Aggregate Dollar Value of Trading Exceeds $100 billion

August 18, 2004 (TORONTO) – Today, CanDeal.ca announced that the volume traded in debt securities by Institutional Investors on CanDeal’s trading network has surpassed $100 billion. This marks a milestone in CanDeal’s brief history of providing institutional investors and dealers with online debt trading and market data tools to compliment their traditional market activities.

“With over 100 unique institutional users executing trades, combined with our data distribution agreements with TSX Datalinx and three leading market data vendors, and now $100 billion traded - we continue to see strong market validation of our platform and trading model,” says Jayson Horner, President and CEO of CanDeal.  Increasingly, asset managers, investment counselors, corporate and public pension funds, mutual fund companies, government and corporate treasury desks, and life insurance companies are using CanDeal for debt trading in all market conditions.  Online trading allows them to achieve best execution using consistently applied trade management practices and to realize electronic trade processing efficiencies.

CanDeal provides value to fixed-income market professionals through its complete and accurate views of market prices; continuous access to Canada’s deepest pool of liquidity; effective price discovery through its RFQ trading protocol; fast execution; detailed audit trail and on-line recordkeeping; and straight-through processing solutions.  “CanDeal’s electronic debt-trading platform is becoming a core element of institutional trading, complimenting the institutional investors’ tool set of information, transaction, and post-trade management solutions,” says Mr. Horner.

"I like CanDeal's order execution capability.  My bond orders are executed in a swift and efficient manner at the best price available," says Paul Fahey, managing partner for Aurion Capital Management Inc. "CanDeal's automatically generated audit trail greatly simplifies our post-trade documentation and compliance procedures."

"My goal is to have a higher standard in our trade management practices.  The CanDeal trading protocol helps me in achieving the best execution for my clients by creating a very competitive auction environment," adds Mark Carpani vice president of Bonds for Mulvihill Capital Management.
CanDeal provides its network subscribers with unparalleled price transparency and trade execution for Government of Canada Bonds and T-Bills, Provincial issues, and Canada Housing Trust CMB’s.  CanDeal’s liquidity pool consists of Canada’s six largest and most active domestic dealers.

About CanDeal.ca Inc.
CanDeal is Canada's leading institutional customer-to-multi-dealer online fixed income trading network. CanDeal's robust and reliable platform provides its participants with continuous access to the deepest pool of liquidity for fixed income products. Today, the network delivers the market making power of the six largest domestic investment dealers to Canada's largest institutional customers. The CanDeal electronic marketplace is open and available to all institutional buy-side participants and dealers across Canada.

CanDeal’s fair and open proprietary auction model permits authorized institutional market participants to receive live dealing quotes simultaneously from multiple dealers and to execute a trade at the best price in a fraction of a second. As a leader in straight-through processing (STP) solutions, CanDeal provides its participants with electronic trade reporting, online detailed audit trails, an integrated trade allocation facility and trade data export capability.  CanDeal also provides a real time market data price feed for the fixed income securities traded on its platform.

CanDeal was formed in June 2001 to create a neutral marketplace providing end-to-end efficient transaction solutions. CanDeal is the first debt securities trading system to be recognized across Canada by all securities regulators as an Alternative Trading System (ATS) and an investment dealer.  In addition, CanDeal is a member of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada and the Canadian Investor Protection Fund.