Mr Darryl Kuek takes home $20,000 cash in Macquarie's Warrant Hotshot Trading contest

SINGAPORE, 15 September 2008 – Macquarie Capital Securities (Singapore) Pte. Limited (“Macquarie”), has announced the winners of its second annual Warrant Hotshot Trading contest, with $20,000 going to the grand prize winner and three category prize winners each taking home $3,000.

The contest saw participants pit their skills against each other, with active participants generally holding warrants over two-to-three underlying counters and making an average of one trade per day. Participants enrolled in four separate categories: Remisiers and $200 a week over the eight weeks of the competition.

The overall winner of the contest was Darryl Kuek, a Remisier from UOB Kay Hian. Mr. Kuek built a portfolio of more than $1 million during the eight weeks of the trading contest. Making an average of 5.5 trades per day, Darryl’s portfolio consisted primarily of Macquarie’s Hang Seng Index (HSI) call and put warrants as well as warrants over Cosco Corp and SGX.

Mr. Barnaby Matthews, Head of Derivatives, Singapore at Macquarie congratulated Mr. Kuek on his win and said: “The aim of the Macquarie Warrant Hotshot contest is to increase investors’ understanding of warrants and to improve their trading skills. It is also a great opportunity for new investors to gain experience in warrants without risking any capital”.

“All competitors started with a hypothetical cash amount of $100,000 and were able to trade Macquarie warrants in a simulated trading environment that mirrored the real SGX warrants market,” he said.

Mr. Kuek previously had very little experience in trading warrants. “My strategy was to focus on the HSI warrants as I found it easy to pick the direction of the market in the current environment rather than trying to choose individual stocks”, he said.

Winners across the four categories adopted different strategies. Mr. Allan Tan Jee Hian, who won the Private Investor category, actively traded Macquarie’s Capitaland, SingTel and HSI warrants, with an average of one trade per day. Mr. Tan ended the competition in second place overall with a portfolio worth $611,165.71.

For the second year running, a student from Nanyang Technological University has taken the Student category prize. Mr. Jason Soh, the student category winner traded solely HSI warrants, generating a portfolio of $354,688.82 over the eight weeks. Mr. Soh also traded an average of one trade per day. Students from the National University of Singapore took second and third place in this category.

The winner of the media category, Mr. Yap Chong Kah of Rainbow Media, traded a combination of Macquarie’s HSI call and put warrants and Capitaland warrants, making an average of 5 trades per day, ending with a portfolio of $182,120.04.

Macquarie has built a solid reputation as one of Asia’s premier Warrants issuers.  Macquarie is the largest issuer of warrants with a 43% market share of the volume traded on the Singapore Warrants market for the year ending 31 August 2008.

Macquarie takes a leading role in educating retail investors about how to invest in warrants. Macquarie runs regular seminars, operates a free-call warrants telephone number and distributes a free, daily e-newsletter that contains the most up-to-date market information. Macquarie also provides free Live Warrant pricing via its website at www.warrants.com.sg.

About Macquarie Group

Macquarie Group is a global provider of banking, financial, advisory, investment and funds management services. Macquarie Group’s main business focus is making returns by providing a diversified range of services to clients, acting on behalf of institutional, corporate and retail clients and counterparties around the world. Founded in 1969, Macquarie Group operates in more than 60 office locations in 25 countries and employs more than 13,700 people. Assets under management total more than $A230 billion. Macquarie Group Limited is listed in Australia (ASX: MQG).

For further information, please contact:

Fiona McDonald
Corporate Communications, Macquarie Group
Tel: +65 6231 2749