HoustonStreet Announces Broader Business Focus

Company shifts business to adapt to changing competitive landscape and provide additional value to customers

PORTSMOUTH, N.H., July 12, 2001 - The landscape for online energy trading continues to evolve. Staying at the forefront of this evolution, HoustonStreet announced today it is extending its business model beyond the exchange to include software and services developed around Microsoft’s .NET technology. This strategy positions HoustonStreet as a leader in utilizing Microsoft’s technology to provide .NET software and services to the energy industry.

“In July 1999, HoustonStreet led the industry with the introduction of an online energy trading platform,” said Frank Getman, president and CEO of HoustonStreet. “Once again, HoustonStreet is a leader by extending our value proposition to better meet the needs of our customers. We recognize the importance of providing technology solutions to drive down costs and improve efficiencies around the entire energy trading process.”

Building on its market-leading position in the electronic trading of physical crude oil and refined products, HoustonStreet recognized emerging opportunities to provide value to its customers that extended beyond the commodities trading floor. Accordingly, HoustonStreet focused on developing the most comprehensive and robust set of electronic trading tools while extending the company’s capabilities to provide software and services to the energy industry.

HoustonStreet worked with partners and customers in the industry to maximize the cost savings of business services and automation. As a result, HoustonStreet developed the first fully integrated eCommerce application built on Microsoft’s next generation .NET architecture. “By employing .NET architecture in the development of our trading platforms, we are providing the tools that address the needs identified by our customers,” said John Wyman, CTO of HoustonStreet. In addition, HoustonStreet developed a suite of products designed to compliment its existing technologies. The products include:

• HoustonStreet Deal Capture – Enables customers to integrate their trading activity directly to their mid and back office systems through a scheduled process.
• HoustonStreet Deal Capture Pro – Enhanced version of our Deal Capture product that provides customers with a real-time XML data feed of their online trading activity.
• Exchange-to-Exchange Interlink - Inter-marketplace connection technology that enables multiple marketplaces to interact and share liquidity on a real-time basis.
• Exchange Platforms – Licensing and co-branding of commodity trading platforms to public and private marketplaces.
• Private Network Technology – A robust configurable commodity trading application that can be implemented to meet a customer's specific need for a public or private marketplace.

In today’s environment, it’s not about 'value-added services,' it’s about delivering real, quantifiable cost savings,” said John Wyman, CTO of HoustonStreet. “HoustonStreet’s exchange business bundled with our .NET-based products and services drive efficiencies for the energy trading enterprise."

Last summer, HoustonStreet signed an agreement with Enron to provide a link with EnronOnline (EOL) enabling electricity and natural gas prices listed on EOL to be simultaneously posted on HoustonStreet. Although HoustonStreet successfully completed the link, Enron recently provided HoustonStreet a notice of termination of the agreement before going live.

In an effort to recognize its focus on providing a broader value proposition to its customers, HoustonStreet is dropping the Exchange from its name, becoming HoustonStreet, Inc.

About HoustonStreet, Inc.
HoustonStreet is a leading .NET software and services provider to the energy industry dedicated to providing real, quantifiable savings using Microsoft’s .NET technology. As an independent exchange, HoustonStreet currently offers crude oil and refined products trading exchanges. HoustonStreet, Inc. is headquartered in Portsmouth, N.H. with offices in Houston, Texas and a foreign subsidiary office in London. The company is a minority-owned subsidiary of BayCorp Holdings, Ltd. (AMEX: MWH). For more information on the company and its products, visit HoustonStreet at www.houstonstreet.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause these forward-looking statements to be materially inaccurate. These factors include, without limitation, (i) HoustonStreet.com may not be able to operate profitably and shift in business focus may not gain market acceptance, (ii) technological or systems outages could occur, (iii) competitors with greater financial, marketing or other resources could emerge, (iv) market acceptance of HoustonStreet.com cannot be predicted. HoustonStreet.com is a registered service mark of HoustonStreet Exchange.