Tera deal puts Miles 33 in pole position

After snapping up netlinx two years ago, UK newspaper systems vendor Miles 33 has now acquired Italian-headquartered Tera Digital Publishing and its US and UK subsidiaries. Formed in 1990, Tera has become a leading supplier of editorial content management systems to newspapers with more than 300 customers in five continents. Users of its suite of multimedia CMS software include the ‘International Herald Tribune’ in Paris, ‘NRC Handelsblatt’ in the Netherlands, ‘Corriere della Sera’ in Italy, the ‘New Straits Times’ in Malaysia, Impremedia in the USA, ‘El Universal’ in Mexico City and Northcliffe and Trinity newspaper groups in the UK. Its customer base also includes Dutch international public service broadcaster RNW. Although it had a successful 2009 – with new customers in the Americas and Europe – and released next generation GN4, GNPortal and CMSA editorial solutions, which will be integrated into Miles 33’s portfolio. It seems both parties are happy with the deal, UK managing director David Howes believing Miles “the perfect home for Tera” and claiming the combined company will be the dominant player in the UK “and ultimately the rest of the world”. “At Tera we had a piece of the puzzle but not everything that the modern publisher requires.” Tera’s owner and chief executive Michele Mottini the new generation of content management products designed and developed over the last three years are “way ahead of everything else” in terms of technology and ideas. “Only as part of a larger and very successful organisation such as Miles 33 can they reach their full potential. This was my main rationale in pursuing this deal, and I am very happy that we are able to announce it today. It will be good for our customers, our partners and the future of our products.” Mottini and Franz Rossi (managing director of Tera Italy) will both remain with Miles 33 and will join the senior management team. Miles 33 chief executive Michael Moore described it as “a fantastic acquisition” giving Miles an ever increasing global customer base and footprint from which to expand. “The mix of innovative products; a strong industry focused management team; and an impressive distribution network will help Miles 33 to achieve its goal of becoming the world’s largest supplier of multimedia content management and advertising CRM solutions. All this in conjunction with our other product offerings and self-service solutions makes Miles 33 a compelling choice.” Miles 33 is backed by European Capital, the European affiliate of American Capital a publicly traded private equity firm and global asset manager with $14 billion in capital resources under management. Miles 33 has offices in Berkshire, UK; Connecticut & California, USA; Victoria, Australia; Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.