Newion Investments realizes successful exit of Minihouse The customs company

Heerenveen, June 14, 2010 – Newion Investments, one of the leading independent technology venture capital funds in the Netherlands, has realized an exit with selling her interest in Minihouse The customs company. The company was sold to strategic buyer Kewill, a leading provider of solutions that simplify global trade and logistics, also called Global Trade Management. Newion invested in this software vendor in 2001, specialising in the provision of IT software helping businesses automate customs compliance across Europe. Founder Ronald de Vries will remain as its Chief Operating Officer (COO).

With this strategic exit Newion Investments has realized 21x the original ‘equity’ investment with a return on investment (IRR) of 41% a year. This successful exit is one out of several for Newion Investments and some examples are Wisdom Group sold to Ordina and SLTN sold to TDM Group. Another example is the strategic takeover of energy provider Oxxio by the British energy provider Centrica. With these exits and the remaining value of the existing portfolio companies Newion Investments positions itself as one of the best performing technology venture capital funds starting in 2000.

Minihouse The customs company, with offices in Heerenveen and Antwerp, has a unique position on the custom software market. It was the first European software provider to adopt a Software as a Service (SaaS) model for the delivery of customs solutions. The company has a customer list of over 550 customers, including Cargill, Lyondell, Corus Staal B.V., Wärtsila, DB Schenker, CEVA Logistics, Philip Morris en DSV. The unique software and the strong recurring revenue customerbase makes Minihouse a strategic acquisition for Kewill.

Comment from managing Partner Jaap van Barneveld: “This exit is positive for the company because it becomes part of a strong European player. The SaaS software fits well in to the Kewill product portfolio. We see a growing number of takeovers by strategic buyers. The importance of technology is still growing in society and within companies. Because of this we see a lot of opportunities for investments in new technologies and solutions for the coming years. This is exactly the reason why we are raising a new fund for investments in growing technology companies in the Benelux.

About Newion Investments Management (www.newion-investments.com): Newion Investment Management is fundmanager of two funds: Newion Investments and Private Plus Fund. Shareholders of these funds are a number of institutional shareholders such as Van Lanschot Participaties and a great number of private investors. Newion is focussing on fast growing technology companies with high ambitions and with the Private Plus Fund also on management buy outs and management buy inns. The total number of portfolio companies at this moment is 20, and Newion has a strong involvement with the development of each company.