Mediobanca and UBS global coordinators for Il Sole 24 ORE in the stock exchange

Milan, 18 May 2007. The Board of Directors of Il Sole 24 ORE met this afternoon in Milan under the chairmanship of Giancarlo Cerutti. The Board has chosen the banks that will assist the company in its bid for stock-market listing, which is scheduled to take place this fall. Mediobanca and UBS will act as global coordinators. Intesa SanPaolo, Unicredito and BNL Paribas will supervise the retail aspect of the placement.  Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch will act as bookrunners for institutional investors. Giancarlo Cerutti, shareholder and member of the Board of Directors of Mediobanca, and Innocenzo Cipolletta, member of the advisory board of UBS, abstained from the vote.

As previously announced, the listing procedure of 32.5% of the shares in the publishing group, approved on 15 March 2007 by the general meeting of shareholders of Confindustria, will take place through a capital increase operation, wholly allocated to implementation of the business plan.

The Board also examined the results at 31 March 2007, noting that total revenues reported growth of 14% with respect to the first three months of 2006, largely thanks to the good performance of advertising and sale of collateral, with a similar growth effect on operating profit. The same positive performance continued through April.