17 march 2010

PRESS RELEASE
Milcom A/S,
17 March 2010

Milcom continues its expansion into additional 4 countries
 
Milcom, which is part of the Danish KESONI Group, has acquired the activities in Netplus Global in Lithuania, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine and cements its international growth strategy.

”With the acquisition of Netplus Global, Milcom is now represented in 13 countries. This year, we have added in total 9 new countries to our portfolio and created a solid geographical platform for the company”, says Lars Jørgensen, CEO at Milcom and continues: ”The purpose of the acquisitions is to offer our customers even better solutions, more products and a visible value creation. We are now a even stronger partner within our three business areas: distribution, mobility and smart house. It is now important to ensure the integration of the new companies with Milcom taking into account local conditions, culture and relations. We maintain growth as the way to offer our customers perfect solutions, and further expansion will be considered in 2010”.

Netplus Global is a value-adding distributor focusing primarily on smart phones, software and content. During the past 5 years, Netplus Global has developed and launched smart phones and value-adding solutions in a close co-operation with a number of leading mobile operators in Central and Eastern Europe, including Bite, Omnitel, Tele2, MTS and others. Together with Netplus Global, Milcom has an exclusive agreement to distribute Toshiba mobile phones in the region. Going forward, Netplus Global (now Milcom) will continue to focus on value-adding distribution and mobility solutions for Lithuania, Russia, Poland, Ukraine and the neighbouring countries, and will expand the offer to include smart house solutions as well.

Leading the execution of Milcom’s latest acquisition are Kenny Larsen, Senior Vice President, and Thomas Kock, Regional Director for Europe and Scandinavia, who between them have in excess of 20 years of international experience from the IT and telecom industry.

”The past year, our ambitious growth strategy has meant that we have expanded our organisation considerably with internationally experienced and competent employees from all over Europe. The core team is in place, but taking our ambition into account, the doors are open to new employees with competencies and international experience, which can contribute further to our success. We now focus on ensuring an efficient integration and further development of the new Milcom-countries, including ensuring a positive result already this year”, says Thomas Kock, and continues: ”Milcom is in pole position to create development in a time with financial crises”.

About Milcom A/S
Milcom is part of KESONI Group, which was founded in 1991 by Kenneth Soldal. Milcom is Scandinavian’s largest, privately owned and independent of telephones and value-adding solutions within purchasing, logistics, finance, web shops, content, mobile communication and customer service. Starting as a distributor within the area of mobility, the company has evolved into a synergy and network centre based on its ability to connect manufacturers, developers, utility companies, customers, retailers, etc. It is on this basis that Milcom expanded its business area to include Smart House as well. Milcom’s ability to integrate technology into intelligent solutions and create synergies for end-users, manufacturers and utility companies has ensured the company a positive bottom line since it was founded in 1991. The company has over 100 employees, a turnover of more than BDKK 1.4 and distributed more than 470.000 packets with approx. 5 million units to end-customers and partners in the financial year 2008/9. Milcom is represented in 13 countries – Denmark, Norway, The United Arab Emirates, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Russia.
Visit our website www.milcom.dk

Om Netplus Global
Netplus Global was founded in 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania focusing on value-adding distribution of mobile phones and content to customers in CIS (commonwealth of independent states – Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) and the Baltic States Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 2001, Netplus Global opened an office in Ukraine and expanded to Russia in 2004 through the acquisition of shares in Digital Group, who were the main distributor for Nokia, SonyEricsson and Samsung in Russia at that time. In 2005, Netplus Global decided to focus on smart phones and opened a new company Inlusoft in Tallin, Estonia. Inlusoft developed applications and programs based on the Windows Mobile platform. From 2005-2007 Netplus Global launched numerous projects with operators in Eastern Europe, including Tele2, Bite Lithuania, TeliaSonera, Omnitel, LMT, Golden Telecom og MTS. Among others, the projects included operator-branded mobile phones as well as applications and programs for the end-users in a closes co-operation with Nokia, SonyEricsson, Samsung and HTC. In 2006, Netplus Global opened offices in Gdansk, Poland, and Bukarest, Romania. In 2007, Netplus Global signed a distribution and partner agreement with Toshiba Mobile Communications Europe for the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, Ex-Jugoslavia and Israel. The same year, Digital Group merged with Fox Telecom. Following this merger, Netplus Global sold its shares in Digital Group to Fox Telecom and opened its own subsidiary in Moscow, Russia. In 2007 as well, Netplus Global formed a co-operation with Pez Crown (Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Japan), who represented Netplus Global’s interests in the Asian market.

For further information please contact:
Kate Schiøler, Executive Project Director, Milcom A/S
Mobile.: +45 40 25 23 32, e-mail: ksc@milcom.dk