Press Release

NSX Limited, parent company of the Bendigo and Newcastle Stock Exchanges, has plans to expand and diversify its operations following the appointment of Ian Mansbridge as chairman. Mr Mansbridge, chairman of Bendigo Bank subsidiary Sandhurst Trustees, took on the role earlier this month after the resignation of four of the seven NSX directors, including previous chairman Raymond Whitten. The company had just reported a loss of $400,000 for the six months to December 31, its first result since the merger of the Newcastle and Bendigo exchanges in April 2005. Expenses had increased four-fold over the previous corresponding period to $1.27 million, which chief executive Michael Cox attributed at the time to one-off costs relating to the integration with the Bendigo exchange. '‘This increase was because of the NSX acquisition of BSX and the associated costs of business rationalisation, including closure of the Bendigo office, staff retraining, systems relocation and redundancy payments," Mr Cox said in a statement. Besides Mr Mansbridge and Mr Cox, the only other NSX director is Hugh Robertson - a director of stockbroker Bell Potter Securities - who joined the board in February. There were 87 securities listed on the combined NSX/BSX exchanges at December 2005, including Bendigo Community Telco, Brumby's Bakeries, Calipano Honey and 33 community banks. ‘‘By the end of June this year, we should have over 100 companies listed,'‘ Mr Mansbridge told The Advertiser. The company plans to move the BSX listed companies to the NSX. The Bendigo exchange will become the vehicle for a joint venture with COM-AGEX Asia to trade agricultural commodity derivatives and offer price hedging instruments to primary producers. NSX is establishing a stock exchange in Wollongong, in conjunction with Wollongong City Council and the Illawarra Business Chamber. This will allow companies in Wollongong and the surrounding Illawarra region to be listed on an approved stock market. ‘‘This is not unlike the community banking model where people in Wollongong perform the sales and marketing and we provide all the back-office facilities," Mr Mansbridge said. NSX is planning Australia's first taxi licence market, initially to trade Melbourne metropolitan licences.