IMAC makes a further £2.77 million investment in QobliQ Limited. QobliQ, in turn, announces acquisition of Arena International and Arena Sports Marketing.

Ingenious Media Active Capital Limited ('IMAC') today announces that it has completed a further investment of £2.77 million in QobliQ Limited ('QobliQ'). This follows IMAC's investment of £7.5 million in QobliQ in December 2007, and £2.3 million in May 2008.

QobliQ was formed with the aim of creating the leading international innovative marketing services group, combining sponsorship, digital and experiential marketing. Since December 2007 it has acquired brandRapport, a leading UK sponsorship consultancy, Sponsorclick France, a leading French sponsorship consultancy immediately rebranded brandRapport France, and Nouveau Jour, a leading French experiential agency.

The further investment will be used by QobliQ to acquire Arena International and Arena Sports Marketing (together 'Arena'), a leading UK sponsorship consultancy specialising in football - for a mixture of cash and QobliQ equity. The acquisition of Arena, which will be immediately rebranded brandRapport Arena, will extend brandRapport's already impressive track record into football partnerships. Arena has been responsible for setting up ground breaking sponsorship agreements in the UK and has developed major programmes within football for clients such as Carling, Tennents and Worthington. Arena also negotiated and now activates Barclays' global sponsorship of the Premier League as well as E.ON's award winning FA Cup sponsorship and Football League partnership.

Patrick Bradley, Director of Ingenious Ventures, said:

'We believe that QobliQ's focus on innovative below the line marketing remains correct particularly in the current environment with brands and advertisers seeking to maintain strong customer relationships. Association with sports and entertainment creates a powerful communication tool for these brands.

QobliQ's acquisition of Arena is an exceptional opportunity in this respect bringing the UK's market leader in football sponsorship to the Group, complimenting Brandrapport's existing sponsorship business and strengthening its proposition to existing and future clients.'

Keith Pinner, founder of Arena, said:

'We are very excited about the opportunity to become part of brandRapport and QobliQ. We already have a very close working relationship through our mutual client, E.ON. and there are a number of major projects that we have identified as growth areas and on which we will be focusing in the coming months. The consolidation of brandRapport and Arena's expertise and teams is a unique opportunity and will undoubtedly benefit our clients.'

Andy Dwyer, Managing Director of brandRapport, said:

'The acquisition of Arena is a key step in developing our overall offering to clients and in particular our football expertise. As well as developing a strong presence in mainland Europe, it is important that we strengthen our expertise in areas where we feel there will be real growth opportunities in the sponsorship market. The recent appointment of Sir Steve Redgrave has already had a major impact on our work around the Olympics and we have absolutely no doubt that football and the Olympics will be the key influencers on our business over the coming years.'

ENDS

Enquiries:

Ingenious Ventures, a trading division of the Manager of IMAC

Patrick McKenna

Sanjay Wadhwani

Patrick Bradley

Tel: 020 7319 4000


Tavistock, PR adviser to IMAC

Simon Hudson

Duncan McCormick

Tel: 020 7 920 3150


Canaccord Adams, NOMAD and Broker to IMAC

Mark Williams

Adria Da Breo Richards

Tel: 020 7050 6500


QobliQ

Xavier Quattrocchi-Oubradous

Tel: 020 7348 6062


brandRapport

Nigel Currie

Tel: 01483 202050


brandRapport Arena

Richard Thompson

Tel: 01663 766052




About IMAC

Ingenious Media Active Capital Limited is an investment company which aims to provide investors with capital growth from equity or equity related investments in predominantly unquoted media and entertainment companies. IMAC is an initiative of, and its investments are managed by, Ingenious Ventures which is the private equity division of Ingenious Media and a trading division of Ingenious Asset Management Limited.