Auerbach Grayson & Company adds Russian stock market specialist.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 21, 1996--Auerbach Grayson & Company Incorporated is pleased to announce the appointment of Alexander Rappoport to the position of President, Auerbach Grayson Russia. "Sasha Rappoport was instrumental in the privatization of the Russian securities market in the early 1990s and is a leading specialist on the Russian stock market," says Jonathan Auerbach, Managing Director of Auerbach Grayson. "We are privileged to have him at our firm."

Until recently joining Auerbach Grayson, Rappoport ran his own brokerage firm in Moscow. The firm, Europa Management Invest, was one of the largest brokerage firms in Russia. Prior to founding Europa Management, Rappoport was an attorney in Moscow and in Israel and served as a consultant to the Russian and Ukrainian governments on securities market privatization. He was educated at Moscow University.

Rappoport is responsible for Auerbach Grayson's day-to-day brokerage operations activity with respect to the Russian market including: researching companies, making investment recommendations and executing purchases and sales. In addition, he will be the portfolio manager of Auerbach Grayson's soon to be launched Russia Privitization Fund that will invest in securities of Russian companies sold at privitization auctions. "Institutional investors in the U.S. now have the opportunity to invest in one of the world's biggest markets, and certainly one of the most undervalued," says Rappoport. Russian companies are priced 70 percent to 95 percent below their true value, he says. "There are companies in Russia that are industry leaders and they are available at far better prices than comparable companies in Europe or the U.S.," he explains.

Investors should not be overly concerned with risk, according to Rappoport. Economic risk is limited because Russian companies are significantly underpriced and political risk has lessened since President Yeltsin's re-election in July. Evidence of the reduction in risk has been seen in the recent classification of Russian bonds by the well known credit rating services. Russia's long-term foreign debt was assigned a BA2 rating by Moody's, BB- by Standard & Poor's and BB+ by IBCA. "This places Russia among the best of the emerging debtor nations, comparable to Mexico and Hungary," adds Rappoport.

Auerbach Grayson & Company is a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). Having established a unique partnership of local brokers worldwide, it is the only firm in the U.S. whose business is providing direct research, execution and settlement on a local basis in foreign securities markets for major U.S. institutions. In the past year Auerbach Grayson & Company provided specialized research on over 2000 public companies in the more than 50 capital markets represented in their network of foreign brokers worldwide. Auerbach Grayson is headquartered in New York and was established in 1993.

CONTACT: Thompson Becker International, Inc.

James O'Connell or Jennifer Regan, 508/698-0448