Russell indexes Rank #1 as Institutional Benchmarks (Russell.com)

Russell indexes Rank #1 as Institutional Benchmarks
New Survey Shows Russell Leads with 54% Share of all Products

Tacoma, WA — June 29, 2006 — Russell indexes rank as the most widely used set of U.S. equity performance benchmarks among institutional investment products and account for an industry-leading 54% of the benchmarks in funds used by corporate pension plans and other institutional investment organizations. In addition, Russell indexes for the first time also account for more than half of all institutional assets benchmarked. An annual survey measuring market share of various stock index families shows Russell's family of U.S. indexes continues to gain in institutional usage while other index groups continue to experience flat or declining market share.

The survey also found in terms of institutional usage Russell's indexes represent nine of the top 10 benchmarks in terms of the number of products as well as the amount of assets. The small-cap Russell 2000® Index continues to rank as the second most commonly used equity benchmark in the number of products, but the large-cap Russell 1000® Growth Index is close behind in the third spot and on track to surpass the Russell 2000.

In terms of institutional assets, Russell's two large-cap style indexes—Russell 1000 Growth and the Russell 1000® Value Index—account for more than $1 trillion combined and each has more assets benchmarked to it than the Russell 2000.

These rankings were determined by an examination of 3,106 U.S. equity products listed in Nelson Information's Marketplace Web database that report using a benchmark. The findings are posted on www.russell.com.

"More and more professional investors are turning to our objective tools to measure the relative performance of investment funds," said Kelly Haughton, strategic director for Russell indexes. "Since Russell indexes are a direct outgrowth of our multi-manager investment business, they were specifically created as broadly representative and unbiased performance benchmarks."

Russell's family of indexes again this year was the only major set of benchmarks to gain market share based on product usage, continuing a trend identified by Nelson in its original survey of benchmark usage in 1998. Russell's market share has increased from 18.5% in 1996, 27.9% in 1998 and 39.3% in 2002, 48.6% in 2004 and 54.5% in 2006.

The strongest shift among Russell indexes was the surge in use of Russell's growth and value style indexes. The Russell 1000 Growth, for example, now is the benchmark of choice for 264 investment products, increasing from 23 in 1996.

Individually, the top 10 U.S. equity benchmarks ranked by usage by the number of products are the Standard & Poors 500 Index, Russell 2000, Russell 1000 Growth, Russell 1000 Value, Russell 2000® Growth Index, Russell 2000® Value Index, Russell 2500™ Index, Russell Midcap® Growth Index, Russell Midcap® Value Index and Russell 3000® Index.

Russell originally developed and still uses its indexes as tools to help pension plan sponsors and other investors evaluate the performance of active investment managers. The indexes also help investors assemble and evaluate a total portfolio by using benchmarks that reflect particular market segments based on objective criteria, such as capitalization and tradable shares.

More than $3.8 trillion in assets are benchmarked to Russell indexes, according to a cross-examination of Nelson Information's MarketPlace Web database, a Russell index client survey and Morningstar's Direct database.

A similar survey in Japan found that more than 2.6 trillion yen in passively managed assets are now benchmarked against the relatively new Russell/Nomura Prime Index, which gained 8.6% in market share during the year ending March 31. Overall, usage of the Russell/Nomura family grew in benchmarked assets and Russell/Nomura indexes now rank second in terms of usage for passive and active benchmarks in the Japanese market.

About Russell
Russell Investment Group, global leader in multi-manager investing, provides investment products and services in 44 countries. Russell manages more than $167 billion in assets and advises clients worldwide representing more than $2.4 trillion. Founded in 1936, Russell is a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual and is headquartered in Tacoma, Wash., with additional offices in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, Auckland and Tokyo. For more information about Russell, go to www.russell.com.

Russell Investment Group is a registered trade name of Frank Russell Company, a Washington, USA corporation, which operates through subsidiaries worldwide. Frank Russell Company is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly.

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