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SLIEDRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS and VICTORIA, BC and MANCHESTER, NH -- (Marketwired) -- 06/19/14 --

• New ownership and private company status fuels growth and accelerates SaaS transition
• Embraces SaaS business model, putting cloud and mobile at the forefront of R&D
• Aims to become the world's leading people centric enterprise software company for the service industries

UNIT4, the global leader in software that supports business change, announced today its plans and ambitions for the future under new ownership and new private company status.

Following the acquisition by Advent International and the company's subsequent delisting, under the leadership of CEO José Duarte, UNIT4 has a renewed focus on growth. This includes significant ambitions to capitalize on the disruptive opportunity for innovation offered by today's Software as a Service (SaaS) and mobile technology evolution.

Advent International's investment and expertise will accelerate investment and growth across the UNIT4 business with the aim of creating the world's leading people-centric enterprise software company for the service industries. Renewed focus and investment will accelerate its transition to a fully cloud-based company and support long-term initiatives including the continued growth of FinancialForce.com, deepening UNIT4's presence in existing vertical markets, expanding into new verticals and geographies, and pursuing operational excellence across the company.

To deliver on its new innovation strategy, UNIT4 has aligned company management to the client lifecycle by creating a number of new positions at the Executive Leadership level covering marketing, sales and service. It has created a role devoted to driving strategy and transformation in the business. Stephan Sieber has been appointed to the Executive Committee as Executive Vice-President of Strategy and Operations. Stephan joins from SAP where he held multiple leadership positions including Managing Director of SAP Switzerland and Chief Operating Officer of the region DACH (Germany, Switzerland and Austria).

UNIT4 is also creating three central Executive Committee areas - Global Marketing, Global Sales and Global Services. Ivo Totev has been appointed Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) effective July 1st, and will lead the global marketing organization. He will be responsible for UNIT4's global marketing strategy including Product Marketing, Demand Generation and Communications. Ivo will join UNIT4 from Software AG where he serves as CMO and Head of the Cloud Business with responsibility for global marketing and product marketing and is a member of the Group Executive Board.

The global sales organization will be responsible for all sales efforts, for the partner ecosystem and for customers' success. Paul Vogel has been appointed to the UNIT4 Executive Committee as Executive Vice-President Global Sales. Paul joins from Siemens where he was Executive Vice-President Global Sales and Services of the Software Product Lifecycle Management division. Paul has extensive enterprise software experience having held international leadership positions with JD Edwards and Peoplesoft.

Finally, Gonçalo Leitão joins the Executive Committee as Executive Vice-President Global Services. Gonçalo joins UNIT4 from Atos, where he was Senior Vice-President for SAP services globally. Prior to Atos, Gonçalo had a long and successful career at SAP where, among other responsibilities, he held the positions of Senior Vice-President of Services and COO, EMEA and Latin America.

"The global technology industry is in the middle of a huge upheaval and UNIT4 has considerable strengths and assets and the drive to be a leader," said José Duarte, CEO of UNIT4. "The trends around Cloud, Mobile, Social and Analytics offer unprecedented disruptive opportunities and we aim to create an innovative SaaS go-to business model that embraces cloud and mobile application delivery for our customers. Our ambition is to become the service industry's 'go-to company' for enterprise software.

"With the investment and expertise offered by Advent International and the industry knowledge and experience the new executive leadership team brings, combined with our existing customer centricity and people and engineering strengths we are perfectly positioned to innovate and grow," Duarte adds.

Please visit the UNIT4 website for more information on the Executive Committee.

About UNIT4

UNIT4 is a leading provider of people-centered enterprise software for services organizations. We bring to market cloud ERP and business applications designed to meet specific vertical market requirements helping customers embrace change simply, quickly and cost effectively. Through our solutions, our customers change and innovate at higher speed and lower cost.

UNIT4 is headquartered in the Netherlands, with operations in 26 countries worldwide and more than 4,000 employees. For more information please visit the website at www.unit4.com, follow us on Twitter @UNIT4_Group or visit our Facebook page