78,6 percent of klickTel shares acquired

Munich, 19. February 2008 –  telegate AG, one of Germanys leading ‘local search’ providers, concluded purchasing agreements with a variety of shareholders of klickTel AG to take over a majority stake in the company. For a cash consideration of around 25 million Euros, telegate AG acquires 78,6 percent of klickTel's share capital. The transaction was approved by the Supervisory Board of telegate AG at its meeting today and is now merely subject to clearance by the German Federal Cartel Office. The transaction is due to be completed with beginning of the second quarter of 2008.

Boris Polenske, founder and CEO of klickTel AG, will actively assist integrating the company into the telegate Group over the coming weeks before leaving the company, effective as of June 30, 2008. The deal ranks as the biggest investment telegate has done over the last few years and underlines the strategic significance the advertisement business and its associated growth potentials hold for the Group.

Following liberalization of the German telecommunication market, klickTel AG managed to position itself as one of the most successful providers for cross-media telephone and industry directories, generating annual sales of approximately 20 million Euros. The bulk of  revenues is made through marketing advertisement entries to small and medium-sized enterprises. Further to these activities, klickTel also sells directory assistance specific software and licenses to both private and commercial users. The company is listed in the Entry Standard of the German stock exchange 'Deutsche Börse'.

This transaction enables telegate AG to establish itself as one of the leading ‘local search’ providers for all modern media-channels in Germany. telegate thus closes the market gap between traditional „Yellow pages"-publishing houses and conventional internet search engines, thereby securing an excellent competitive position as specialist in the growth market of 'local search'. Together the two companies telegate and klickTel are already today processing over 210 million consumer search requests, which corresponds to approximately 15 percent of the entire market volume for directory assistance and industry queries. Together the two companies employ roughly 400 sales experts and are therefore equipped with one of the biggest nationwide sales organizations in Germany that specializes in small and medium-sized companies. 

 

Press contact:

Claudia Strixner
telegate AG
Head of Public Relations
Fraunhofer Str. 12a 
82152 München-Martinsried
Tel.: 089/ 8954-1188
Fax: 089/ 8954-1189
e-mail: presse@telegate.com