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BMO Financial Group (BMO) (NYSE, TSX:BMO), together with Flavio Bartmann and Conrad Voldstad, have established U.S.-based Pallium Investment Management (PIM), an innovative new investment management company that will form and manage a Triple-A rated structured product company.  The initial activities of this company will be heavily focused on credit derivatives, and will develop other product lines where a Triple-A rating will be beneficial. 

Currently in the process of recruiting select portfolio and credit managers, the new company will be headquartered in the Harborside Financial Center, Jersey City, New Jersey.

“We are pleased to be working with two of the top professionals in the global structured product company market as we continue to build our structured credit asset management business,” said Ellen Costello, Vice Chair and Global Head of Securitization and Credit Investment Management of BMO's Investment Banking Group.  “Conrad and Flavio created and managed the very first derivative products company internationally, and are very well known to us.” 

Bartmann and Voldstad have had extensive careers in the global derivatives market, and BMO is also an active participant in the derivatives market and has an established track record in managing Triple-A rated structured investment vehicles.  A Triple-A rated structured investment vehicle is a company that is structured by limiting its activities to making investments and taking risks that are consistent with the highest (Triple-A) debt ratings.

“Having BMO as a partner is an ideal fit given its outstanding performance in managing the LINKS Finance and Parkland Corp. structured investment vehicles,” said Bartmann.

The principals are in the final stages of developing a proprietary capital model, which will be able to comprehensively evaluate the risks and benefits of new product lines.  “It is this model which will distinguish our structured product company from the current, more narrowly focused Triple-A credit derivative or investment vehicles,” said Voldstad.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817 as Bank of Montreal, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified North American financial services organization.  With total assets of more than $297 billion as at October 31, 2005, and more than 33,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and solutions.  BMO Financial Group serves clients across Canada through its Canadian retail arm, BMO Bank of Montreal, and through BMO Nesbitt Burns, one of Canada's leading full-service investment firms.  In the United States, BMO serves clients through Chicago-based Harris, an integrated financial services organization that provides more than 1 million personal, business, corporate and institutional clients with banking, lending, investing, financial planning, trust administration, portfolio management, family office and wealth transfer services. For more information, please visit www.bmo.com.

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