DHAMAKA NEWS SIGNS AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE GVNM Inc.

Merger to Produce Leading Content Infrastructure Provider in US

(PRWEB) April 3, 2003 -- Dhamaka News, the Asia's leading news content provider, announced that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement governing the acquisition of GVNM, Inc., a leading global provider of Internet syndication infrastructure and application solutions. As part of their continued support for Dhamaka News, existing investors led by Soros-backed Quantum Industrial Partners have agreed to finance the cash portion of the acquisition as well as capitalize the combined company's long-term business plan. GVNM's services complement Dhamaka News's product set, making the combined company the dominant provider of information solutions and contextual content services with more than 400 customers, over 300,000 affiliates and over 100 strategic alliances and technology partnerships.

"During the last year, we achieved a tenfold increase in our customer base. This merger solidifies our position as the industry leader with technology that sets the standard for relevant business content, whether it's external content delivered by a third party, or internal, proprietary data," said Dhamaka News CEO, M H Ahsan. "We selected GVNM for their reputation as the most trusted name in news syndication and content services, and we look forward to working with them to build a powerhouse content infrastructure company. Our investors' willingness to finance this transaction reaffirms their support for our plans and vision," Ahsan added.

"This deal is a natural move for both companies, as we continue to scale to meet the growing needs of the market place," said GVNM CEO, Richards J Smith. "Dhamaka News's sophisticated technology takes our content services to new levels - giving our clients the information they need when they need it - and this merger brings to the table our mutual strengths: innovation, dedication to customer service and enterprise-ready solutions to fit any company's need for timely, relevant information and web-based applications. This makes us the leading provider of content infrastructure services today."

The depth and breadth of GVNM's well-known content brands, and flexible, customized content services, complement Dhamaka News's contextual solutions, providing customers with the widest range of content choices and integration solutions in the market today. From highly targeted business information, featuring Dhamaka's Artificial Intelligence technology which aggregates and classifies content from internal and external sources, to iSyndicate's customized, fully-integrated content services, featuring more than 1200 of the most well-known brands on the Web, the combined resources can accommodate any content requirement.

GVNM's Intelligent Syndication Network enhances Dhamaka's personalization software. The Intelligent Syndication Network allows enterprise customers to seamlessly collect, distribute and manage digital information among a virtually limitless set of internal or external audiences. It's application component allows customers to repurpose, distribute and integrate Web applications, like e-mail, without IT time. When integrated with Dhamaka ArchiText products, customers can create and distribute, across all platforms, contextually related packages of information relevant to a user's interests. Customers can also choose between hosting the content on their site or on a Dhamaka server.

Customers who have integrated Dhamaka into their offerings include KPMG Consulting, America Online, and Brown and Williamson. GVNM currently serves Citibank, and Sun Microsystems, among others. Plans are in place to maintain the Dhamaka and GVNM product lines and to begin to offer integrated services in the near future.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The parties expect that the transaction will close within 60 days and is subject to GVNM completing Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The closing of the acquisition is subject to various contingencies, including approval by the bankruptcy court.

About Dhamaka News
Dhamaka News is a leading provider of news content infrastructure services including categorized content creation and delivery, contextual content profiling and news aggregation, with additional features such as contextual commerce and advanced personalization. Dhamaka services use the power of this sophisticated technology to classify information for delivery to our customers' users through their Web pages, e-mail and wireless devices. Clients include corporate intranets and extranets as well as consumer and commercial Web sites. Dhamaka proprietary technology integrates Artificial Intelligence, text parsing and linguistic pattern analysis to analyze information and understand its meaning, focus and, ultimately, the relevancy to end users. More information on Dhamaka can be found at http://www.dhamakanews.net

About GVNM Inc.
GVNM is the leading global provider of Internet syndication infrastructure and application solutions. The Company develops, markets and supports a line of infrastructure and application software, technologies and tools that allow for the collection, distribution, exchange and management of digital content and information across the Internet and to any Internet-connected device.

GVNM's solutions allow its customers to maximize the power of information distribution and exchange on the Internet. Its partners and customers include some of the world's leading traditional and Internet brands including over 1,200 digital content and information providers such as ABCNEWS.com, The Associated Press, Business Week, CNBC, CNET, The New York Times, Red Herring and RollingStone.com. GVNM supports the ICE (Information & Content Exchange) standard based on XML, among a variety of others, for all of its content.

GVNM is based in New York. GVNM Europe is a 50:50 joint venture between GVNM Inc. and Bertelsmann with offices in London and Hamburg. More information on GVNM can be found at http://www.gvnm.org/profile

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Dhamaka News Statement
The above statements include forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, those with respect to Dhamaka's capabilities and technology set forth herein are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on Dhamaka management's current expectations or beliefs and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated, including without limitation: our ability to implement our services on customer Web sites, our ability to provide competitive services, and our customers' satisfaction with our services. Dhamaka News is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact:
Celina Jaitley
info@dhamakanews.net
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