Home > News > November 2004 > 12-Nov-2004

Futuremedia acquires Swedish e-Learning company

e-Learning provider Futuremedia has announced that it has signed an agreement for the acquisition of 100% of the outstanding shares in the Swedish e-learning company Open Training.

Open Training has its head office in Stockholm with branch offices in Gothenburg and Västerås, Sweden. The company's offering includes custom designed learning content, its proprietary 'Learngate' Learning Management System and 'Learnlab' content authoring tool, consulting and implementation services. Open Training's clients include a number of Scandinavian blue chip Companies.

"We are very pleased to be joining forces with Open Training, a leading Scandinavian e-learning provider, as a first milestone in our European expansion strategy," said Mats Johansson, Chief Executive Officer of Futuremedia. "Scandinavian companies are advanced users of e-learning and the region was the first in Europe to widely adopt government subsidised home computing initiatives which have grown into a billion dollar annual market opportunity.

"Open Training’s proven technology and quality product range adds substantial value to our current offering and provides us with the opportunity to grow our presence in Scandinavia thereby reinforcing our position as a European market leader. We expect this acquisition to be accretive from Q3 of fiscal 2005, as well as having an immediate effect on our top-line growth, both of which will more than offset dilution. As we have stated in the past, Futuremedia sees itself as a consolidator in our industry, and we expect to continue to pursue opportunities such as this if and when they appear."

Hans-Erik Eriksson, Executive Chairman and Founder of Open Training said: "It is very exciting for us to team up with an e-learning provider of Futuremedia’s caliber. Our target market consists of large Scandinavian corporations which typically prefer to work with 'one-stop, preferred suppliers' that can provide fully integrated, front-to-end solutions. Becoming part of Futuremedia should allow us to substantially increase our growth rate. Our combined offering has the potential to expand our customer base and create the strongest and broadest solution in the Scandinavian market for e-learning and a valuable partner for Home Computing Initiative implementations."

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