Andrew Ertel Founds Evolution Markets, LLC; Firm to Broker, Advise in Emerging Energy and Environmental Markets.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 22, 2000

Andrew Ertel announced today that he has founded Evolution Markets LLC, a firm devoted to brokering physical and derivative products as well as providing advisory services in the emerging global institutional energy and environmental markets.

Mr. Ertel, 32, is president and chief executive of Evolution Markets. Joining him are Tom Hiemstra, as vice president, coal services, John Dall, as vice president, environmental services and Anne Egelston, as analyst, environmental services.

"While our initial focus will be on structuring transactions for our clients in the environmental and energy areas, we plan on providing risk management advisory services to institutions in these markets and others," said Mr. Ertel. "With the growth of E-commerce, the brokerage industry is evolving from a pure execution to an information business. Our goal is to build a team of industry experts that will utilize the latest technology to add value by providing the best news, analysis and education available to our clients. Evolution Markets will not only keep our clients ahead of changes in the growing markets for greenhouse gas (GHG), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission credits and OTC coal but help our clients build these markets as well."

Prior to founding Evolution Markets, Mr. Ertel was a principal of Natsource LLC, where he launched their new markets group and led it to become a worldwide leader of emission trading brokerage. As pioneers in developing new markets, Mr. Ertel's group structured the first brokered weather derivative, the first NOx allowance transaction and was a leading over-the-counter coal broker. Mr. Ertel is a founder and vice president of the Emissions Marketing Association, a trade group consisting of 150 international companies. He is a former member of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), where he traded crude oil futures and was also a natural gas and crude oil broker at Gerald Energy from 1992 to 1995. In addition he serves on NYMEX's coal futures advisory board and is a member of New York Coal Trade Association.

Mr. Hiemstra is a 12-year veteran in the coal marketing area, nationally and globally. Prior to joining Evolution Markets, he was vice president-sales in the New York office of Ruhrkohle Trading Company one of the top five coal producers in the global markets. He started his career with Shell Mining Company in 1988 in coal marketing. In addition he was a founder of Commonwealth Coal of Richmond, Virginia.

Mr. Dall is a former member of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where he specialized in options markets. John most recently was manager of over the counter mid-continent electricity brokerage for a major Wall Street firm.

Ms. Egelston brings a superior back ground in policy and analysis to Evolution. She was manager, emissions trading at Reliant Energy Services of Houston where she also served as an environmental engineer.

Starting March 6, 2000, Evolution Markets will be headquartered at 65 Broadway in New York City. As of the 6th their telephone number is 212/430-6475 and their web page is www.evomarkets.com.