Unit 4 Agresso offer to acquire CODA plc declared unconditional

Unit 4 Agresso has today declared unconditional the recommended cash offer by its subsidiary Agresso Limited to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of accounting software specialist CODA for 205 pence per CODA Share. As of 1.00 pm on 25th February it had received valid acceptances of the Offer, in respect of 68,589,964 CODA Shares, representing approximately 89.1 per cent of the CODA Shares to which the Offer relates.

Jeremy Roche, CEO of CODA plc said: “This is an exciting time for us and we are very excited to be working with Unit 4 Agresso to build on CODA’s success. Neon, our recent release and the world’s most advanced accounting software is starting to gain real headway in the market with new client wins and major customers going live, and in May we will launch our on-demand accounting system, CODA 2go. Being part of a much larger software organisation gives us the platform for growth in the future, and I believe our customers and staff have much to look forward to.”

Unit 4 Agresso CEO Chris Ouwinga said: “This is a highly significant acquisition for us and CODA will play a key role in our growth strategy. As an increasingly global business software company, I firmly believe that the new combined organisation has a great future and promises exciting opportunities for staff, customers and shareholders.”

“CODA is a successful business and has a suite of highly regarded product offerings in the form of a best-of-class financial management systems, recently enhanced by Neon, its latest product suite. We are committed to supporting CODA’s customers and product offerings into the future. We very much look forward to working with CODA’s staff and management team to further expand the combined business.”

Further details on the offer can be found at www.agresso.com

Enquiries regarding the acquisition:

Unit 4 Agresso - Edwin van Leeuwen, Chief Financial Officer
Tel: +31 184 444 444

ING (financial adviser to Unit 4 Agresso and Agresso) - Xavier Moreels, Ali Awan
Tel: +44 207 767 1000

Piper Jaffray (financial adviser to Unit 4 Agresso and Agresso) - Nigel Daly, Peter del Favero
Tel: +44 203 142 1000

ABOUT AGRESSO
Unit 4 Agresso develops, sells, implements and supports business software for the management, support and optimization of business operations and for the optimization of the operational management.
Prior to the acquisition of CODA it had branches in 10 European countries, the United States and Canada and sales worldwide, a turnover of €320.5 million was achieved in 2007. The head office is situated in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands. Unit 4 Agresso employs over 2,700 people, not including the newly acquired CODA business.
For more information, please visit: www.agresso.com.

ABOUT CODA
CODA creates, markets and implements a comprehensive range of software systems designed specifically to meet the needs of Financial Directors and Finance Departments. These include accounting and financial management systems, analysis applications, and business process management and control software. Its service oriented architecture also makes CODA software easy for clients and other vendors to integrate with their business applications.

CODA was founded in the UK in 1979, has around 600 employees working at 18 offices in 14 countries. CODA software is designed for multi-currency, multi-language, multi-country, multi-company and multi-site operations, and is used by around 2,600 medium and large organisations in over 100 countries.

For more information, please visit: www.coda.com.

ABOUT UNIT4

UNIT4 is a global business software company that creates, delivers and supports adaptable business software and services globally to help dynamic organizations manage their business needs effectively. We aspire to set the global standard for business software that helps dynamic organizations to embrace change simply, quickly and cost effectively. We have a broad portfolio of solutions that address different markets, requirements, technologies and types of organization.

With offices in 13 European countries, as well 6 countries across North America, Asia Pacific and Africa and sales activities in several other countries, a revenue of €393.6 million was realized in 2008. UNIT4 is headquartered in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands. The company has around 3,450 employees.

The Group incorporates a number of the world’s leading change embracing software brands including Agresso Business World and CODA financial management software.

For services intensive organizations, the Agresso Business World ERP suite is widely acknowledged as the business software solution that delivers the lowest Total Cost of Change. This is achieved thanks to its VITA™ architecture which allows for ongoing, post-implementation changes without the typical external IT costs and services that can cost firms huge sums of money each year.

CODA, our best-of-class financials brand, offers mid- to large sized organizations around the world financial management, analysis and business process management. CODA solutions are differentiated by its LINK™ architecture that provides financial executives a ‘no compromise’ approach to application change management by allowing business systems to be added or changed and easily integrated into the most dependable enterprise financials solution on the market.

For more information, please visit: www.unit4.com