Singapore, 3 February 2010...The Monetary Authority of Singapore welcomes the announcement by the three partners of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP appointed as receivers for the Minibond notes, and HSBC Institutional Trust Services (Singapore) Limited, the trustee for the notes, that distribution of the recovery values of the Minibond notes to investors will be made on 12 February 2010.

2   The earlier settlement entered into between the receivers, the trustee and Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc, the swap counterparty for the notes, has enabled the collateral underlying the various series of the Minibond notes to be liquidated, and the recovery value for each series returned to investors.  MAS has worked closely with the receivers and trustee to see through the liquidation process so that investors may receive the distribution in a timely manner.

3   All investors holding the Minibond notes will receive the recovery value for the notes they hold. Where investors have accepted partial settlement offers and retained a portion of the notes, they will receive the recovery values of the notes which they retain. Where investors accepted full settlement offers, they would have already received the full investment amount and transferred the notes to the financial institution.  As such, they will not receive any further payments from the distribution of the recovery values.

4   The receivers have explained that the recovery values of the different series and tranches of the Minibond notes vary depending on a number of factors determined by the terms of the notes.

5   The total amount received by each investor will depend on the recovery value of the series of notes bought, as well as the outcome of the dispute resolution process.  This is in line with the approach for financial institutions that distributed the notes to review complaints on a case-by-case basis, and to make settlement offers according to the facts and circumstances of each investor and transaction.

6   Taking into account the recovery values of the notes and the settlement offers that have been accepted, 80% of retail investors will receive 50% or more of their investment back.  In total, retail investors in the Minibond notes will receive 64.5% of the total amount invested in the Notes.  The details are as follows:

* These investors bought notes from the 9 retail distributors, namely, ABN AMRO Bank N.V. Singapore Branch, Malayan Banking Berhad Singapore Branch, Hong Leong Finance Ltd, CIMB-GK Securities Pte Ltd, DMG and Partners Securities Pte Ltd, Kim Eng Securities Pte Ltd, OCBC Securities Pte Ltd, Phillip Securities Pte Ltd and UOB Kay Hian Pte Ltd.  As an investor may have invested in more than one series, the total number in this column exceeds the total number of Minibond Notes investors.

* * *