Hutchison Whampoa establishes joint venture with DLJdirect
to develop Asia-wide on-line investment services

29 February 2000

Hutchison Whampoa Limited ("Hutchison") and DLJdirect today announced that the two companies have entered into a joint venture agreement to expand DLJdirect's on-line investment service throughout Asia to Hong Kong and mainland China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia. DLJdirect currently offers on-line investment services in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan.

Under the terms of the agreement, a 50-50 joint venture company will be created to launch and manage the on-line investment service. DLJdirect will provide expertise in financial services, technology, and operations to the new company, whilst Hutchison will contribute its strong brand and leverage its extensive customer base, global data centre, call centre and WAP telecom capabilities, as well as its rapidly developing Internet platform to benefit the new company. The new company will provide access to U.S. markets in all countries as well as local markets and products.

The new company is expected to launch its services for stock trading later this year.

Citing the growing expansion of on-line investing worldwide, Blake Darcy, Chief Executive Officer of DLJdirect, said, "Retail investors throughout the world are better informed and more sophisticated as a result of the Internet than at any other time in history. DLJdirect is pleased to join with Hutchison to bring on-line investing to the Asian markets, and we believe the combined expertise and resources of our organizations will enable us to provide a superior array of products and services to self-directed investors throughout the region. This new relationship compliments our very successful partnership in Japan with Sumitomo and brings us closer to our goal of developing a global trading platform."

Hutchison Whampoa Group Managing Director Canning Fok remarked, "We are pleased to be partnering DLJdirect, which is one of the largest, and most established on-line investment services providers in the United States, with a market capitalisation of approximately US$1 billion.

We believe that there is tremendous potential for on-line investment services in this region. It is expected that up to 40 to 50 per cent of current retail trade volumes could switch to the on-line business, as experienced in South Korea and Taiwan, which are to date, probably the most advanced on-line trading markets in Asia and the world.

With a powerful combination of DLJdirect's innovative technologies and products, and Hutchison's telecommunications and Internet infrastructure, and extensive customer network, I am confident that the joint venture can successfully capture this rapidly developing on-line investment business in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia."

DLJdirect has been the award-winning leader in on-line investing for over ten years and now services over 800,000 on-line customer accounts, and holds approximately US$22 billion in customer assets. The company conducts an average of 30,500 trades per day and is the only on-line brokerage that offers top-level research from Wall Street powerhouse Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette to the self-directed on-line investor.

Another unique advantage offered by DLJdirect is the wireless access to news, price information through customer's pager, cellular phones as well as trading services via PDA (both Palm and Windows CE). In addition, the company provides round-the-clock call service centre to assist customers.

Hutchison Whampoa is a conglomerate with a market capitalisation of over US$61 billion. Among its many businesses, it is one of Asia's largest owners and operators of Internet and telecommunications infrastructure offering a wide range of related services. These include fixed-line services, ISP and ICP services, Web hosting services, fiber optics broadband networks, mobile telephone data and internet services, paging, trunked mobile radio, VSAT and radio broadcasting services.

Background

Hutchison Whampoa is a Hong Kong-based conglomerate with origins dating back to the 1800s. Hutchison is part of the Li Ka-shing group of companies, which together represent 16% of the total market capitalisation of the Hong Kong stock market. In 1998, consolidated turnover was over US$6.6 billion, and after-tax earnings were approximately US$1.1 billion.

Hutchison's Internet related operations have been growing rapidly. The Company has teamed up with Global Crossing to further expand its global connectivity and to pursue fibre optic broadband network opportunities in the Greater China Region. Cooperation with NTT DoCoMo, which owns 19% of Hutchison's mobile communications businesses in Hong Kong offers its customers advanced mobile Internet opportunities. Hutchison is also a part of iBusiness Corporation.com, a joint venture with its parent company Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, and Hang Seng Bank to facilitate e-commerce businesses on the Internet. The Company has recently entered into an alliance with Priceline.com to introduce the buyer-driven e-commerce system to Asia.

With over 80,000 employees worldwide, Hutchison operates five core businesses in 26 countries: ports and related services; telecommunications and Internet; property and hotel development and investments; retail, manufacturing and other services; and energy and infrastructure.

DLJdirect is one of the world's premier on-line brokerage firms. Established in 1988, DLJdirect offers a diversified range of investment products and services to sophisticated, self-directed investors. DLJdirect has more than 800,000 customer accounts representing over US$22 billion in assets. Headquartered in Jersey City, N.J., with offices in Parsippany, N.J., Charlotte, N.C., London, Tokyo, and Dubai, DLJdirect employs approximately 900 people. DLJdirect common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "DIR." For more information on DLJdirect, visit the company's Web site at www.DLJdirect.com.

Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) is a leading integrated investment and merchant bank serving institutional, corporate, government and individual clients. DLJ's businesses include securities underwriting; sales and trading; investment and merchant banking; financial advisory services; investment research; venture capital; correspondent brokerage services; on-line, interactive brokerage services; and asset management. Founded in 1959 and headquartered in New York City, DLJ employs approximately 10,200 people worldwide and maintains offices in 13 cities in the United States and 16 cities in Europe, Latin America and Asia. The company has two classes of common stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares trading under the ticker symbol "DLJ" represent Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc. Shares trading under the ticker symbol "DIR" track the performance of DLJdirect, its on-line brokerage business. For more information on Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, refer to the company's Web site at www.DLJ.com. The firm's world headquarters are located at 277 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10172.

- Ends -

For more information, please contact: