Hugin (Group) ASA (NO) - Hugin ASA today announced the merger with directnews AG

Hugin ASA today announced the merger with directnews AG

Hugin ASA, a leading provider of communication and distribution services for listed European companies, today took a decisive step to become a fully integrated service provider in both Investor Relations and Public Relations distribution services. By announcing the merger with directnews AG, a German based PR distribution company, Hugin now serves more than 1200 customers in 16 European countries.

Oslo, October 13th, 2005

The move comes in response to strong demand for total communication services for Investor and Public Relations communication needs. Existing directnews clients will have the immediate opportunity to use the Investor relations communication services from Hugin. At the same time, existing Hugin clients have the opportunity to utilize the PR services from directnews with direct access to more than 44,000 journalists across Europe. By adding the 15 000 journalists already in Hugin´s Nordic database Hugin / directnews will be offering a superior media database for Europe.

directnews AG, based in Leipzig, was founded in 2002 with the aim of providing PR communication support for European companies in a fast growing market. The company has since the start already gained about 10% of the PR distribution market in Germany, the second largest PR market in the world. Wolfgang Zehrt, the founder and Managing Director of directnews, is appointed as the Director of PR Business in the new Group.

New products and services are already planned to be launched next year offering both companies clients an integrated and complete corporate communication distribution service and platform.

"For over 10 years, Hugin has been committed to providing fully automated distribution solutions for Investor relations and corporate communication practitioners," said Tor Baekkelund, the new group CEO, "This merger will enable both companies clients to benefit from extensive global media and investor distribution options, empowering communication professionals to talk directly to the media and investor audiences."

"The merger between Hugin and directnews is an important part of our development creating a full European communication service provider helping companies fulfilling their communication needs and future listing requirements," said Tor Baekkelund, CEO of the new Group.

The merger is effective from today and in the coming months the new Group will strengthen its PR and IR sales in all the relevant European countries.


For more information, visit www.hugingroup.com or http://www.directnews.de


Journalist and media enquiries contact:
Tor Baekkelund, CEO +47 41 69 52 41
Wolfgang Zehrt, Director PR Business, +49 1715 468 305


About Hugin
Hugin is Europe´s leading provider of innovative solutions for connecting communication professionals with their target audiences. Hugin was founded in 1995. In just a few years it became one of Europe´s leading distributors of unedited corporate information.

Hugin currently distributes press releases on behalf of over 630 companies throughout Europe and employs approximately 52 people in 9 countries - Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Hugin´s core business is offering real-time quality information by providing communication professionals with the most innovative, straight through processing solution for the delivery of unedited facts to their target audiences.

With its innovative use of technology, Hugin is the professionals´ first choice for delivery of unedited messages to their target audiences.

Hugin offers investors and journalists this real-time news through its Internet portal at http://www.huginonline.com/ and via free subscription as an email alert service. Online portals, data vendors and newswires are provided access to real-time feeds of all our news.


About directnews
directnews is the second largest PR communication provider in Germany serving more than 500 clients with their PR communication needs. directnews was founded in 2002 and has in few years acquired about 10% of the German market.

directnews core service offering is tailored research and management of media data as well as press release distribution to targeted media world wide. directnews also provides a successful Radio PR service helping companies to increase penetration of their distribution.

directnews employs around 24 people at their Leipzig location. The team consists of sales representatives and researchers providing targeted media information from anywhere in the world.

For more information go to http://www.directnews.de


The media release and picture of Tor Baekkelund and Wolfgang Zehrt can be downloaded from the following links:

Tor Baekkelund and Wolfgang Zehrt
http://www.directnews.de/servlets/LoadBinaryServlet/873798/Tor_Baekkelund_Wolfgang_Zehrt.jpg

Media release (PDF)




The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

This release was published on openPR.