23 Nov. 2007 – In future, the OnVista Group plans to concentrate on its finance portal OnVista, including the stock market community Tradingbird, and is therefore exploring market interest in the group’s internet activities outside the finance sector. This decision was taken today by the Executive Board and Supervisory Board of OnVista AG. Today’s decision is a result of a change in strategy. It would affect the Onmeda healthcare portal, the online advertising sales firm Ad2Net GmbH, the Performance Marketing service provider Ligatus GmbH and Namendo GmbH (Namendo address brokerage portal). The relevant business units are excellently positioned and economically very successful. OnVista AG will continue to operate individual or even all internet activities within the framework of the OnVista Group, if no appropriate buyer can be found, or a fair purchase price can not be achieved. Neither the finance portal www.onvista.de nor the stock market community Tradingbird (www.tradingbird.de), which OnVista announced for spring 2008, are concerned by today’s decision.
The new majority situation at the OnVista Group forms the background to this change in strategy. The French company Boursorama SA, which by now holds more than 80% of the shares in OnVista AG, has put forward a take-over bid to the remaining shareholders and in time pursues the goal of a 100% take-over of OnVista AG. Boursorama SA is a major European online provider of investment products and financial information. Established in 1995, the company operates the leading finance portal in France, www.boursorama.com , as well as the online bank Boursorama Banque (www.boursorama-banque.com). In Germany, Boursorama has been operating the online broker service Fimatex since 1997. According to its own statements, the French company plans to closely interlink the online broker Fimatex and the ad-sponsored OnVista finance portal in the medium term. The company expects the strong OnVista brand – undisputed market leader for many years in the German speaking region – to generate significantly greater awareness for German activities on the whole.
Established in 1998, the ad-sponsored finance portal OnVista was the first product of the so named company. In 2004, the OnVista Group started to diversify its revenue streams both organically and through acquisitions, in order to exploit further potential in the internet area, in addition to the fast growing finance portal. Since 2004, the OnVista Group has almost quadrupled sales (projected group sales 2007: EUR 26 mill.) and increased the operating income from then EUR 200k to an anticipated EUR 5 million plus (projected group EBIT 2007). Today, www.onvista.de contributes well over 50% to group sales of the OnVista Group and is the main pillar of profit for the internet company.