Press Releases

Budapest, September 26, 2000

From among the managers of companies operating in the Eastern European, the Middle East and the North African region Mr. Elek Straub chairman-CEO of MATÁV has been awarded the "Emerging Markets CEO of the Year Award" for 2000 established by ING Barings and Emerging Markets. He will receive the prize on 26 September in Prague. The presentation ceremony will take place simultaneously with the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The "Emerging Markets CEO of the Year" award was established by ING Barings (a member of the ING bank group responsible for financial investments) and Emerging Markets (a financial journal) in 1994. Since then four prizes have been awarded in two categories each year, to the most successful business managers of the emerging markets. In the first category a prize is awarded to each of the Asian, Latin American and Eastern European regions ( the Middle East and North Africa are also included here). In the other category the prize is awarded to the CEO of a company with headquarters located in a developed country and present in the emerging markets, efficiently contributing with its activities to the development of the particular country.

The independent panel consisting of the representatives of large multinational companies and financial organizations elected Mr. Elek Straub the CEO of Year 2000 in the Eastern European region. The chairman-CEO of MATÁV receives the prize on 26 September, in Prague.

Mr. Elek Straub and the company managed by him have received a number of professional awards in the past years.
In 1999 the Managers' Association elected Mr. Straub the Manager of the Year, and in the previous year the chairman-CEO of MATÁV was awarded the title of Hungarian IT Manager of the Year.
The Financial Times Global Telecommunications Award occupies an outstanding place among the company's successes. Last year Central European - the journal of Euromoney, a British financial publishing group - awarded the title of Central European Company of the Decade to MATÁV. In 1997, 1998 and 1999 the Budapest Stock Exchange qualified MATÁV as the Best Stock Exchange Issuer of the Year.