CENIT invests in the future

01.07.2010

Acquisition of business intelligence and performance management consultancy conunit

Acquisition agreement signed today

Ad hoc Report in accordance with §15 WpHG

Stuttgart, 1 July 2010 - The Managing Board of CENIT AG concluded an acquisition agreement with conunit GmbH today, completing a previously announced company acquisition. CENIT has been successfully active on the market for enterprise information management (EIM) for years and has become an important strategic partner for its customers and IBM. Now CENIT AG is expanding its technical and software expertise by acquiring the management and technology consultancy conunit and adding the future-oriented segment “Business Intelligence and Analytics” to its service portfolio.

"For us it was important to make a meaningful addition to our long-standing EIM business segment and thereby take on a topic that will become ever more important in the future. The market for business intelligence technologies and the associated consulting services is growing by leaps and bounds. For example, analysts at Datamonitor estimate that by 2012, income generation from BI licenses alone will rise to 7.9 bn EUR worldwide. With this acquisition, we will not only be able to secure additional consulting business, but also increase the share of software and maintenance proceeds in CENIT’s earnings", explains CENIT CEO Kurt Bengel. CFO and Managing Board Spokesman Christian Pusch adds that "Another important aspect for us was that the two Managing Partners Roman Schäfer and Jörg Uwer, who established the company six years ago, will continue to direct and further expand conunit’s business. In terms of enterprise management and balance-sheet structure, conunit is an excellent match for us. Also, the enterprise is well established in the market and there is great demand for the high-level industry expertise of its employees."

In 2009, conunit GmbH with its 23 employees posted sales of approx. 3.3 m EUR and EBIT of 0.34 m EUR. conunit is a management and technology consulting firm based in Neu-Isenburg. It supports its customers in overall enterprise control and the management of opportunities and risks, business processes, projects and data. Well-founded business management expertise, deep technical know-how and extensive industry knowledge form the foundations of the management consultancy. conunit’s portfolio includes business intelligence and performance management solutions based on products by leading technology providers such as IBM Cognos, as well as high-value management consulting services. In all its activities, conunit pursues two goals: One, to sustainably optimize the control systems, processes and instruments deployed by its customers. Two, to provide customers with the up-to-date, transparent information on critical business processes needed to be able to make secure, well-founded decisions to increase enterprise performance. conunit Managing Partner Roman Schäfer emphasizes that "For years, conunit has been one of the most successful partners of IBM Cognos in Europe."

Conunit Managing Partner Jörg Uwer adds: "During the six years since its foundation, conunit has managed to acquire a broad, highly reputable customer base, thanks to the extensive technical competence of our staff and our service portfolio’s stringent focus on the information and decision-making needs of our clients. Among these clients are major, internationally active corporations, but also medium-sized domestic enterprises.  They all rely on our high management and technology consulting expertise, and acknowledge the value of our work by regularly coming back to us for assistance."

Working out of two locations in Frankfurt/Main and Düsseldorf, conunit serves customers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxemburg.

CENIT is currently active in 8 German cities and employs more than 710 staff worldwide. The integration of conunit GmbH into CENIT AG creates one of the most important software and consulting enterprises in Germany for IBM’s enterprise information management product family. In 2007, IBM acquired Cognos, the market leader for business intelligence software, for approx. 5 bn  US$.

About CENIT:
Since 1988, the company has been active as a specialist for product lifecycle management, enterprise information management solutions and application management services. CENIT is listed on the Prime Standard of Deutsche Börse and currently employs about 700 staff. Among others, CENIT serves clients such as Allianz, W&W, Daimler, EADS Airbus, VR kreditwerk, BWB and Kuka, as well as numerous medium-sized businesses particularly from the automotive industry and the mechanical engineering sector, e.g. Jungheinrich, Flow, Viessmann or Georg Fischer.

Please send queries to:

CENIT AG
Fabian Rau
Industriestrasse 52-54, D-70565 Stuttgart
Tel.:+497117825-3185
Fax:+49711782544-4185
Email: f.rau@cenit.de


Additional Information:
This press/ad hoc report may contain future-oriented statements regarding the business, financial and earnings situation of as well as profit projections for CENIT. Such future-oriented statements are characterized by terms or statements such as "the company may" or "the company will", "expects", "assumes ", "is considering", "intends to", "plans", "believes", "will continue to" and/or "estimates", as well as similar terms and statements. Such statements contain no guarantee that the projections will in fact be achieved. Rather, such statements involve risks, imponderables and assumptions that are difficult to predict and, in addition, are based on assumptions as to future events which may prove to be incorrect. For this reason, actual events may diverge significantly from the assumptions contained in the above statement. In a future-oriented statement by which CENIT expresses  expectations  or assumptions with regard to future events, these expectations or assumptions are made in good faith, and it shall be assumed that they are made upon an appropriate basis; however, it cannot be guaranteed that the said statements, expectations or assumptions shall indeed occur, be attained or fulfilled. The actual operative result may diverge significantly from such future-oriented statements and is subject to certain risks. In this regard, please refer to the Annual Report of CENIT AG.

Tanja Marinovic
Tanja Marinovic
Marketing/ Investor Relations