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Aconex Forms Strategic Partnership With CIMIC Group

Aconex Will Serve Existing and New CIMIC Projects, Acquire INCITE Keystone Technology, Add Development and Support Teams

Marketwired

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwired - Aug 5, 2015) - Aconex Limited (ASX: ACX), provider of a leading cloud collaboration platform for the global construction industry, today announced a multi-year strategic partnership with CIMIC Group Limited (ASX: CIM) and certain of its related entities. CIMIC, formerly Leighton Holdings Limited, is the parent company of one of the world's largest international contractors.

Under the terms of its agreements with CIMIC, Aconex will:

  • Provide cloud collaboration services for existing and new CIMIC infrastructure and construction projects in eight countries.

  • Acquire the intellectual property, assets and certain customer relationships of INCITE Keystone, a global project collaboration platform owned and operated by CIMIC.

  • Add INCITE Keystone product development and support staff to its workforce.

  • Integrate INCITE Keystone process functionality for infrastructure projects on the Aconex collaboration platform over the next 12 months.

  • Operate the INCITE Keystone platform until all projects currently on it are either completed or transitioned to the Aconex platform.

The strategic partnership is expected to build long-term commercial value for both companies. Aconex anticipates that the partnership will generate a minimum of A$16.5 million of committed revenue for the base management of existing and new projects over the next four years. INCITE Keystone currently hosts projects for CIMIC subsidiaries including Leighton Contractors; Leighton Asia, India and Offshore; and Thiess, the world's largest contract miner, as well as other companies such as John Holland.

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Aconex will pay CIMIC approximately A$6.4 million in cash for the acquisition of INCITE Keystone intellectual property and assets, as well as the transfer of certain customer relationships and employees to Aconex.

Aconex expects the partnership to be accretive to revenue; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA); and net profit after tax (NPAT) for the current financial year ending 30 June 2016 and beyond.

As part of its commitment to the CIMIC partnership, Aconex plans to moderately increase research and development costs for the integration of INCITE Keystone process functionality for infrastructure projects on the Aconex platform over the next year. Aconex believes that this additional functionality will benefit all of its customers and users worldwide.

"Our global position as an industry leader is significantly strengthened by this partnership with CIMIC," said Aconex CEO Leigh Jasper. "We're enhancing the Aconex platform with infrastructure process technology and functionality from INCITE Keystone and adding an experienced team that has successfully served hundreds of large, complex infrastructure projects around the world. We're also gaining a long-term enterprise commitment from one of the largest contractor groups in Australia and Asia, with projects spanning the globe, and a leader in regional infrastructure development."

About Aconex

Aconex Limited provides a leading cloud collaboration platform for the global construction industry. This platform gives owners and contractors in the construction, infrastructure, and energy and resources sectors project-wide visibility and control between the many different organizations collaborating across their projects. With more than 60,000 user organizations and approximately A$1 trillion of project value delivered in more than 70 countries, Aconex is the industry's most widely adopted and trusted platform. Founded in 2000, Aconex has 41 offices in 22 countries around the world, including headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, and San Francisco, California. The company's ordinary shares are traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) under the ticker code ACX.

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Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain forward-looking statements that are based on information and assumptions known to date and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results, performance or achievements could be significantly different from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Aconex. These factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the statements contained in this announcement.