Bure and Investor form joint company within CRM - Customer Group AB

Bure and Investor form joint company within CRM - Customer Group AB Bure Equity AB and Investor AB are forming a joint group of specialist companies within Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The first two building blocks in the new Group, Customer Group AB, are Vendator Institutet and Oculos. Bure will have an ownership of 40 per cent in Customer Group and Investor 20 per cent. Customer Group will bring together companies within the different segments of the CRM sector and form a "one stop shop" for companies which are changing their organisations from focusing on products to focusing on customers. Vendator, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bure, operates in sales and service oriented training and within change management. Oculos, with Investors wholly-owned subsidiary, Investor Growth Capital, as its largest owner, specialises in IT support for CRM and customer focused business development. Customer Group will initially have sales of SEK 100M and around 100 staff. "An extensive process of change from product to customer orientation is underway in large companies all over the world. This creates a strong demand for services within strategy and implementation of new systems and services," says Sven-Åke Lewin, Senior Investment Manager of e- Knowledge in Bure Equity. " Customer Group will be one of the first companies in the world to offer complete solutions within CRM services. The intention is to attract rapidly more specialist companies and top consultants in order to build an leading operator in the Nordic market for CRM". "This is an aggressive investment in a sector which has a very considerable growth potential," adds Sven-Åke Lewin. "Our investment in Customer Group is eminently compatible with Bure's strategy to invest in knowledge-intensive companies with a significant growth potential." "As the largest owner in Oculos we see this as a very interesting development of Oculos' operations", says Håkan Jansson, Senior Investment Manager, Investor Growth Capital. "We see a significant potential with the formation Customer Group, considering the growth potential of the CRM market." 25 June 2001 Bure Equity AB (publ) Investor AB (publ) For further information, please contact: Sven-Åke Lewin, Senior Investment Manager, e-Knowledge Bure +46 706-45 47 00 Johanna Pettersson, Corporate Communications Officer Bure +46 708-35 76 51 Håkan Jansson, Investor Growth Capital +46 708-24 20 21 Information about Bure Equity AB Bure is a growth and knowledge company within private equity. The business objective as an active owner is to contribute capital and competence to create high growth in value for the shareholders. Bure invests mainly in unlisted companies within Telecom, IT, Media and e- Knowledge. www.bure.se Information about Investor AB Investor AB is the largest investment company in Sweden. The business objective is to create value for the shareholders through a long-term active ownership and active investment operations. The annual yield over the past 20 years has averaged 27 per cent. . Investor is the leading owner in ABB, AstraZeneca, Atlas Copco, Electrolux, Ericsson, Gambro, OM Saab AB, Scania, SEB and WM-data. Investor also owns a growing portfolio of new, listed and unlisted companies within the growth sectors, IT and healthcare. Investor has allocated USD 3 billion to business area New Investments. In addition to its head office in Stockholm, Investor has offices in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London, New York and Palo Alto. www.investorab.com ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/06/26/20010625BIT00740/bit0003.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2001/06/26/20010625BIT00740/bit0003.pdf