Jukka Ruuska Joining CapMan

Jukka Ruuska , president of the OMX Nordic Exchanges and the Stockholm Stock Exchange, has agreed to join private equity firm CapMan. The move will become effective no later than September, at which point he will help establish a new equity fund that will invest in Nordic companies listed on public markets.

PRESS RELEASE

Jukka Ruuska, President of the OMX Nordic Exchanges and the Stockholm Stock Exchange, will transfer to CapMan effective no later than September 2008. Mr Ruuska will head CapMan's business development project to establish an equity fund investing in Nordic companies listed on public markets. The fund will create value with active ownership, for example by utilising methods and tools from the private equity environment.

Jukka Ruuska has been President of the OMX Nordic Exchanges since 2003, when the Helsinki Stock Exchange (HEX) and the Stockholm Stock Exchange parent company OM were merged, and President of the Stockholm Stock Exchange since 1 January 2005. As of February 2008 he was appointed Executive Vice President of Transaction Services Europe in the NASDAQ OMX Group merged in early March 2008 and reports to Bob Greifeld, Chief Executive Officer of NASDAQ OMX.

Prior to joining HEX as President and CEO in 2000, he had held various positions since 1988 in telecommunications groups HTC and Finnet Group, investment bank Prospectus Oy and KOP Bank. 

Mr Ruuska was born in 1961 and has graduated as a Master of Law (LL.M.) and a Master of Business Administration (MBA). He will report to CapMan Plc's CEO Heikki Westerlund. 

“We are delighted that Jukka is joining CapMan and feel confident that his all-round experience in Nordic public markets will be a major advantage in heading the new public markets fund business development project,” says Heikki Westerlund, CEO of CapMan Plc.

CapMan announced that the Group was investigating the establishment of a fund investing in public markets under the future outlook of the 2007 Financial Statements Bulletin published on 1 February 2008. The objective in the fund's activities and portfolio value creation is to utilise CapMan's experience spanning almost twenty years of building shareholder value in unquoted companies. The fund's strategy is to make controlling or influential minority investments in select Nordic mid cap companies, which it will perseveringly develop for a period of some three to five years together with other owners and company executives. 

CapMan will report on the project's progress in due course.

CapMan  www.capman.com  

CapMan is one of the leading alternative asset managers in the Nordic countries and manages Nordic funds with approximately EUR 3.9 billion in total capital. CapMan has four investment areas (CapMan Buyout, CapMan Technology, CapMan Life Science and CapMan Real Estate), and each of them has a dedicated team and funds. Altogether CapMan employs 120 people in Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo. CapMan was established in 1989 and its B shares are listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange since 2001.