Two strong players in global digital commerce, asknet AG™ & Nexway™ are now becoming one group, one multinational team, and a force to be reckoned with in the digital transformation of consumer experience!

Karlsruhe, Basel, Paris, February 6th, 2019 – asknet AG, a pioneer of modern e-commerce, supplier of e-business technologies and solutions for the global distribution and management of digital and physical goods, announces its acquisition of Nexway Group AG (including its 100% owned subsidiary Nexway SAS), a leading e-commerce services provider of solutions for monetizing digital business models and connecting companies to the global e-commerce market. The acquisition has been completed at the end of January and will be followed by the execution of a capital increase of asknet AG through an issue of 450,000 new shares of asknet AG in Q2, 2019 thus providing the combined group with sufficient capital to finance working capital, integration costs and business expansion going forward. The combined asknet group will process and support global digital commerce around the world, meeting the requirements of global payments system, subscription models, and customer needs.

On Dec 3, 2018, asknet AG had entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire 100% of Nexway Group AG, the 100% owner of Nexway SAS. Completion of this transaction was subject to meeting several conditions precedent, all of which had been met at the end of January 2019, including the final approval of the transaction by the Supervisory Board of asknet AG. To finance the subsequent integration and an accelerated growth plan of an expanded group, asknet had also announced a capital increase, with preemptive rights granted to all existing shareholders. The capital increase is fully guaranteed by a third-party investor and is to be completed until June 30, 2019.

Both companies operate highly synergetic businesses with complementary technical capabilities, customer bases, and geographic footprints. By combining their strengths and capabilities, asknet AG and Nexway SAS are now building a unified profitable company that benefits from the new scale of our operations, global geographic footprint and strong leadership team and shareholder base of asknet AG.

In the coming months, the new group will streamline its sales and offerings, reorganize its core units and drive organic growth. New and emerging sales frontiers consistent with market trends are to be identified. Furthermore, the technology stacks are to be updated and merged step by step to build a single strong platform. The new combined company API-driven platform will unlock the opportunities hidden in the changing face of online payments and customer behavior. It will allow digital business to monetize products and services through a suite of efficient, innovative yet integrated, easy to consume micro-services. Sellers can face expanding and diversifying channels and consumer points of sale with the tools required to operate globally. This provides a better conversion experience, making integration and online payments most simple.

“The acquisition of Nexway SAS will enhance asknet’s ability to simplify the complexity of selling products and services globally, enabling businesses to accelerate sales, reduce time to market and manage operating costs. Together, we’re going to process and support global digital commerce around the world. Today we’re building a single, unified powerful company, enabling us to offer more value to our clients, while allowing us to expand our geographic footprint. By bringing the teams, cultures, and expertise of both firms together into a single organization and management, the combined company will be equipped to fulfill consumer needs and further develop our products and solutions,” said Aston Fallen, CEO of asknet.  

In addition to the existing Supervisory Board and the CEO Aston Fallen, asknet’s new second level Management Board will initially comprise the following persons: Norman Hansen (Legal & Compliance), Hubert Maurer (Finance), Delphine Weiskopf (Marketing & Product), Christian Herkel (Sales), Aline Bastin (Customer Success), Michael Baumann (Academics & Retail), Cyrille Page (Technology), Dominic Schaaf (Operations) and Casey Potenzone (Marketplaces).

The combined company will offer the industry’s most comprehensive product and service suite in the subscription billing and e-commerce space, linking payment model flexibility with advanced e-commerce, recurring revenue management, and marketing capabilities on a global level.

As of February, 1st, 2019, the combined group served more than 700 clients around the globe to sell their products in up to 190 countries. In addition, asknet continues to offer a comprehensive range of software solutions and services relating to the procurement, distribution, and management of software and hardware for customers from the research and education sectors as the market leader in the German-speaking region. Overall, the new asknet Group will roughly double the size of its business volume as a result of acquiring Nexway Group.

About asknet

asknet AG is the 51% owned subsidiary of the Swiss-listed integrated e-commerce Services company The Native SA (CH0006326851) with other asknet AG shareholders being Digital River and Softbank among others. Based in Karlsruhe and listed in Frankfurt (DE000A2E3707), asknet AG is an e-commerce services company with 23 years of experience in the industry. Its business is comprised of global payment processing, tax management, digital marketing, and customer support services to vendors of predominantly digital goods and services, and software distribution services to the European academic institutions, students and alumni.
For more information: www.asknet.com and www.thenative.ch

About Nexway

Nexway is a leading provider of solutions to monetize digital businesses and connect companies to the worldwide digital market and is now being fully integrated into asknet AG. Founded in 2002, Nexway has enjoyed rapid growth, thanks to strong and diversified partnerships. Based in Paris – La Défense, France, the company has subsidiaries in the USA, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Poland, and Japan. Leading companies who rely on Nexway include retailers FNAC-Darty™, Yahoo! Japan™, Softwareload™, Amazon™, Medion™; and publishers Kaspersky Lab™, Adobe™, 2K Games™, Big Fish™, ESET™, Avast Software™ and many others around the world. Now part of asknet AG, Nexway preserves all of its operations in Paris, Nîmes, and Katowice, with Katowice office becoming a centralized engineering hub for the entire asknet AG group.

Contact
Florian Kirchmann
T: +49 221 9140-970
investorrelations@asknet.de