Merger of zanox and Digital Window Holding: European market leader for performance-based online marketing emerges

Axel Springer and PubliGroupe bring majority shareholding in Digital Window into the common subsidiary company zanox / zanox group shows substantial growth against the market trend

20 July 2010, Berlin/London – Axel Springer AG and the Swiss PubliGroupe AG bring their majority shareholding in Digital Window, the British market leader for affiliate marketing, into their common subsidiary company zanox. Combined, they comprise the European market leader for performance-based online marketing under the umbrella of the zanox group.

With annual revenues of around 323 million Euro in the 2009, the group comprising zanox, Digital Window and buy.at lies well ahead of its competitorsin Europe. The next-largest European competitor in performance-based online marketing is nearly 13 % smaller than the zanox group, with revenues of around 284 million Euro in 2009. Against the prevailing market trend, the company group was able to register substantial growth during the last trading year.

Philipp Justus, CEO of zanox: "With Digital Window, the zanox group becomes the largest company for performance-based online marketing in the UK. Combined with our leading position in Continental Europe, we are now also the leading performance marketing network at European level. As a result, we offer our advertisers even greater reach, as well as direct access to all European markets. Our publishers benefit from new and attractive programmes."

Apart from its economic success, the strength of zanox's market position is also demonstrated by the scale of its advertiser network: The merger with Affiliate Window and buy.at adds a further 1300 international customers to the previous total of over 2000 advertising customers.

Within the framework of the merger, market presences will be split according to clear geographical responsibilities, with accounts transferred into the strongest respective division of the network. In Continental Europe, the zanox brand will remain in overall lead including the Scandinavian and Dutch customer base of buy.at. The group's future presence in the UK will be under the brand names of Affiliate Window and buy.at. Therefore, in the future, zanox's British customers will be served by Affiliate Window. The fourth brand in the zanox group, the performance marketing agency eprofessional, will also continue to offer its services predominantly in the German-speaking region.

The figures at a glance

zanox Group (zanox, Affiliate Window, buy.at):

• Revenue 2009: 323 million Euro
• Revenue growth 2009: 9 %
• Number of advertisers: 3300

Background

The foundation for the zanox group's strong market position in the rapidly-growing online marketing segment was set by Axel Springer and the Swiss PubliGroupe's acquisition of the German market leader, ZANOX.de AG in 2007. The next step followed just two years later, when the British market was accessed by means of a majority share in Digital Window, the holding company of the affiliate network Affiliate Window. In February of this year, Digital Window acquired a competitor with Perfiliate Technologies Ltd., which operates in the UK, the USA and Scandinavia under the network name of buy.at.

Important links:

Press release – zanox integrates the customers of buy.at: http://www.zanox.com/en/zanox/press/news/pr20100511EN.html

Press release – Axel Springer and PubliGroupe acquire majority interest in Digital Window: http://www.axelspringer.de/en/presse/Axel-Springer-and-PubliGroupe-acquire-majority-interest-in-Digital-Window_910488.html

zanox homepage: http://www.zanox.com/

zanox Blog Portal: http://blog.zanox.com/en/zanox/

Affiliate Window homepage: http://www.affiliatewindow.com/

buy.at homepage: http://www.buy.at/