Dedicated to Professor Lutz F. Tietze on the occasion of his 60th birthdayThe preparation of functionalized organometallic compounds is an important research field since it allows the formation of new C À C bonds between polyfunctional nucleophiles and electrophiles, leading to multifunctional products. [1] Although organozinc compounds have proved to be very useful, the recent use of the I ± Mg exchange allows the straightforward synthesis of various highly functionalized aryl-, [2] heteroaryl-, [3] and alkenylmagnesium [4] reagents. Nitro groups are present in many important aromatic compounds, [5] but have been regarded as being incompatible with organometallic species. [6] Only scarce examples of nitro-substituted aryl organometallic compounds have been reported. [7] Herein we wish to report that the I ± Mg exchange allows an efficient preparation of polyfunctional arylmagnesium reagents that bear a nitro group ortho to the iodine atom. Furthermore, we will show that this new class of organomagnesium compounds is compatible with several transition metal catalyzed crosscoupling reactions. In a preliminary experiment, we treated 2-iodonitrobenzene (1 a) with phenylmagnesium chloride (1.1 equiv) in THF at À 40 8C. Within 5 min, a complete I ± Mg exchange was observed, as indicated by GC analysis of reaction aliquots. The resulting nitro-substituted Grignard reagent (2 a) reacted with benzaldehyde (1.2 equiv) within 0.5 h at À 40 8C to give the expected benzhydryl alcohol (3 a) in 87 % yield (Scheme 1 and Table 1, entry 1). NO 2 I FG FG NO 2 MgCl FG NO 2 E PhMgCl -40 °C 5 min E + 2a -f 3 a -m: 64 -94 % 1a: FG = H; b: FG = 5-CN; c: FG = 4-OMe; d: FG = 4-CO 2 Et; e: FG = 4-NO 2 ; f: FG = 4-I Scheme 1. Preparation of o-nitro substituted arylmagnesium reagents.