Cision divests German business

Cision has signed an agreement to sell its German legal entities to Infopaq International, the leading company on the Nordic market for Monitor and Analyze services. The transaction will be completed on March 31, 2010. Prior to completion, Cision will separate and thereby retain its current German CisionPoint customers as well as a salesforce to continue to sell this solution in the German market. The purchase price is EUR 2.85 million on a cash and debt free basis, payable on September 30, 2012. Cision has also agreed to reimburse the divested unit for restructuring costs of EUR 250,000 and to provide a loan to the divested unit of EUR 2 million, where the loan should be repaid in installments and be fully repaid by June 30, 2011. Cision’s German business had revenues of about EUR 18 million in 2009, with nearly all of its business focused on transactional Monitor and Analyze services, and with about 240 employees as of December 31, 2009. For 2009, Cision Germany reported an operating loss before restructuring costs of about EUR 1.6 million, including certain cost allocations from the Cision Group, and in addition restructuring costs of EUR 0.9 million. During 2009, Cision Germany started to market its CisionPoint solution to new German customers, through a separate and dedicated salesforce. As of January 2010, this part of Cision’s German business, which will be retained by Cision following the divestment, has revenues with an annual run rate of about EUR 0.5 million, employing 5 people. Following the divestment, Cision Germany will continue to offer customers a complete offering through the CisionPoint service platform, where media monitoring will be provided through internet sources, electronic feeds from news aggregators and through a reseller agreement with Infopaq International. “This divestment and transformation of our German business model is another step towards executing on our strategy to leverage our award-winning CisionPoint platform, while reducing fixed costs for traditional Monitor content production. With our new business model, we believe we are well positioned for profitable growth in Germany over the next few years”, says Hans Gieskes, CEO of the Cision Group.

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