The Thomson Corporation to Acquire NewsEdge Corporation

Posted on August 8, 2001

The Thomson Corporation and NewsEdge Corporation announced that they have signed an agreement under which Thomson will acquire NewsEdge. Under the terms of the agreement, a newly formed Thomson subsidiary will make a cash tender offer for all of the shares of NewsEdge common stock, at a price of US$2.30 per share, or approximately US$43 million, which includes cash in the business.

``The acquisition of NewsEdge builds on the commitment of The Thomson Corporation to provide broad and powerful information and tools to the business and professional market,'' said Brian H. Hall, president and chief executive officer of Thomson Legal & Regulatory. ``Like Westlaw, Dialog and other Thomson products, NewsEdge offers timeliness, breadth of coverage and editorial excellence. It also provides an important complement to our news and current awareness services, and enhances our position in the business news and corporate market segments,'' he added.

NewsEdge is a provider of real-time news and information products and services to approximately 1,500 corporations and professional service firms worldwide. Thomson plans to align NewsEdge with The Dialog Corporation, a provider of online information services for business, science, engineering, finance and law professionals, as part of the Thomson Legal & Regulatory market group. NewsEdge will continue to be run by its current management team, headed by President and Chief Executive Officer Clifford M. Pollan.

Roy Martin, president and chief executive officer of Dialog, said NewsEdge is seen as a key to supporting the Thomson strategy of integrating its information and technology tools within the infrastructure of its customers. ``In today's business environment, critical decisions are only as good as the information they are based on,'' said Martin. ``NewsEdge's unique strength in developing enterprise content and decision-support solutions helps its customers more easily navigate and unlock the unrealized value of all of their information assets, shaping the strategies and decisions that drive the success of the organization.''