FerrousExchange and ePIT Announce Contract To Build FerrousExchange's Second-Generation...

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2001

ePIT, Inc., enterprise solutions provider for e-marketplaces, and FerrousExchange Inc, which is providing the global steel industry with the first electronic "bid/offer" exchange

"Our goal is to continuously provide value and efficiency to users of our marketplace," said Quintus von Bonin, president and co-founder of FerrousExchange. "FerrousExchange is dedicated to offering our market participants the highest-performing tools for executing transactions in a dynamic environment. We have retained ePIT to jointly build the technology that will significantly improve the efficiency and flexibility of our existing system as well as provide a platform for applying new technologies and introducing new products. As with our existing system, this second-generation transaction platform will be the most advanced in the industry."

"We're very pleased to add FerrousExchange to our client list and excited to be working with this industry innovator," said Timothy Campbell, president and CEO of ePIT. "This is exactly what our technology is designed to do -- support our clients' movement into trading new products and instruments by giving them a technology platform that can grow with them. Our open, standards-based architecture supports a broad range of trading functionality and market styles -- auctions, negotiated markets, continuous exchanges. All of us at ePIT are eager to support FerrousExchange in designing a marketplace that delivers unparalleled efficiency to its customers."

About FerrousExchange Inc

FerrousExchange (www.FerrousExchange.com) is providing the global steel industry with the first "bid/offer" electronic exchange to offer real-time trading integrated with financial and logistics services. FerrousExchange's transparent "bid/offer" exchange is the only online trading platform that allows buyers and sellers to obtain real-time pricing execute forward transactions instantly, and place firm bids and offers for the broadest available range of steel grades.

FerrousExchange is the first business solution to offer a comprehensive transaction platform for the entire range of steel and steel-related products. The FerrousExchange marketplace also offers an intelligent system for routing specialized steel products outside the exchange definitions to an appropriate auction or RFQ (request for quotation) platform.

FerrousExchange, which has several prominent individual, institutional and industry investors, including Ispat International, Gibraltar Steel, and Okaya & Co., currently has operations in New York, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Singapore, London and Genoa.

About ePIT, Inc.

ePIT, Inc. (www.epit.com) delivers technology solutions that fuel successful e-marketplaces. Regardless of what's being traded or the rules of a market, ePIT provides the solutions that create a scalable, dynamic Internet trading environment. From auctions to negotiated markets to continuous exchanges, ePIT powers Internet markets.

Across financial services, regulated exchanges and B2B e-marketplaces, ePIT delivers a standards-based platform that enables the rapid deployment of any market type within the same core marketplace infrastructure. The resulting solution fully abstracts the unique business logic of any given market -- the product definitions, the trading rules, the order matching and the user privileges.

Based in San Francisco, ePIT has strategic partnerships with Hewlett Packard and Hitachi, Ltd. and is backed by top-tier venture capital firms including Battery Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners.