivan, Vice President of Investment Research and Co-Portfolio Manager, Absolute Return Strategy, General Motors Asset Management
• Mark W. Yusko, Chief Investment Officer, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC; President and CEO, UNC Management Company, Inc.