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Jpmorgan Appointed Successor Depositary Bank For Sanofi–Aventis Adr Program


WEBWIRE

JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services today announced it has been named successor depositary bank for the American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program of Sanofi-aventis, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Sanofi-aventis’ ADR program is the largest in France and is among the top 10 ADR programs in Western Europe, as measured by number of ADRs outstanding.

The average daily trading volume of Sanofi-aventis ADRs is $78 million year-to-date, with total ADR holdings in Sanofi-aventis exceeding $9 billion at 30 October*.

Claudine Gallagher, global head of depositary receipts at JPMorgan, said, “We are very pleased to be working with a blue-chip company like Sanofi-aventis. We look forward to helping Sanofi-aventis fully leverage its ADR program to support the company’s global growth initiatives. This mandate is testament to JPMorgan’s strong position in the depositary receipt industry, in both developed and emerging markets.”

Institutional ownership of, and trading in, the ADRs of French and Developed Europe companies has increased significantly this year. Institutional ownership of French ADRs was $43 billion at the end of second quarter 2007, up 38 percent from a year earlier. For the first nine months of this year, trading in French ADRs totalled $98.5 billion, up from $55 billion in the same period last year.

Among ADRs issued globally, those from Developed Europe are the most widely-held by institutional investors, attracting 44 percent of total ADR ownership. At the end of second quarter 2007, institutional ownership of Developed Europe ADRs was $357 billion, up from $289 billion versus last year. ADRs from this region were also the mostly actively traded during the first nine months of 2007, with $752 billion worth of ADRs changing hands, up from $479 billion traded during last year’s comparable period.

Sanofi-aventis is the seventh sponsored program in the EMEA region this year for which JPMorgan was named depositary bank. JPMorgan’s other depositary bank mandates this year include: ADR programs for Iberdrola and IntesaSanPaolo in Western Europe; and GDR programs for Integra, which has operations in Russia; Guaranty Trust Bank in Nigeria; Vimetco, which has operations in China and Romania; and Croatia Telecom.

JPMorgan succeeded The Bank of New York as depositary bank for the Sanofi-aventis program.



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