Active ISP buys Carambole to form Europe's largest web hosting company
aimed at SME's

Spray-owned Pan European web hosting company Carambole has been bought
by the leading Scandinavian web hosting enterprise Active ISP. The
payment was made with 2,800 000 stocks and 1,450,000 options in Active
ISP, which equals roughly 15 percent of the capital and votes. The new
company will be the largest web hosting company in Europe aimed at SME's
and will have an estimated revenue of 25-30 MUSD 2001.

- A few major players will soon dominate the European web hosting
market. The merged company will become Europe's leading web hosting
company and is well positioned to fortify its lead against the
competition. The company has a strong financial back up with funds of
over 40 MUSD. This backing together with substantial cost cuts and
synergy effects will enable the company to continue to grow rapidly,
says Jakob Tolleryd, founder and CEO of Carambole

- Through the acquisition of Carambole we will gain the strong
Scandinavian platform we need to continue our European expansion.
Carambole and Active ISP is a very good match, both geographically,
where we are strong on different markets, and in regard to products
where the company will get a very strong product offering, says Rolf
Larsen, founder and CEO of Active ISP.

- It is absolutely the right time to conduct an industrial transaction
and we are convinced that the new company will be one of the winners on
the European web hosting market. Through the deal the company will be
equal in size to the large American players but with the considerable
advantage of already being established in more than 10 European
countries, says Per Bystedt, chairman of the board of Carambole and
Spray Venures.

Carambole is the leading web hosting company in Sweden. The company
helps primarily SME's to fast and easily get established on the
Internet. This includes everything from registrations of domain names to
web hosting, email services, e-commerce shop and Internet connectivity.
All Carambole products are digital, i.e. do not require any storage or
physical distribution. Carambole is active in 11 European countries,
which are administrated virtually from Sweden. The company employs
roughly 70 people from 10 countries and had a revenue of 6.5 MUSD 2000.
Main owner is Spray Ventures.

Active ISP is the largest webhoster in Scandinavia and is based in Oslo,
Norway. Active ISP serves 15...