Bure acquires Mercuri International Western Europe

Bure continues its international expansion and acquires Mercuri International Western Europe Bure's Business Area Training and Education is acquiring a majority holding in Mercuri International's West European companies from the founder, Curt Abrahamsson. Additional participations will gradually be acquired from the managements in the countries which are included in Mercuri International Western Europe. Mercuri International Western Europe has sales of approximately SEK 300M. The most important countries are Germany, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands but operations are also carried on in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Belgium. "The objective is that, with Mercuri as the platform, we will strengthen our leading position in sales and leadership training programmes in Europe and grow strongly through organic expansion and acquisition of supplementary operations. Extensive development work has already been started with regard to developing further Mercuri's areas of expertise and identifying new and related growth segments," says Sven-Åke Lewin, Head of Business Area Bure Training and Education. Mercuri is a world-leading skill company in sales and marketing. Business Area Bure Training and Education will now have total sales of approximately SEK 800M, of which Mercuri International Western Europe and Mercuri International ScanAsia together represent approximately SEK 500M. Discussions are underway to acquire additional operations in Mercuri International. The acquisition of Mercuri International Western Europe provides Bure with a very interesting customer base for further investments in the corporate training segment. Customers consist mainly of large multinational industrial and service companies and the trend is that the companies will increasingly place marketing and sales at the centre which increases the training needs in this segment. Bure Training and Education is one of four focused Business Areas within Investment AB Bure. The objective is that the Business Area will become a leading Nordic training and education company with rapid growth and strongly internationalised operations. Gothenburg, 22 April 1999 Investment AB Bure (publ) For further information, please contact: Sven-Åke Lewin, Head of Business Area Bure Training and Education +46 31-335 76 78 Ole Johansson, Bure Training and Education +46 31-335 76 49 Knut Leman, Director of Corporate Communications, Bure +46 31-335 76 75 ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/04/22/19990422BIT00350/bit0001.pdf http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/04/22/19990422BIT00350/bit0002.doc