December 26, 2006

MICEX Stock Exchange has made the following changes in the MICEX Index after the close of trading on Monday, December 25, 2006. Norilsk Nickel 4-th and 5-th issues have been substituted with new issue which will trade under the GMNK ticker symbol. The company▓s Free Float has been changed from 0.38 to 0.27. As a result Norilsk Nickel, a member of MICEX Index will decrease its index shares from 81,284,235 to 51,469,491.

Today, shares in Norilsk Nickel account for 11.6% in the MICEX Index.

Background

The MICEX Index has been calculated since 22 September 1997. It is a classical effective capitalization-weighted index of the market for most liquid shares of Russian market (at present: 21 stocks). The market capitalization of all securities comprising the MICEX Index basket is calculated taking into account the proportion of the free-float. Today, the MICEX Index is used by management companies as a base index for 17 index funds. The value of their net assets is 4 billion rubles.