SAN FRANCISCO, CA; May 1, 2013 - Kennet Partners, a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies across North America and Europe, today announced it has made a $16 Million investment in AVA.ai LLC, the fast-growing Internet Technology company behind AVA, the Artificial Intelligence lead management platform. As part of the investment, Kennet has appointed Internet industry veteran Mark A. Bradley as CEO of AVA.ai.

“Kennet reviewed many bootstrapped, founder-led companies over the past year and were very impressed with what AVA’s Founder, Ben Brigham, and his team have accomplished,” said Eric Filipek, Managing Director of Kennet, Silicon Valley. “Our significant investment demonstrates our confidence in how machine learning is changing lead management. Further, the addition of Mark A. Bradley, a seasoned executive with whom we’ve had a long association, as CEO adds significant strength and depth to this management team.”

Bradley brings extensive executive leadership and high-growth, customer-focused Internet business expertise to AVA.ai. He sits on the Executive Advisory Board at Kennet Partners and, prior to joining AVA.ai, was part of the founding team at NexTag – the world’s largest comparison shopping engine. During his tenure Bradley was responsible for launching the US Business and expanding it worldwide; entering new verticals; and the overall strategic direction of the company. He developed a strong technological, analytical and entrepreneurial focus on capital efficiency. Bradley played several key roles in the company’s development including President and led several acquisitions. Prior to NexTag, Bradley worked within the Technology sector for more than 10 years, where he held executive positions at public companies in Marketing, Product Management and Business Development. Bradley currently holds board positions with NextPerformance and AcademixDirect, and an executive advisory role with Trademob – all Kennet Portfolio companies; and is an executive advisor to Insidevault.

“Kennet Partners is a dynamic and fastpaced environment. After analyzing many leading edge companies for possible investment, AVA.ai and the team that Ben has built are clearly years ahead of the competition,” stated Bradley. “AVA.ai has the right components for significant expansion and market leadership – by leveraging its cutting-edge AVA Artificial Intelligence technology. I look forward to guiding the company to achieve its potential.”

The AVA (Automated Virtual Assistant) platform engages, nurtures and connects customer leads consistently and persistently, cultivating relationships at each step of the life cycle. Unlike auto-response programs, AVA uses artificial intelligence to interpret responses and take action based upon customer replies, giving each contact context, thereby increasing engagement and results. AVA is like having hundreds of sales people working around the clock, doing the leg work before turning readied and reignited leads over to the sales team.

Having launched in the Automotive industry, AVA.ai is now rapidly expanding into other high-growth customer-centric sectors worldwide. There are currently more than 4,000 sales professionals using AVA to manage and maximize leads within a number of industry-leading companies across multiple verticals.

About AVA.ai

AVA.ai is a fast-growing Internet Technology company, founded in 2007 with offices in Bellingham, WA and San Francisco, CA. With an international presence and more than 4,000 sales professionals in several industries using AVA, the company’s growth has been tremendous and success well-documented. AVA partners with leading industry companies across many verticals who value better lead management. For more information, please visit www.AVA.ai. To schedule a demonstration of AVA, please call 888.633.7738, sign up on the website or email Sales@AVA.ai. For additional press information, email PR@AVA.ai.

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in Europe and North America. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. For more information, please visit www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority.

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Media Contact:
US media inquiries: Javier Rojas, Kennet Partners - Tel: +1 650 573 8700
European media inquiries: Janina Jablonski, Kennet Partners - Tel: +44 20 7839 8020

London - 14 November 2012 Kennet Partners, the technology growth equity investor, has announced that it has appointed Neil Cooper as Finance Director.

Neil joined Kennet from Robert W. Baird Group, where he was Financial Controller, a role he previously held at Advent Venture Partners. Neil began his career at KPMG, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Warwick.

Michael Elias, Managing Director, said “We are delighted that Neil has joined the Kennet team. Neil brings significant private equity experience, having worked in multiple areas of the industry in his career to date.”

Neil is responsible for finance, administration, and investor relations.

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in Europe and North America. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Services Authority.

Berlin – 07 November 2012 Trademob, the leading data-driven mobile app marketing platform, announced today a Series B investment of $15 million led by technology growth equity investor Kennet Partners. Kennet will invest $12.5 million, with additional funds coming from existing investors Tengelmann Ventures and High-Tech Gründerfonds. The financing will be used to fund Trademob’s continued global expansion and for further investment in its proprietary technology platform. Michael Elias, managing director at Kennet, and Hillel Zidel, director at Kennet, will join Trademob’s board of directors.

“Trademob has rapidly developed a leadership position in the large and fast-growing market for app marketing,” said Hillel Zidel. “What Ravi and the team have developed over the last two years is hugely impressive, and we’re excited to be working together to create a global market leader. Trademob is a great example of the type of founder-led, capital-efficient business that we like to invest in.”

“With a presence in London and Silicon Valley, Kennet is an ideal partner as we continue to scale our business globally,” said Ravi Kamran, CEO of Trademob. “We’re excited to have a partner on board that provides us not only capital, but also vast strategic experience in our market.”

Founded in 2010 in Berlin, Trademob optimizes mobile app campaigns, helping app marketers increase user retention, in-app engagement and App Store ranking. Using its innovative tracking technology and real-time campaign optimization technology, Trademob delivers exceptional performance to mobile marketers. Trademob provides advertisers with access to more than 100 mobile ad networks and has a reach of more than 500 million mobile users in 190 countries. Clients include eBay Classifieds, Booking.com, Universal Music, Axel Springer AG, and many others. The company has offices in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris and New York.

Since officially launching its app marketing offering in November 2011, Trademob has experienced double-digit monthly revenue growth and is now one of the leading app marketing platforms in Europe.

About Trademob

Berlin-based Trademob is a data-driven mobile app marketing platform led by technology entrepreneurs and math experts. Founded in August 2010, Trademob offers its clients an easy and efficient opportunity to promote their mobile apps globally while optimizing mobile marketing goals and budgets. Trademob’s optimization engine and data-driven approach maximize active app users, in-app engagement and mobile revenue. The company’s independent platform aggregates all relevant ad networks and reaches more than 500 million mobile users worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.trademob.com.

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Services Authority.

About Tengelmann Ventures

Following the motto “Funding your ideas,” Tengelmann Ventures GmbH, a fully-owned subsidiary of the Tengelmann Group, has been investing in fresh and rapidly growing startups for several years and has now become one of the most significant startup investors in Germany. The operative retail subsidiaries OBI, KiK, Kaiser’s Tengelmann and Plus.de, as well as the real estate company TREI Real Estate, also belong to the Tengelmann Group. This family-owned enterprise was established in 1867 in Mülheim an der Ruhr and is currently managed by the fifth generation of the family. Operating in 15 different countries and employing a staff of approximately 80,000 people who work in 4,000 stores, the company most recently turned over annual sales of EUR 10 billion.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

High-Tech Gruenderfonds invests in young, high-potential high-tech startups. The seed financing provided is designed to enable startups to take an idea through prototyping and to market launch. Typically, High-Tech Gruenderfonds invests EUR 500,000 in the seed stage, with the potential for up to a total of EUR 2 million per portfolio company in follow-on financing. Investors in this public/private partnership include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the KfW Banking Group, as well as fourteen industrial groups of ALTANA, BASF, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE Color, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Evonik, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, SAP, Tengelmann and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gruenderfonds has about EUR 565.5 million under management in two funds (EUR 272 million HTGF I, EUR 293.5 million HTGF II).

Secondary growth equity transactions are a useful and increasingly common financing mechanism for founders of technology businesses. A secondary growth equity transaction is one where an investor acquires shares from existing shareholders (with or without the addition of primary capital).

There are a number of situations in which a secondary investment from a growth equity firm can unlock value or solve challenges facing founder-led businesses.

In the attached Whitepaper we list some of the key types of secondary growth equity transactions and include examples of investments that we have made in each category.

HOLLYWOOD, FL — (March 28, 2011) Prolexic Technologies has announced the completion of a $13.9 million financing led by Kennet Partners, a leading technology growth equity investor. Javier Rojas, Managing Director at Kennet, and Gustavo Alberelli, Director at Kennet, will join the board.

Founded in 2003, Prolexic was the first company to establish global scrubbing centers to stop DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks in the Cloud. Leveraging unique filtering techniques, high-speed bandwidth and peering, advanced routing and other patent-pending devices, Prolexic provides the most advanced and powerful DDoS detection and network protection systems available.

Prolexic’s DDoS mitigation service utilizes the company’s proprietary mitigation & control software and its experienced global security operations team together with the necessary bandwidth and hardware to fend off DDoS cyber attacks. Regardless of an attack’s size or complexity, Prolexic ensures its customers are protected.

Both the Federal government and private sector have experienced a surge in cyber attacks. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal agencies suffered 41,776 cyber attacks in 2010, an increase of almost 40% over 2009. In the private sector, several Global 2000 companies experienced cyber attacks following the recent Wikileaks ordeal, which highlighted the disruptive power of larger DDoS attacks.

“DDoS attacks have become costly forms of cyber-crime, and they are increasingly being proactively addressed by businesses to avoid the devastating costs of DDoS-related downtime,” said Kennet’s Javier Rojas.

Roger Stone, Prolexic’s board representative from previous investor, IPVG Corp. (PSE: IP), said, “Since Prolexic offers customers the best cyber defense available against DDoS attacks, we have seen demand for our product offerings increase exponentially. Kennet’s expertise in helping technology companies expand throughout the United States & Europe will be a great complement to IPVG’s strong network in Asia-Pacific.”

Kennet’s Gustavo Alberelli added, “As organizations of all sizes increasingly adopt Cloud computing solutions, DDoS and cyber attacks have soared in both frequency and sophistication. Prolexic has quickly emerged as the leader in Cloud Security and demand for its differentiated products has intensified. Kennet looks forward to building Prolexic into an industry leader.”

About Prolexic Technologies

Founded in 2003, Prolexic is an IT security provider of Cloud-based cyber defense solutions, such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) detection and mitigation, for the Federal Government and Global 2000 customers. For more information please visit www.prolexic.com

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. www.kennet.com

London, 8 September 2011 Kennet Partners, the technology growth equity investor, has announced a $25 million investment in WorldOne, a market leader in global healthcare data collection. The financing will be used to accelerate WorldOne’s global expansion and to fund continued development of new business lines. Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet, will join the Board of Directors of WorldOne.

WorldOne delivers global services to its customers in the healthcare market research sector, delivering access to the worldwide healthcare community. Since its establishment in London in 2000, WorldOne has developed a panel of 500,000 physicians and 200,000 healthcare professionals enabling the company to deliver large-scale projects in 80 countries. The company has greatly expanded its operations from Europe to North America and Asia, providing a true global offering to its customers. WorldOne’s international presence, commitment to quality and high level of client satisfaction has led the company to achieve consistently high growth. In 2010, WorldOne completed over 300,000 interviews with medical professionals for almost 2,000 market research projects.

“We have been enormously impressed by WorldOne’s growth profile and its dynamic leadership team. They have built a unique global healthcare panel, which is a tremendous asset upon which can be developed a number of exciting new business activities. Our investment in WorldOne is the result of our commitment to backing high growth, founder-led businesses and giving them the means to achieve their full growth potential”, said Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet.

Peter Kirk, CEO of WorldOne said “Having an investor like Kennet make a $25m commitment is a strong vote of confidence in what we have achieved and where WorldOne is headed. Kennet was an easy choice given its exceptional management team and history of success. WorldOne will benefit on multiple levels from Kennet’s investment and involvement. We look forward to the future.”

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in Europe and North America. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Services Authority.

About WorldOne

Founded in 2000, WorldOne Research Ltd. has 330+ employees and is headquartered in New York and London, with regional offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo and Mexico City. WorldOne is an international research agency specializing in healthcare data collection for leading market research companies, agencies, and consulting firms. With one of the largest healthcare focused panels in the industry, WorldOne’s client portfolio includes the world’s top healthcare agencies and brands. WorldOne offers both online and offline access to medical professionals in over 80 countries. For more information: www.worldone.com

PARIS - 31 May, 2011 Kennet Partners, the technology growth equity investor has announced a €16 million investment in Next Performance, a fast growing online advertising company that specialises in dynamic retargeting. The financing will be used to fund Next Performance’s continued European expansion. Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet, and Hillel Zidel, Director at Kennet, will join the Board of Directors of Next Performance.

Next Performance delivers high value retargeting and audience targeting services for brands and large retailers using its proprietary optimization technology. Next Performance’s innovative offering includes dynamic personalized banners, local targeting and massive reach campaigns on multiple business models (CPA, CPC and CPM). Since its establishment in 2008, Next Performance has expanded rapidly - its client base has increased from 11 customers in January 2009 to over 500 in May 2011. The combined retargeting and audience targeting proposition has enabled Next Performance to provide advertisers with a unique solution both to retarget existing customers as well as to acquire new customers.

“We’ve been extremely impressed with the rapid growth of Next Performance, a great example of a founder-led, bootstrapped business. Our investment in Next Performance is the result of our continued focus on the online advertising segment both in Europe and the US”, said Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet.

Vincent Karachira, CEO of Next Performance said “After a thorough selection process, we felt that Kennet would be the ideal investor in Next Performance because of their experience of working with companies as they expand internationally and their successful track record in the online advertising sector. Next Performance is already operating its retargeting business in 10 countries, and we will use the capital to significantly expand our international presence.” He added “We are pleased to welcome Kennet on board as a strategic partner.”

Hillel Zidel, Director at Kennet, said “The demand for dynamic retargeting has grown significantly as a result of the high level of performance it provides and Next Performance is uniquely positioned as one of the leaders in the category.”

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Services Authority.

About Next Performance

Launched in 2008, Next Performance delivers high value online retargeting and audience targeting services for brands and large retailers. The company has 500 clients across Europe (France, UK, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal). Working with ad exchanges, networks and exclusive publishers and using its proprietary optimization technology, Next Performance delivers billions of personalized dynamic banner impressions per month. For more information: www.nextperformance.com.

Sequans became a Kennet portfolio company in July 2006 when we led a €17 million financing of the business. The company has since become a global leader in the design and development of 4G chipsets. Sequans is the first French company to list on NYSE since 2002.

Based in Paris, Sequans is a leading fabless designer, developer and supplier of 4G semiconductor solutions for wireless broadband applications. Its products incorporate baseband processor and RF transceiver ICs along with proprietary signal processing techniques, algorithms and software stacks to deliver high throughput, low latency, strong signal reach, low power consumption and high reliability in a small form factor and at a low cost. Sequans shipped more than 4.6 million units during 2010, compared to more than 0.9 million units during 2009.

Since Kennet has been a shareholder, the company grew from $6 million revenues in 2006 to over $68 million revenues in 2010.

Sequans is a terrific example of the kind of high-growth technology business that is at the core of Kennet’s investment strategy.

London, 31 January, 2011 - Kennet Partners, a leading international growth equity investor, today announced that goviral, the international online distributor of branded video content, has been acquired by AOL Europe, part of AOL Inc. [NYSE: AOL], for total consideration of $96.7 million.

Kennet invested €6.5 million in goviral in March 2009 and was the company’s only external shareholder. The acquisition of goviral will provide Kennet’s latest fund (Kennet III, which closed in 2008) with a strong return on its investment and is the fund’s second exit in the past three months.

goviral distributes branded video content for over 500 clients that include some of the world’s most famous superbrands including Nike, Sony, Coke, Nokia, Audi, Mercedes and Proctor & Gamble. goviral’s distribution network consists of over 18,000 publishers, leading social networks and mobile applications that generate up to 60 million video views each month and reach over 350 million internet users worldwide. goviral is headquartered in Copenhagen, with offices in Frankfurt, London, Munich, Stockholm, and Paris.

“The founders and management team at goviral have done a terrific job at building a valuable business without any outside capital. In fact, our 2009 investment was used solely to purchase existing shares from an early shareholder, and was non-dilutive to the company’s founders and management. goviral is a 100% bootstrapped business and we are very proud to have been associated with the company.” said Kennet Managing Director, Michael Elias, who joined the goviral board at the time of Kennet’s investment.

“We have had an exciting time and much fun building our business. It has been a period of extreme growth and international expansion. Kennet’s experience and business understanding has been very valuable as we developed our strategic positioning and built out our management team“ said goviral’s CEO, Rene Rechtman.

Arma Partners acted as exclusive financial adviser to goviral.

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in Europe and North America. Kennet invests in internet, technology, and business services companies, offering expansion capital for growth and for liquidity to existing shareholders. Kennet has funds under management of approximately $600 million.

For more information: www.kennet.com.

Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the U.K. by the Financial Services Authority.

About goviral

goviral A/S distributes branded video content for over 500 clients that include some of the world’s most famous superbrands such as Nike, Sony, Coke, Nokia, Audi, Mercedes and Proctor & Gamble. goviral’s distribution network consists of over 18,000 publishers, leading social networks and mobile applications categorised in 24 vertical that generate up to 60 million video views each month and reach over 350 million internet users worldwide. goviral’s unique value proposition is guaranteeing clients a minimum number of targeted video views, bought on a pay-for-performance basis.

For more information: www.goviral.com

Media Enquiries

Kennet: Janina Jablonski, +44 207 839 8020, jjablonski@kennet.com

Foster City, September 29, 2010 - Kennet Partners, a leading growth equity investor to capital-efficient companies, is delighted to announce that five of its portfolio companies have been named in the Inc. 500/5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies.

Kennet congratulates the founders, CEOs, and the teams of its portfolio companies for their sustained commitment, innovation and performance. The Inc. 500|5000 ranks companies by overall revenue growth over a three-year period.

AcademixDirect (639% growth), led by Karen Francis, offers performance-based marketing to the post-secondary education market. Its suite of marketing services benefit from its proprietary matching algorithm, data purity assurance software, lead scoring, and targeting capabilities, that improves how colleges and universities find, recruit, and retain students.

Revolution Prep (305% growth), led by Jake Neuberg and Ramit Varma is a test preparation and online education company that helps students score higher on SAT and ACT tests and improves high school graduation rates in the K12 market. The company provides SAT and ACT test preparation services though innovative distribution models.

IntelePeer (302% growth), led by Frank Fawzi, offers a communication-as-a-service platform that enables carriers, service providers, and enterprises to access interexchange voice communication services from the cloud through its low cost, hosted VOIP peering network.

Schoolwires (248% growth), led by Ed Marflak provides social communication, community-management and productivity solutions to the K-12 education market. The company’s product suite brings together robust, flexible website and community management and web 2.0/social network capabilities in a single, user-centric solution.

Recommind (219% growth), led by Bob Tennant, offers a market leading enterprise search and categorization platform that automatically organizes, manages, and distributes large volumes of information from multiple sources for the corporate, legal and eDiscovery markets. With faster access to the right information, organizations can save time, enhance the quality of work product, increase the value of information assets, and improve competitiveness and profits.

“These are all great examples of capital-efficient businesses funded largely by customer revenues. Despite the tough economic conditions over the last two years, these companies continued to grow rapidly because they successfully developed compelling value propositions for their customers” said Javier Rojas, Managing Director of Kennet Partners. “We backed these teams because we felt they had great potential, and we are proud to continue being their partners in growth. Congratulations!”

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth, provide founder liquidity and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management.

For more information: www.kennet.com.

Javier Rojas blogs on great books, technology deals and entrepreneurship at http://seekinggrowth.typepad.com/

Los Angeles, CA. September 27, 2010 - Revolution Prep has announced the completion of its first institutional investment since inception, a $15 million financing led by Kennet Partners, a leading technology growth equity investor. Javier Rojas, Managing Director at Kennet, will join the board.

Revolution Prep is an educational software and services company with two primary divisions: Test Prep which currently focuses on SAT and ACT courses and private tutoring, and K12 Software which provides Algebra Support and English Language Arts as well as state-adopted web-based programs to prepare students for high school exit exams with market leadership in California. The company was launched in 2002 and self-financed by founders Ramit Varma and Jake Neuberg.

The company is recognized by Inc. magazine as the fastest growing private education company in the Los Angeles area, and No.14 in the education sector of its annual Inc 5000 list. Revolution Prep has achieved three year revenue growth exceeding 300% through 2009 and is poised to become the recognized leader in standardized test preparation and adaptive learning technology within the next five years. It has already become the nation’s largest provider of on-campus SAT and ACT courses, and its innovative and effective software programs are in use by over 150,000 students. In June 2010 Revolution Prep completed its first acquisition, Ivy Insiders.

“We set out to build a company that could help students meet their true potential,” said co-founder Jake Neuberg. “We always knew that would mean leveraging the best technology and ensuring we could deliver access to a quality program, no matter what financial resources our students have. We intend to continue along this same path of innovation and growth.”

Co-founder Ramit Varma added, “We have taken the lead on pricing and quality, and throughout the growth in the numbers of students we help, our commitment to them remains the same. We have donated over $5 million in tuition waivers to financially disadvantaged students and are proud to say that at Revolution Prep, students’ needs are placed first, long-term skills are emphasized, and confidence is built.”

Kennet’s Javier Rojas said, “We are impressed with the high success rate the company has achieved increasing high school graduation rates as well as its disruptive approach to the SAT Prep and tutoring markets. We believe that education will dramatically change this decade with technology enabled assessment-based learning leading the path.”

About Revolution Prep

Founded in 2002, Revolution Prep is an education software and services provider that has helped over a hundred thousand students score higher on the SAT, ACT and other high-stakes exams, while dramatically improving basic academic skills. Revolution Prep was founded with the mission of transforming education by leveraging technology to provide world-class test prep to every student, regardless of the ability to pay. Revolution Prep offers programs in real classroom settings, live online classroom settings, private in-person tutoring, private online tutoring, self-guided online courses, and hybrid courses that combine real classroom courses with in-person tutoring and the self-guided online course.

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management.

MINNEAPOLIS and BRUSSELS (September 23, 2010) - Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a comprehensive regulatory compliance and risk management business, today announced the acquisition of FRSGlobal, a Brussels-based global financial regulatory reporting and risk management business, from The Carlyle Group and growth equity investor Kennet Partners.

FRSGlobal’s solutions enable international financial institutions to centralize multi-country risk and regulatory reporting, and address major financial regulatory, compliance and risk management requirements globally. This acquisition will enable Wolters Kluwer Financial Services to offer financial organizations comprehensive compliance and risk solutions that cover operational risk, compliance risk, and financial risk and reporting—meeting the major risk requirements of financial organizations worldwide.

“The financial crisis, globalization, and increasing regulatory scrutiny have created a complex and challenging environment for financial organizations,” said Brian Longe, chief executive officer of Wolters Kluwer Financial & Compliance Services. “Financial organizations are requiring intelligent and comprehensive solutions and services to help them address the complexities of a rapidly evolving regulatory environment. Together, FRSGlobal and Wolters Kluwer Financial Services will be able to provide global financial organizations with the most comprehensive compliance and risk management solutions available.”

With the deep in-house domain expertise of hundreds of regulatory, risk and compliance experts from Wolters Kluwer Financial Services and FRSGlobal, the business provides unmatched insight into today’s global regulatory environment. This actionable regulatory intelligence is embedded within both organizations’ products, solutions and services, enabling financial organizations to manage global regulatory compliance, reduce risk and increase operational efficiency.

FRSGlobal is the only provider to offer customers a unified solution to address the financial risk management and regulatory reporting needs of financial organizations across the world. FRSGlobal’s integrated risk management and regulatory reporting solution utilizes a common data source platform with coverage in 40+ countries. More than 1,000 financial organizations—including 41 of the top 50 banks in the world—use FRSGlobal regulatory reporting applications.

More than 14,000 financial services organizations around the world trust Wolters Kluwer Financial Services to help manage their regulatory compliance and risk management programs through the company’s risk analytics and controls; regulatory intelligence; transaction and origination management solutions; and policy and procedure management tools and solutions.

The addition of FRSGlobal creates the world’s largest compliance and risk management business focused on financial services, with more than 15,000 banking, insurance and securities customers across the globe.

“Joining Wolters Kluwer Financial Services means that our customers will have access to an even broader array of compliance and risk management solutions,” said Steve Husk, chief executive officer of FRSGlobal. “With a shared commitment to meeting the evolving needs of the financial services market, FRSGlobal and Wolters Kluwer Financial Services will be able to comprehensively address the needs of financial organizations around the globe.”

Michael Wand, managing director and co-head of Carlyle’s European Technology Partners team (CETP), said: “This achievement with FRSGlobal is a great endorsement of our original investment thesis of transforming a traditional software license business into a value-enhancing subscription-based recurring revenue model, based on strong domain expertise and content orientation. We believe Wolters Kluwer is an excellent partner for the business and wish them every success in taking the business forward.”

David Carratt of Kennet Partners added, “This transaction is a prime example of the increasing convergence of content and software, a theme we have been following closely as investors. Under our stewardship, FRSGlobal built its specialized domain expertise in compliance deeper into its risk and reporting platform, creating an invaluable solution for bank CFOs facing a growing compliance challenge.”

FRSGlobal was founded in 1989. The company has 350 employees located in 20 offices in North America (Boston, New York and Toronto); Europe (Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Paris, Zurich, Lausanne, Warsaw and Cluj-Napoca (Romania); Dubai; and Asia Pacific and Japan (Hong Kong, Pune and Singapore).

Steve Husk and Serge Minne will join Wolters Kluwer Financial Services and will continue to lead FRSGlobal.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About Wolters Kluwer Financial Services

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is a comprehensive regulatory compliance and risk management business that helps financial organizations manage risk and improve efficiency and effectiveness across their enterprise. The organization’s prominent brands include: ARC Logics for Financial Services, PCi, Compliance Resource Network, Bankers Systems, VMP® Mortgage Solutions, AppOne®, GainsKeeper®, Capital Changes, NILS, AuthenticWeb™ and Uniform Forms™. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services supports its global customers with offices in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Hong Kong. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is part of Wolters Kluwer, a leading global information services and publishing company with annual revenues of (2009) €3.4 billion ($4.8 billion) and approximately 20,000 employees worldwide. Please visit our website for more information.

About FRSGlobal

FRSGlobal is the industry-recognized leader in unified global regulatory reporting and risk management solutions. These solutions, which are enriched with content including pre-defined regulatory reports and stress testing libraries, are employed daily across the globe by firms to meet increasingly complex external (regulatory) and internal (management) reporting obligations.

FRSGlobal solutions are a combination of in-depth content and modules from RegPro and RiskPro, sharing a single DataFoundation and CalculationEngine on a unified platform.

About The Carlyle Group/Carlyle European Technology Partners

Since 2002, Carlyle’s European technology team has acquired and invested in 20 small and medium-sized companies, supporting their growth, expansion and business transformation initiatives in the technology space.

The Carlyle Group is a global alternative asset manager with $90.5 billion of assets under management committed to 67 funds as of March 31, 2010. Carlyle invests across three asset classes - private equity, real estate and credit alternatives - in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America focusing on aerospace & defense, automotive & transportation, consumer & retail, energy & power, financial services, healthcare, industrial, infrastructure, technology & business services and telecommunications & media. Since 1987, the firm has invested $60.6 billion of equity in 969 transactions. The Carlyle Group employs more than 880 people in 19 countries. In the aggregate, Carlyle portfolio companies have more than $84 billion in revenue and employ more than 398,000 people around the world. www.carlyle.com

About Kennet Partners

Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet invests in technology and business services companies, offering expansion capital for growth and for liquidity to existing shareholders. Kennet has funds under management of approximately $600 million.

For more information: www.kennet.com.

Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the U.K. by the Financial Services Authority.

Contact:

Jennifer Marso
Senior Director, Corporate Communications
Wolters Kluwer
Financial Services
612-852-7912
jennifer.marso@ wolterskluwer.com
On Twitter: @JenniferMarso

Angela Peterson
Corporate Communications Manager
Wolters Kluwer
Financial Services
612-656-7745
angela.peterson@ wolterskluwer.com
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Jon Teppo
Wolters Kluwer
Vice President, Investor Relations
Wolters Kluwer
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Rosanna Konarzewski
Communications Manager
The Carlyle Group
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In a series of discussions with entrepreneurs whose capital-efficient businesses are recognized “return leaders”, Kennet Partners Managing Director Javier Rojas sat down with Mark to learn how he was able to build such a successful company despite breaking many of the conventional rules.

Click here to read the full article on Sandhill.com