Standard & Poor's Announces Changes to U.S. Indices

NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- S&P will make the following changes to the S&P MidCap 400 and SmallCap 600 Indices:

• Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. AHL will replace Baldor Electric Co. BEZ in the S&P MidCap 400 index after the close of trading on Tuesday, January 25.  Baldor Electric is being acquired by ABB Ltd. ABB in a transaction expected to be completed soon.
• Vitamin Shoppe Inc. will replace Volt Information Sciences Inc. VOL in the S&P SmallCap 600 index after the close of trading on Wednesday, January 26.  Volt Information Sciences is being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and will begin to trade on the Over-the-Counter market, making it ineligible for continued inclusion in the S&P SmallCap 600 index.

Standard & Poor's will monitor these transactions and post any relevant updates on its website: www.standardandpoors.com.

Aspen Insurance Holdings provides insurance and reinsurance products.  Headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, the company will be added to the S&P MidCap 400 GICS (Global Industry Classification Standard) Property & Casualty Insurance Sub-Industry index.

Vitamin Shoppe is a specialty retailer and direct marketer of nutritional products.  Headquartered in North Bergen, NJ, the company will be added to the S&P SmallCap 600 GICS Specialty Stores Sub-Industry index.

Following is a summary of the changes:

For more information about S&P Indices, please visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

About S&P Indices

S&P Indices, the world's leading index provider, maintains a wide variety of investable and benchmark indices to meet an array of investor needs.  Over $1.25 trillion is directly indexed to Standard & Poor's family of indices, which includes the S&P 500, the world's most followed stock market index, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, the S&P Global BMI, an index with approximately 11,000 constituents, the S&P GSCI, the industry's most closely watched commodities index, and the S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index, the premier investable index for U.S. municipal bonds.  For more information, please visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

SOURCE Standard & Poor's