ZURICH -- Gestnord Fondi has licensed the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) to align two existing funds with the DJSI family. The "Nordfondo Etico Obbligazionario Misto" - a balanced fund launched in March 1999 - will from now on apply the Dow Jones EURO STOXX Sustainability Index ex Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling, Armaments & Firearms as investment universe and benchmark for its stock holdings. The equity portion of "Sella Global Strategy SICAV Global Ethical Fund" - a global product launched in September 2000 - will be managed based on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index ex Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling, Armaments & Firearms. Assets under management in both funds currently amount to 18 million EURO.

"Gestnord Fondi entered the market for sustainability investing in 1999. Ever since, we have been closely tracking the development of specialized benchmarks in this area - in particular the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. We believe that the DJSI family offers our clients the most detailed and rigorous analysis for sustainability portfolios and we are looking forward to combining this platform with Gestnord's active management skills in the future.", says Silvia Bareggi, Portfolio Manager at Gestnord Fondi.

"We are delighted about Gestnord's decision to switch their two sustainability funds from a mainstream benchmark to the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. Over the last months we have been seeing an increasing interest among active asset managers to apply specialized benchmarks that accurately track the performance of their sustainability investment universe. Like growth or value investors who would use the relevant growth or value indexes to assess their performance, sustainability-driven investors increasingly recognize the advantages of specialized benchmarks based on sustainability. With the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes they get both - a thoroughly researched investment universe of sustainability leaders and an objective benchmark to evaluate their investment decisions.", says Alexander Barkawi, Managing Director at SAM Indexes.

Note to the editor:
Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are the first global indexes tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. Based on the cooperation of Dow Jones Indexes, STOXX Limited and SAM they provide asset managers with reliable and objective benchmarks to manage sustainability portfolios. More than 40 DJSI licenses are currently held by asset managers in 14 countries to manage a variety of financial products including actively and passively managed funds, certificates and segregated accounts. In total, they presently manage 2.1 billion EUR based on the DJSI. A list of the DJSI licensees is available at www.sustainability-indexes.com/htmle/other/licensing.html.

The Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes (DJSI World) cover the top 10% of the biggest 2,500 companies in the Dow Jones World Index in terms of economic, environmental and social criteria. As a benchmark for European sustainability investments, the Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability Indexes (DJSI STOXX) cover the leading 20% in terms of sustainability of the companies in the Dow Jones STOXXSM 600 index. The selection of index components follows a rule-based process defined in the DJSI Guidebooks. It is based on a thorough assessment of general and industry-specific sustainability criteria. The analysis is verified by an external auditor. Full details about the design philosophy, review methodology and index components are freely available at www.sustainability-indexes.com.

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