BNP Paribas Appoints Irene Rodriguez to Its New York Debt Capital Markets Business.

NEW YORK -- BNP Paribas is pleased to announce the appointment of Irene Rodriguez as a Managing Director in its Debt Capital Markets (DCM) team. She will be based in New York and report to Jim Turner, Head of DCM, North America. Irene will work closely with the Global Risk Solutions (GRS) and Debt Capital Markets groups to design and assist in the marketing of innovative solutions for the pension and insurance industries.

Irene joins the firm from Morgan Stanley in New York where she was an Executive Director in the Corporate Derivatives Group since 2002. In this role she led new product development efforts to improve competition in areas of Credit, FX and local derivatives. Prior to that, she worked at JP Morgan for eight years in the derivatives marketing group.

Commenting on the appointment, Jim Turner said, "The pension issue, in particular, is becoming increasingly important to U.S. clients and so we are excited that Irene has joined our firm with a specific focus on this subject. She brings the right combination of skills to this newly created position."

Kip Testwuide, Head of Origination and Distribution added, "We believe that there are capital market solutions to help pension fund managers more efficiently solve the equation that optimizes the risk between actuarial driven liabilities and assets that are invested in the market. Coupling Irene's derivative skills with the actuarial and accounting expertise in our GRS team will be very powerful."

About BNP Paribas

BNP Paribas (www.bnpparibas.com) is a European leader in banking and financial services, with a significant and growing presence in the United States and leading positions in Asia. The most profitable bank in the Euro zone, it has a presence in 85 countries with close to 100,000 employees. The group enjoys key positions in Corporate and Investment Banking, Private Banking & Asset Management, Insurance, Securities Services and Retail Banking.

BNP Paribas provides a full array of financial products through a portfolio of brands that cover a variety of distribution channels. With offices in New York, BNP Paribas in North America offers a broad range of corporate, investment banking and securities brokerage activities. With locations in all the major corporate and financial centers across the United States and Canada, BNP Paribas in North America serves a world-class client base of multinational corporate and mid-cap companies, major issuers and institutional buyers. As a registered member of the NYSE, a NASD broker-dealer and member of SIPC, BNP Paribas Securities Corp. trades and markets a vast array of global and domestic fixed income and equity products