The fully automated Web-based platform, an outgrowth of NASDAQ's 17-year old PORTAL system, is the first and only centralized electronic system for displaying and accessing trading interest in 144A issues.

The new PORTAL system is available to all qualified users. It is intended to improve the efficiency and transparency of the private placement market - thereby encouraging capital formation.

"The launch of NASDAQ's PORTAL trading platform is a milestone in the transformation of the capital raising process in the U.S.," said NASDAQ Executive Vice President John Jacobs. "The PORTAL platform will bring the same efficiency and transparency to the 144A market that NASDAQ brought to public equity trading in the U.S. 36 years ago."

The PORTAL Market has this year alone designated more than 1,700 144A equity and debt securities as PORTAL securities, compared to nearly 2,700 in all of 2006. Among the companies that have raised capital using The PORTAL Market this year and last are Archer Daniels Midland Company, Adidas (Germany), Bank of China, Roseneft (Russia), Samsung (Korea), Telstra (Australia), and UTI Bank (India).

Following today's launch of a centralized trading and negotiation system for 144A equity securities, NASDAQ anticipates it will phase in debt securities in the fourth quarter.

The private placement market has grown substantially in the last five years. NASDAQ estimates that the amount of equity and debt capital raised using Rule 144A has grown three-fold since 2002 and exceeded $1 trillion in 2006 for the first time. In the first half of 2007, global equity and debt capital raised in conjunction with a 144A tranche was almost $1 trillion, a 43% increase over the first half of 2006.