Toronto, Ontario (May 2, 2006) – CanDeal, Canada's leader in online debt securities trading is pleased to announce that Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. has agreed to a multi-year commitment to join its marketplace. 

Merrill Lynch, a leading global dealer providing its clients with in-depth knowledge and expertise for a wide range of products is the latest global liquidity provider to join CanDeal’s Government of Canada and Provincial bond trading platforms.

Lynn Patterson, President, Merrill Lynch Canada said, "Participating in CanDeal reinforces our commitment to the Canadian marketplace and our leadership position in servicing our global institutional client base. CanDeal’s success is consistent with the experience that we have seen in other major markets. Canadian institutional fixed income investors have embraced electronic trading and we look forward to providing our clients, inside and outside of Canada, with all the benefits of online execution." 

Jayson Horner, President and CEO of CanDeal, added, "I am pleased to welcome another premier global financial services organization to the CanDeal marketplace. This development is a testament to the value that CanDeal has created for investment dealers as an effective means of serving clients and complementing global strategies.”

The evolution of CanDeal in the Canadian debt capital markets has been a material step towards providing a superior environment for trade execution and post trade efficiencies. As the importance of best execution, compliance, transaction archiving and automated trade processing escalate; CanDeal provides proven and cost effective solutions that will ensure the long term global competitive position of the Canadian debt capital markets and its participants.

About CanDeal 
CanDeal is Canada's leading multi-dealer to institutional investor online debt securities marketplace (www.candeal.ca). CanDeal's world class platform provides its global participants with continuous access to the deepest pool of liquidity for Canadian fixed income products. CanDeal delivers the market making power of eleven leading investment dealers. In partnership with Thomson TradeWeb, the network also offers Canadian institutional investors access to a wide range of U.S. and European debt products.

The CanDeal electronic marketplace is open and available to all institutional investors and investment dealers in North America. In addition to straight through-processing, online trade allocations, real time trade blotters and confirmations, CanDeal is also a leading innovator in the fixed income markets for best execution, superior compliance & audit measurement and benchmarking. CanDeal also provides a real time market data price feed for fixed income securities.

About Merrill Lynch Canada
Merrill Lynch Canada, with offices in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver provides investment banking, advisory services, equity and debt trading and sales, and research products and services to institutional, corporate and government clients.  With the largest wholesale presence of any global investment bank in Canada, Merrill Lynch is uniquely positioned to provide its clients with both domestic and global solutions.

Merrill Lynch is one of the world’s leading wealth management, capital markets and advisory companies with offices in 36 countries and territories and total client assets of approximately $1.8 trillion.  As an investment bank, it is a leading global trader and underwriter of securities and derivatives across a broad range of asset classes and serves as a 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 $581 billion.  For more information on Merrill Lynch, please visit www.ml.com.