Merrill Lynch Launches `BookMark,' a New Index Service for Book Incom

    Business Editors

    NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 27, 2005--Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) today launched its new Book Measured Asset Return Indices(SM) (BookMark(SM)), a service designed to meet the performance measurement needs of investors who record their fixed income investment portfolios on a historical cost basis.
    To date, traditional fixed income performance indices only presented results in terms of total rate of return, which assumes that all assets are recorded at current market values. Many investors, such as insurance companies and banks, record their investment assets on an historical cost basis. BookMark provides these investors with accurate performance reporting by applying similar accounting treatment to a selected index. BookMark also allows investors to customize their performance benchmark to take account of investment policy guidelines, the timing of portfolio cash flows and constraints on recognition of capital gains and losses.
    Performance measurement of fixed income portfolios first began in the 1970s, following the development of the very first fixed income total return indices. Since that time, the investment tools that are available to analyze the total return performance of a portfolio versus its benchmark index have become quite sophisticated. Book income investors have long sought appropriate benchmarks for their portfolios. The development of comparable measurement standards and analysis tools for the book income oriented investor had been missing.
    "BookMark fills that void and is able to deal with the complexities of cash flow and capital gain/loss constraints, which are unique to each portfolio, making the resulting indices a meaningful performance measure for book income oriented investors," said Phil Galdi, managing director of Merrill Lynch's global index team.
    BookMark Index results are compiled on both a pre- and after-tax basis and include statistics such as book yield, ordinary income, capital gain/loss, book income and unrealized gains/losses. This allows investors to view after-tax results based on their own effective tax rates. BookMark Indices are available on Merrill Lynch's Global Index System which can be accessed on Bloomberg (IND(Go)).

    Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading financial management and advisory companies, with offices in 36 countries and total client assets of approximately $1.5 trillion. As an investment bank, it is a leading global underwriter of debt and equity securities and strategic advisor to corporations, governments, institutions and individuals worldwide. Through Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, the company is one of the world's largest managers of financial assets. Firmwide assets under management total $478 billion. For more information on Merrill Lynch, please visit www.ml.com.

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CONTACT: Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., New York Carrie Gray, 212-449-2845 carrie_gray@ml.com

KEYWORD: NEW YORK INDUSTRY KEYWORD: BANKING PRODUCT SOURCE: Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

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