Accenture to Enhance Business Process Outsourcing Capabilities by Acquiring Advantium and Meridian Informed Purchasing, Two Companies Specializing in Profit Recovery and Analytics

Terms of the agreement with Advantium Inc. of Hudson, Ohio,including its related entity XPAN LLC, and Meridian InformedPurchasing Ltd. of St. Albans, United Kingdom, were not disclosed.Closing is expected within 30 days.

The two companies use sophisticated processes and proprietarysoftware to analyze clients' procurement and payables data to prevent,detect and recover the lost profits, or erroneous payments, which canresult from human error, system-integration issues, contractnon-compliance and fraud.

"Advantium and Meridian will further differentiate Accenture'soffering of tools and capabilities to help clients increaseprofitability, optimize payment terms, improve working capital,tighten operating controls, enhance compliance, and gain insight intotheir spending among suppliers," said Kevin Campbell, senior managingdirector of Accenture's BPO organization. "As the market leader infinance-and-accounting BPO, we're dedicated to expanding our offeringwith enhanced services related to profit recovery and analytics."

Through their experience working with clients, Advantium andMeridian have established that payment and vendor-pricing errors andunrealized rebates, allowances and discounts can cost a company up to0.1 percent of its total spending with suppliers. The firms alsobelieve that lost-profit recovery audits uncover more than $5 billionin savings each year in the United States alone.

Founded in 1994 and 1995, respectively, Advantium and Meridianformed an alliance in 2003 to provide their services internationally.The staffs of the two companies are expected to join Accenture'sfinance and accounting BPO unit, Accenture Finance Solutions, alongwith Meridian executives Les Bailey and Ashley Golby and Advantium CEOJim Spreng.

Acquiring Advantium and Meridian will enhance Accenture's existingcapabilities around the procure-to-pay process by providing clientswith insights and analytics-based services that can be used to drivehigh performance. Accenture will offer profit and recovery analyticsservices to business process outsourcing and consulting clients.

Today's announcement represents another step in Accenture'sstrategy to offer industry-defining outsourcing services andcapabilities to serve a wide range of clients in each area of itsoutsourcing business. This past April, Accenture acquired the businessprocess outsourcing assets of Savista Corp. and established theAccenture BPO Services unit which provides bundled finance andaccounting and human resource services to middle-market companies.These acquisitions reinforce Accenture's BPO strategy of buildingstandardized, differentiated assets and driving business outcomes forits clients.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology servicesand outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenturecollaborates with its clients to help them become high-performancebusinesses and governments. With deep industry and business processexpertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenturecan mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clientsimprove their performance. With more than 133,000 people in 48countries, the company generated net revenues of US$15.55 billion forthe fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2005. Its home page iswww.accenture.com.