Fast Announces Definitive Agreement To Acquire Nextpage Publishing Applications Business Unit
Acquisition to Expand FASTs Global Market Presence, Accelerate Creation of New Publishing SDA, and Further Strengthen the Companys Enterprise Search Focus
OSLO, Norway 1 September 2004 Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), the leading developer of enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire the Publishing Applications Business Unit from NextPage, including the NXT, Folio, LivePublish and GetSmart product lines, as well as over 500 revenue-generating NextPage customers. The customer base will include six of the worlds top nine professional publishers, three of the worlds top four accounting firms, and many of the worlds leading financial services institutions. NextPages document management service, Chrome, will remain with NextPage. The deal is expected to close later this month.
FASTs acquisition of NextPages Publishing Applications Business Unit and its customers will allow FAST to further expand its global presence in the Publishing market, and accelerate the development of a new Search Derivative Application (SDA) for the Publishing sector based upon FASTs award-winning Enterprise Search Platform, FAST ESP. While FAST already has a strong customer base and deep experience in the Publishing sector, the integration of NextPages technology with FASTs Enterprise Search platform technology will expand FASTs offerings to publishers by providing them with the most advanced solutions for searching, retrieving, managing, and distributing their business-critical content.
FAST follows a strict set of criteria when evaluating acquisition opportunities, commented John M. Lervik, FASTs chief executive officer. The NextPage business unit has fully satisfied these requirements with its strong search-focused customer base, solutions that easily integrate with FASTs Enterprise Search platform, and market-specific expertise that will accelerate the development of new SDAs for markets in which search applications provide business critical value, such as Publishing. We are very pleased with this agreement and believe it will position the Company extremely well for the future.
As part of the agreement, FAST will assume 34 employees from NextPage, the majority of which are employed in the U.S. FAST will continue to offer full support and maintenance to NextPage customers without interruption.
"This transaction benefits our customers," said Darren Lee, chief executive officer of NextPage. "By combining NextPages experience and products in the publishing market, with FASTs world class enterprise search platform, it will further improve FASTs ability to offer the highest quality publishing applications. Together, these products will create enhanced value for our customers and partners."
The NextPage Publishing Applications Business Unit comprises of NXT, a complete, server-based publishing suite for publishers and corporations to secure and deliver information on the Internet, to corporate intranets, and on CD/DVD; Folio, a proven and widely adopted product suite for authoring, managing, securing and publishing professional electronic information on CD/DVD with a Windows client; and GetSmart, a knowledge management application designed for helpdesk and customer support centers.
Financial Summary of the NextPage Acquisition
The aforementioned acquisition by FAST was acted upon in connection with the Companys overall strategy to explore M&A opportunities that yield accelerated growth within the enterprise search sector, focused around companies with a strong search focused customer base, subject matter expertise towards an SDA, and/or technologies that augment the value of the FAST enterprise search platform.
NextPage will receive $6 million in cash and be eligible to receive performance-based payments up to a maximum of $9 million over four years. The deal is expected to close later in September 2004. FAST is accounting for the transaction using the purchase method. The NextPage Business Unit will be included in the consolidated financial statements of FAST from the acquisition date and will be accretive to the Companys future earnings. The revenues associated with the acquired NextPage Business Unit were in excess of US$6 million for the first eight months of 2004.
About NextPage
NextPage Document Management Services deliver the first ever solution for tracking documents across e-mail, hard drives and servers, on or offline. With NextPage, users end the document chaos that takes place whenever people try to coordinate and edit several versions of the same document. Teams and organizations rely on NextPage to reduce the risk of the wrong documents being edited, reviewed or made available. Since NextPage was established in July 1999, the company has been building profitable document applications. These solutions have been implemented by companies such as ABN AMRO Bank, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Deloitte & Touche, Wolters Kluwer and Reed Elsevier. For more information, visit www.nextpage.com or call 800-NEXTPAGE or 801-748-4400.
About FAST
FAST creates the real-time search and filter technology solutions that are behind the scenes at the worlds best known companies with the most demanding search problems. FASTs flexible and scalable integrated technology platform elevates the search capabilities of enterprise customers and connects people to the relevant information they seek regardless of medium. This drives revenues and reduces total cost of ownership by effectively leveraging IT infrastructure. FASTs powerful enterprise search technology solutions are used by a wide range of global customers and partners, including AT&T, Cardinal Health, CareerBuilder.com, Chordiant, CIGNA, CNET, Dell, Fidelity Investments, Findexa, FirstGov.gov (GSA), IBM, Knight Ridder, LexisNexis, Overture, Rakuten, Reed Elsevier, Reuters, Sensis, Tenet Healthcare, Thomas Industrial Networks, T-Online, US Army, Virgilio (Telecom Italia), Vodafone, and Wanadoo.
FAST is headquartered in Norway and is publicly traded under the ticker symbol 'FAST' on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The FAST Group operates globally with presence in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Additionally, the FAST Group has business partners and customers in a number of other locations, such as Brazil, Canada and Australia. For further information about FAST, please visit www.fastsearch.com.
2004 Fast Search & Transfer ASA - Fast Search & Transfer, FAST, FAST ESP, FAST Data Search, FAST Marketrac, and the FAST four-colored logo are trademarks of Fast Search & Transfer ASA. All rights reserved. FAST disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.
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