Terms and Conditions

Standard Bank Plc is the focal point for the international investment banking activities of the Standard Bank group.

Standard Bank's international franchise is focused on developing markets - primarily debt, interest rate and currency products - and natural resources. Its activities concentrate on the provision of banking services in connection with trade, investment and business flows with an emerging markets and natural resources focus, which are provided through a global network of offices located in major international financial centres and also in key developing economies.

The Standard Bank Group, headquartered in Johannesburg, is one of Africa's leading banking and financial services groups (see http://www.standardbank.co.za). The group's international investment banking activities are housed under an intermediate holding company, Standard International Holdings S.A. ("SIH"). SIH's principal subsidiaries, in addition to Standard Bank Plc, comprise Standard Bank Asia Limited in Hong Kong, Banco Standard de Investimentos S.A. in Brazil, ZAO Standard Bank in Russia and Standard New York, Inc. in the USA.

The principal product areas of Standard Bank Plc, as well as of the other operating entities within the SIH group (together the "Group"), are the following:

• The Global Markets division comprises the Group's customer-driven debt capital markets and treasury activities, encompassing both the cash products and derivatives markets. The division is an originator of debt securities financings for bank, corporate and quasi-government issuers within the world's developing markets. It makes markets across the yield curve to investors in emerging market bonds as well as other sovereign and corporate credits. A comprehensive range of foreign exchange, money market and interest rate products is provided, ranging from simple risk management tools to sophisticated investment structures. The division's expertise extends across all of the major and developing market currencies.
  
  
• The Principal Trading division houses the Group's proprietary activities, which comprise investing and trading in debt securities issued by a wide variety of sovereign, quasi-government and corporate borrowers in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
  
  
• The Resource Banking division encompasses banking activities in the commodities markets in which the bank is involved, namely the Precious Metals, Base Metals and Energy markets. The division offers a comprehensive range of services to clients across these market sectors, including trading, risk management, project finance, structured trade finance and corporate advisory. The client base extends across all sections of the industry, including producers, consumers, merchants, fund managers and governments worldwide.
  
  
• The Banking division focuses on the provision of trade and corporate financing, telecommunications finance and specialised finance across the emerging markets. Trade Finance and syndicated loans are primary components of the business. A distribution unit focuses on distributing risk originated by other units within the Group, including syndicated loans, forfaiting paper and structured transactions.
  
  
• The Asset Management division seeks to leverage the Group's expertise in developing markets and high yield assets into investment products that can be distributed to investors on a wholesale basis. The division specialises in managing developing market debt, currency and money market funds as well as global high yielding debt funds, with a focus on achieving low volatility absolute returns.
  
  
• The Private Client Services division serves high net worth clients through the Group's developing markets network.
  
  
• The offshore private banking activities of the Standard Bank Group are housed under a different unit, Standard Bank Offshore Group Limited, which operates out of Jersey, the Isle of Man and Mauritius (see www.sboff.com).