TELES AG Informationstechnologien — M&A Activity 2004

Dec 10, 2004

News Details

Ad-hoc | 10 December 2004 17:27

TELES sells STRATO to freenet.de

Ad-hoc-announcement transmitted by DGAP. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. ——————————————————————————– TELES sells STRATO to freenet.de Berlin, December 10th 2004. TELES is about achieving an agreement with freenet.de concerning selling to it TELES’ whole WebHosting business area – i.e. the TECT AG with its subsidiaries STRATO AG and Cronon AG as well the STRATO Rechenzentrum AG. The respective contract – with some reservations of consent – shall be signed by both parties during the weekend, and the whole transaction should be closed by Q1/2005, after having performed further formalities. The most important facts of this transaction: The purchase price amounts to a total of approximately 132 MioEUR. It comprises 80 MioEUR cash and 3.1 million freenet.de-shares – both being due short-term. Additionally, TELES receives 10 MioEUR for network equipment to be ordered by freenet.de, within the next 3 years, out of TELES range of products. The entire staff and management will stay with the sold companies, including TECT’s CEO Rochus Wegener, member of the TELES board in charge of its WebHosting business. For the contract parts, which are not subject to non-disclosure requirements, please see http://www.teles.de, after the contract will have come into effect. This transaction is part of TELES’ focusing its business activities on its main future growth area: the wireless broadband Internet access by its skyDSL service (which STRATO will market furthermore). It also implies an increase in value of TELES’ original and persisting growth area TCS – TELES Communications Systems, i.e. development and marketing of innovative switching systems for various network areas, most notably for VoIP. This increase in value could exceed the size of the above mentioned order volume by far: The latter could make one of the largest German telecommunications networks, the freenet.de-network, become a showcase for the competitive superiority of TELES’ switching systems and the networks equipped with them. This transaction therefore comprises two strategic components for TELES: The potential value growth of firstly its TCS business area and secondly its above mentioned block of freenet.de-shares. Concerning the incoming cash from this transaction, TELES currently intends to fully distribute it to its shareholders – spread over 2-3 years. Prof. Sigram Schindler CEO end of ad-hoc-announcement (c)DGAP 10.12.2004 ——————————————————————————– WKN: 745490; ISIN: DE0007454902; Index: TecDAX, NEMAX 50 Listed: Geregelter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr in Berlin- Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover und Stuttgart 101727 Dez 04