Qurius and Prodware take the next step

PARIS/ZALTBOMMEL - Qurius and Prodware announce the establishment of a strategic alliance. After building up a track record of common business achievements over the past 5 months Prodware and Qurius are now taking the next step towards the creation of an EMEA champion in business solutions and applications. This alliance will be driven by the management of the two groups and follows the announcement made on February 8th when the companies entered into exclusive discussions.

The key objective of this alliance is to create significant synergies. In this next step, the alliance will be substantiated by the following:

- Qurius and Prodware have agreed that it is important to provide Qurius’ management team with a strong industrially focused stakeholder that can help reinforce the company. In this context Parcom Capital of the Netherlands, currently the largest shareholder of Qurius, supports this strategic move and is willing to facilitate it through an exchange of shares in which Parcom will sell a part of their interest in Qurius to Prodware in exchange for an interest in Prodware. To establish this, Prodware will issue new shares and sell these to Parcom after which Parcom will be holding a stake of 6% in Prodware. As a result of this transaction Prodware will become the largest shareholder in Qurius with a stake of 17,1%, instead of 9% before. After the transaction Parcom will be holding 7,2% of Qurius shares.
- The Supervisory Board of Qurius invites Mr. Philippe Bouaziz, chairman of the Board of Prodware, to assume the role of advisor to the Qurius Supervisory Board with immediate effect and plans to nominate, at the next shareholders meeting, Mr. Bouaziz for a full membership of the Qurius Supervisory Board.
- With immediate effect Mr. Leen Zevenbergen, CEO of Qurius, will become a member of the executive strategic committee of Prodware where he joins, amongst others, Mr. Alain Conrard, CEO of Prodware. Both groups own and distribute powerful industry focused business solutions that have a strong growth potential. Based on the best and latest technologies, These solutions are comprehensive, much more simple and cost effective to deploy and implement. Compared to standard market solution that need a lot specific customization. Such an IP (Intellectual Property) focused business model is considered to be of growing importance for the future competitive position of the two companies.

Qurius and Prodware will thus invest in further development of IP and will join forces to accelerate the potential revenue and margins generated by such products and solutions. The two companies have specifically:

- Signed an agreement to jointly and cross distribute respective IP and together develop new solutions for key high potential markets. In the course of this year they plan to create a joint venture for the distribution of such IP through the Microsoft partner channel.
- Planned to sign a teaming agreement to provide both local and international customers and partners with the full range of resources and expertise that both companies have at their disposal. This will include all entities of both companies and not just the respective near-shore operations that Qurius and Prodware are currently already sharing.

Mr. Leen Zevenbergen, CEO of Qurius, confirms that: “The substantiation of this commitment gives both companies a much better position towards our business partners and especially to the Microsoft Business Solution ecosystem that will now clearly identify the Prodware & Qurius strategic alliance as one partner.”

Mr. Alain Conrard, CEO of Prodware, comments, “We are proud to see that the asset management subsidiary of ING, Parcom Capital, validates our strategic vision of building a European champion. We are working hard with Leen and our teams to, step by step and with the right timing, build this champion and thus maximize value for our stakeholders. The synergies and energy between our respective “countries” is already high and generating a lot of value. This step will allow us to accelerate further.”

Qurius N.V.
Qurius provides IT solutions: design, architecture, infrastructure, implementation and system management of Microsoft-based business and IT solutions. From our head office in Zaltbommel we serve clients throughout Europe, including Belgium, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. In 2010, we openly communicated our objective of achieving 100% sustainable operations by 2014. In this way, we want to become the leading European organisation in sustainable IT. We work with clients and partners who are equally ambitious and have the same sustainability objectives. Qurius has been listed on the Euronext Amsterdam since 1998. For more information visit www.qurius.nl

Prodware S.A.
Founded in 1989, PRODWARE (www.prodware.fr) creates, integrates and hosts IT solutions for businesses. This activity is exercised in a sector where success necessitates a blend of strong IT expertise and industry specific know-how, specifically in administrative and management processes. PRODWARE already helps more than 15,000 active clients and is the key actor and partner for the installation and management of global IT solutions and applications. Present in 9 countries and through strong strategic alliances the group accompanies enterprises in their international deployment. A good corporate citizen Prodware joined the United Nations Global Compact in 2009.