Shareholder information

Rio Tinto plc

The principal market for Rio Tinto plc shares is the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

As a constituent of the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 index (FTSE 100), Rio Tinto plc shares trade through the Stock Exchange Electronic Trading Service (SETS) system.

Central to the SETS system is the electronic order book on which an LSE member firm can post buy and sell orders, either on its own behalf or for its clients. Buy and sell orders are executed against each other automatically in strict price, then size, priority. The order book operates from 8.00 am to 4.30 pm daily. From 7.50 am to 8.00 am orders may be added to, or deleted from the book, but execution does not occur. At 8.00 am the market opens by means of an uncrossing algorithm which calculates the greatest volume of trades on the book which can be executed, then matches the orders, leaving unexecuted orders on the book at the start of trading.

All orders placed on the order book are firm and are for standard three day settlement. While the order book is vital to all market participants, orders are anonymous, with the counterparties being revealed to each other only after execution of the trade.

Use of the order book is not mandatory but all trades, regardless of size, executed over the SETS system are published immediately. The only exception to this is where a Worked Principal Agreement (WPA) is entered into for trades greater than eight times Normal Market Size (NMS). Rio Tinto plc has an NMS of 100,000 shares. Publication of trades entered under a WPA is delayed until the earlier of 80 per cent of the risk position assumed by the member firm taking on the trade being unwound or the end of the business day.

Closing LSE share prices are published in most UK national newspapers and are also available during the day on the Rio Tinto and other websites.

Rio Tinto plc has a sponsored American Depositary Receipt (ADR) facility with JPMorgan Chase Bank NA (JPMorgan) under a Deposit Agreement, dated 13 July 1988, as amended on 11 June 1990, as further amended and restated on 15 February 1999 and as further amended and restated on 18 February 2005 when JPMorgan became Rio Tinto plc's depository. The ADRs evidence Rio Tinto plc American Depositary Shares (ADS), each representing four ordinary shares. The shares are registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and are traded under the symbol 'RTP'.

Rio Tinto plc shares are also listed on Euronext and on Deutsche Börse.

The following table shows share prices for the period indicated, the reported high and low middle market quotations, which represent an average of bid and asked prices, for Rio Tinto plc's shares on the LSE based on the LSE Daily Official List, and the highest and lowest sale prices of the Rio Tinto plc ADSs as reported on the NYSE composite tape.

As at 22 February 2008, there were 51,790 holders of record of Rio Tinto plc's shares. Of these holders, 265 had registered addresses in the US and held a total of 161,062 Rio Tinto plc shares, representing 0.015 per cent of the total number of Rio Tinto plc shares issued and outstanding as at such date. In addition, 94,920,868 million Rio Tinto plc shares were registered in the name of a custodian account in London which represented 8.855 per cent of the publicly held Rio Tinto plc shares issued and outstanding. These shares were represented by 23.73 million Rio Tinto plc ADSs held of record by 379 ADR holders. In addition, certain accounts of record with registered addresses other than in the US hold shares, in whole or in part, beneficially for US persons.

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