Credit Suisse Asset Management Announces Addition of Four Credit Research Analysts to US Team.

NEW YORK -- Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) announced today the appointment of four additional credit analysts to its US Fixed Income team.

Annelise Eschmann joins CSAM as a Director from Invesco, where she spent six years as a senior high yield analyst. Prior to that, she was a high yield analyst at Bear Stearns; she has considerable emerging markets experience as well. Annelise brings roughly 16 years of total investment research and management experience to CSAM.

Amy Brown joins CSAM as a Director, also from Invesco, where she was a senior high yield analyst; she began her career in the legal industry. Prior to that, she spent five years as a high yield analyst at Bear Stearns. Amy brings approximately 16 years of total investment research, bankruptcy, and litigation experience to the firm.

Brian Reid joins as a Vice President from Oppenheimerfunds where he was a high yield analyst. He also has extensive tax-exempt research and corporate trust experience. Brian brings nearly 10 years of total research and financial analysis experience to the CSAM research team.

In addition, Anuj Gulati recently joined CSAM as a Vice President from TIAA-CREF, where he was an investment grade and crossover credit analyst. Anuj brings close to 10 years of research and management experience to CSAM's credit research platform.

Commenting on the appointments, Michael Gray, global head of Credit Research for CSAM said, "We are very pleased to have people with this depth and breadth of experience joining our global credit research team, which now includes over 20 contributors. These are all experienced professionals who will help us deliver on our commitment to provide superior research content to the firm's clients globally."

Dennis Schaney, CSAM's global Head of Fixed Income said, "We have a solid Fixed Income platform in place here in the US on both the portfolio management and research sides, and these four hires further enhance our ability to provide specialized research coverage of the broad US investment grade and high yield credit markets. We are excited to have them on the team."

Credit Suisse Asset Management is the institutional and mutual fund asset management arm of Credit Suisse First Boston, part of the Credit Suisse Group, one of the world's largest financial organizations with approximately USD 1048 billion in assets under management. Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) is a leading global investment bank serving institutional, corporate, government and individual clients. CSFB's businesses include securities underwriting, sales and trading, investment banking, private equity, financial advisory services, investment research, venture capital, correspondent brokerage services and asset management. CSFB operates in 69 locations in 33 countries across five continents.

As of June 30 2005, Credit Suisse Asset Management employed 1911 people worldwide and had global assets under management of approximately USD 327.8 billion. Please note that this is not an offer for advisory services by Credit Suisse Asset Management. For more information on Credit Suisse Asset Management, please visit our website at www.csam.com.