Hexagon acquires minority stake in Blom ASA

Hexagon AB, the leading global provider of design, measurement and visualisation technologies, announced today that it will acquire 25 per cent of the shares in Blom ASA for a total amount of approximately 9 MEUR.

Blom ASA has headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The company is a leading European service provider in the geospatial arena, offering a wide selection of geographic services to the government, enterprise and consumer markets. Services include the acquisition, processing and modelling of maps and images. With subsidiaries in 13 countries, Blom's geographic information database houses one of the largest collections of maps, aerial images and geospatial models across Europe. Through its online services, Blom provides access to its expansive database enabling customers to update their own datasets and partners the ability to create applications using Blom's location-based services and navigation solutions.

"Our alliances with geospatial information providers around the globe strengthens our vision of providing "dynamic", more accurate and in the end real-time updates of the world around us", said Ola Rollén, President and CEO of Hexagon AB. "With this investment, Hexagon secures access to high resolution and up-to-date geospatial information which is becoming increasingly important to our entire customer base, especially within Intergraph, where access to such data provides the foundation for industry-specific software solutions".

Hexagon has no current plans for any further offer with respect to shares in Blom.

The transaction will close as of Friday 1 June 2012.