Speedwell Recalibrated Data Sets and SWSConnect to Be Used by the CME Group (CME) to Assist in Weather Settlement


ALEXANDRIA, VA--(Marketwire - January 22, 2009) - Speedwell Weather Derivatives (SWD) today announced that CME Group, the world's largest and most diverse derivatives exchange, has licensed SWSConnect, with Speedwell's Recalibrated Data Sets to assist with the day-to-day settlement of the CME Group Weather contracts (www.cmegroup.com/weather).

Stephen Doherty, CEO of Speedwell Weather Derivatives said, "We are delighted that CME Group is using SWSConnect to help the process of deriving closing prices for weather derivative contracts. Given the recent growth in the market and the wide range of contract types quoted on the exchange, the integration of pricing tools with weather data and forecasts means that SWSConnect is well placed to facilitate this process."

CME Group serves the risk management needs of its customers around the globe, by bringing buyers and sellers together on the CME Globex electronic trading platform and on trading floors in Chicago and New York. CME Group offers benchmark products available across all major asset classes including weather. The weather contracts are based on aggregate temperatures for 42 cities, including 24 throughout the US, 10 in Europe, six in Canada and two in Japan. In addition, CME Group lists products used to hedge risk associated with hurricanes, snowfall and frost. CME Group is a trademark of the CME Group Inc. CME is a trademark of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.

SWSConnect

SWSConnect is, a web-delivered weather derivative pricing system integrating weather derivative pricing tools, historical weather data, including Speedwell Recalibrated Data Sets, forecasts and market data in one platform. SWSConnect is based on the same components used since 2002 in the Speedwell Weather System (SWS), the definitive enterprise weather derivative trading system.

Speedwell Weather System, SWS

SWS is an open client-server enterprise software application for the weather derivatives market. SWS provides extensive tools covering weather derivative pricing, portfolio management, and historical weather data and forecast warehousing. SWS integrates live OTC price and exchange market data. SWS functionality covers full support for front, middle and back office including the process management of the entire life cycle of a weather derivative trade.

Speedwell Recalibrated Data Sets

Speedwell Recalibrated Data Sets re-base historical data to current site location, conditions and instrumentation by adjusting for historical temperature discontinuities. This is critical to a complete understanding of the behavior of a weather reference site.

About Speedwell Weather Derivatives, SWD

Founded in 1999, SWD provides software, weather data, forecasts and consultancy to the energy and weather derivative markets. SWD is the provider of the Speedwell Weather System (SWS), the pre-eminent weather derivative pricing and risk management software.

Speedwell Weather Derivatives supplies historical and real-time weather data feeds for thousands of weather reference sites across the globe. SWD has direct data supply agreements with a wide range of national meteorological services and provides a single-point of contact for the provision of official weather data to the energy and weather derivative markets.

Regulated by UK Financial Services Authority, SWD helps companies looking to hedge against weather risk by quantifying such exposure, structuring an appropriate hedge and placing the risk within the weather market.

With offices in the United Kingdom and the USA, Speedwell Weather Derivatives have clients in insurance, banking and energy sectors in Europe, North America, Africa and the Asia Pacific region.

Contact Information: Contact Us Please see www.SpeedwellWeather.com or contact: Stephen Doherty (UK) stephen.doherty@SpeedwellWeather.com David Whitehead (USA) david.whitehead@SpeedwellWeather.com Telephone UK: +44 (0) 1582 465 569 USA: +1 (0) 703 535 8800 Address UK: Mardall House, Vaughan Rd, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 4HU USA: 101 N Columbus Street, Alexandria VA 22314