to acquire spectrum communications group

BlueFreeway (ASX: BLU) Announcement
BlueFreeway to acquire Spectrum Communications Group
Sydney, Australia – Wednesday 18th July 2007: BlueFreeway (ASX: BLU), an independent global digital marketing company, is pleased to announce that it has entered an agreement to acquire public relations and communications group, Spectrum Communications Group.
The revenue is forecast to contribute an additional $2.8m to the BlueFreeway group and to expand its suite of products and service offerings.
Spectrum is profitable and the acquisition is expected to be revenue and earnings accretive to BlueFreeway in the 2008 financial year.
BlueFreeway will acquire 51% of the Spectrum Group for a sum of approximately $1m, with additional payments as per the standard BlueFreeway earnout model over a three-year period.
Arguably Australia’s foremost corporate and consumer IT Public Relations firm, Spectrum Communications Group has a blue chip client list including Blackberry, Commander, Symantec, Acer, and Intel, amongst many others. In April Spectrum announced that it had been appointed the Google Australia PR account.
BlueFreeway Chief Executive, Richard Webb, said: “The best public and media relations practitioners build strategies which incorporate digital media. The proliferation of user generated content, consumer forums and online communities assembled around specific issues, means corporations and governments are exposed to more analysis and scrutiny than ever before. A digital strategy is incomplete unless it engages these forums. Spectrum Communications brings to BlueFreeway a highly reputed team and we are eager to integrate their skills with the expertise across the group, to deliver best practice online reputation management on behalf of our clients.”
Established in 1996 by co founders Naomi Beames and Wendy Docherty, Spectrum Communications Group now comprises three distinct businesses: the flagship company Spectrum Communications, specialising in corporate, consumer and technology sector public relations; Max Australia, a sister company, also focusing on consumer and technology public relations; and Spectrum Life, a division of Spectrum Communications, specialising in the consumer lifestyle market.
"As the public relations industry begins to focus more and more on digital communications mediums, Spectrum's place in a group of companies such as BlueFreeway, is increasingly relevant. We are very excited about the unique opportunity to shape the future of PR as traditional media is being shaken up by the rise of social media and its many new tools and technologies. With BlueFreeway, the change from trying to control the message, to participating in it, will become a reality. We believe our clients are going to benefit enormously from this transition in our business," said Wendy Docherty, Spectrum's Principal.
The Spectrum Communications Group will retain its brand identities.
The acquisition of Spectrum Communications Group takes the number of companies in the BlueFreeway Group to 17, seven of which have been acquired since the company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in December 2006.
About Blue Freeway www.bluefreeway.com
BlueFreeway (ASX: BLU) is an independent, global digital and interactive marketing communications company with stakes in a growing portfolio of digital and interactive marketing specialists, as well as BlueCentral, a leading hosting and business infrastructure company. BlueFreeway’s product development division recently announced the launch of blu. – a marketing portal designed specifically for marketing professionals to collaborate and network. The company has offices in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Chili, China, Japan, Thailand and India.
BlueFreeway offers a suite of end-to-end, internet and mobile marketing solutions, to major corporate and government advertisers. The Portfolio Companies in the BlueFreeway group include: Blackglass, BlueArc Group, BlueCentral, Cogentis, Communicator Interactive, Deepend Sydney, Digicon, eHound, Forty Two International, IBC, JSA Interactive, MassMedia Studios, SageMetrics, Spectrum Communications Group, Spin Communications, Tentacle, and Viva9.
For BlueFreeway inquiries please contact
Ken McDonnell
Chief Financial Officer
Phone: +61 (2) 9336 8506
Mobile: +61 (41) 75 75 677
[email protected]