BNP Paribas Continues to Build in the Midwest Region.

NEW YORK -- BNP Paribas is pleased to announce a significant expansion of its Chicago Institutional Fixed Income Sales team with the appointments of Liz Kullman to its High Yield Sales desk, Gene Zmuda to its Short Term Sales desk, Paul Lucchesi to its High Grade Sales desk and Monty Gandhi to its Interest Rate Sales team.

Liz joins the firm from Bank One Capital Markets where she was a Director in Institutional High Yield Bond Sales since 1999. Prior to that, she spent one year at SG Cowen as a Director in Institutional High Yield Bond Sales. Before that, she was part of the original High Yield Bond effort at BancAmerica Securities.

Gene also joins the firm from Bank One Capital Markets where he worked as a Director in U.S. Institutional Sales covering accounts for all short term and ABS products. Prior to that, he spent 14 years at Merrill Lynch, most recently in the Midwest Institutional Client Group.

Paul joins from BNP Paribas' London office where he was a Senior Trader responsible for trading U.S. credits in the European time zone. He will now cover Institutional Investors in the region for credit products. Paul joined BNP Paribas London in 2001 from UBS Paine Webber where he was responsible for developing the U.S. credit business in Europe.

Commenting on the appointments, Kip Testwuide, Head of Sales and Origination said, "These appointments will further our plan to build a full service distribution business in a full range of U.S. dollar products. The additions and the recent opening of our Institutional Sales desk in San Francisco, reinforces our commitment to clients across the U.S.

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 Sates and leading positions in Asia. The most profitable bank in the Euro zone, it has a presence in 85 countries with 89,400 employees. The group enjoys key positions in Corporate and Investment Banking, Private Banking & Asset Management, Insurance, Securities Services and Retail Banking.

Headquartered 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 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. In the U.S., BNP Paribas offers retail banking and financial services through BancWest Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary.