"We are very pleased about the Cartel Office's decision to approve the merger without conditions," said arvato AG CEO Hartmut Ostrowski. "In addition to our traditional service modules - address management, credit review and collection - arvato infoscore will offer innovative products, such as in the fields of marketing and risk , integrated payment controls and ." Rolf Buch, a member of the arvato AG executive board and CEO of arvato direct services, added: "The merger allows us to lastingly enhance our market position in the area of integrated data, information and receivables management with comprehensive solutions. From now on, our customers will get the full range of custom services and products for managing their customer relationships, from a single source."

The new company, arvato infoscore, will have roughly 1,700 employees in Germany, Austria, France, Hungary and Switzerland. Beyond Baden-Baden, the company has offices in Gütersloh, Verl, Münster, Munich, Frankfurt, Weiler, Hagen, Nuremburg, Strasbourg, Budapest, Vienna, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Rotkreuz and Zurich. arvato, via its arvato direct services unit, will contribute the companies in the AZ Direct group and BFS finance's operations in the German-speaking countries to the joint venture. BFS finance's activities in Dublin will be continued as part of arvato services' England / Ireland operations.

Florian Schulte, who previously served as Managing Director and Deputy for InFoScore founder Sigmund Kiener, will chair the arvato infoscore management team and supervise the Information Management department. The new management team will also include Michael Baumbach, formerly in charge of the AZ Direct group, and Ulrich Bongartz, formerly responsible for BFS finance. Baumbach will supervise the Data Management department, while Bongartz will be in charge of the finance and collection activities that are part of Receivables Management. The new services company will be owned by arvato AG and Sigmund Kiener. Kiener will also chair the arvato infoscore advisory board.

"I am convinced that the just-approved merger will enable us to come up with innovative service offerings and tap new business potential. The cooperation across all the fields of business covered by arvato infoscore will deliver crucial impulses and help us to realize our shared vision of an optimized service chain," says Schulte, waxing optimistic about the future.

With its roughly 250 subsidiaries worldwide arvato is among the largest internationally networked media service providers. In fiscal year 2004 the group of companies which is part of Bertelsmann AG generated sales of € 3.76 billion. The arvato subsidiaries all over the world currently employ in excess of 33,800 staff. Part of arvato AG are the companies of arvato print (including MOHN Media, the media group maul-belser as well as numerous printing companies in Europe and America), the business units arvato direct services (including customer retention systems and service center solutions), arvato logistics services (logistics and supply chain management), arvato storage media (including the production of CD-ROMs, DVDs and Audio-CDs) and arvato systems (international provider of qualified and tailor-made IT services) as well as empolis, a leading provider of company-wide content and knowledge management solutions and the mobile entertainment provider arvato mobile with brands like handy.de and TJ.net.

For further information about arvato AG please visit our website under www.arvato.de.

The companies that comprise the AZ Direct group and BFS finance are part of the arvato direct services unit. While the companies in the AZ Direct group offer their customers innovative products and services related to address, data and information processing, BFS finance specializes in developing and implementing complex financial services such as dynamic revenue financing, receivables management and .

Press contact:
arvato AG Public Relations
Tel.: 05241 80-3408
Fax: 05241 80-3315