Maritz Travel Company Acquires McGettigan Partners

Business Wire, Nov 9, 2001

Business Editors/Health & Medical Writers

ST. LOUIS, Mo.--(BW HealthWire)--Nov. 9, 2001

Editor's Note: A media conference call with representatives from

Maritz Travel Company and McGettigan Partners will be held at

10:00 a.m. CST/11:00 a.m. EST on Friday, November 9. Please call

888/422-7124 and enter PIN No. 897784.

Maritz Travel Company, the global leader in meeting, event and incentive travel management, and McGettigan Partners, a leading company providing meeting and incentive management and enterprise solutions, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Maritz Travel Company will acquire McGettigan Partners and its subsidiaries.

McGettigan, a private full-service company, will operate as McGettigan Partners, a division of Maritz Travel Company and will continue to function with its existing structure and current approach to customers.

The acquisition combines the strength, reputation and experience of two very successful, well-established industry leaders with complementary corporate cultures. According to Steve Maritz, president and CEO of Maritz Inc., "The Maritz brand has been around 107 years and the McGettigan name has been in business 71 years. This is clearly an unprecedented union of two companies with incredible stability and fortitude."

In addition to expanding the possibilities for overall service excellence, the acquisition creates more opportunities for collaborative innovation and increased efficiencies on a global scale to benefit both companies' respective clients, employees, and suppliers.

"The decision to acquire McGettigan is consistent with our strategic focus on making long-term investments in growth in the meeting, event and incentive travel industry," said Jeffery Reinberg, president and CEO of Maritz Travel Company, who indicated that discussions with McGettigan were initiated last spring. "Although this is a particularly challenging time in our industry, Maritz is steadfast in its commitment to be well-positioned in the future to serve its clients. But this is not just about getting bigger - this acquisition also reinforces our ability to fuse `high-touch and high-tech' by combining McGettigan's Meeting Management, Enterprise and Technology Solutions and Maritz' award winning technology products with the industry's most talented people."

McGettigan joins Maritz with a highly respected management team. Christine Duffy will remain president and COO of McGettigan Partners, and Norbert McGettigan, the company's founder chair emeritus, and Doreen McGettigan, vice president, will remain actively involved.

However, Mimi McGettigan-Kehan, chair and CEO of McGettigan Partners, after 27 years of service, has made a personal decision to transition out of the business to pursue other interests. The company will continue to service its clients with its staff of professionals in their Philadelphia headquarters along with offices in San Francisco, Boston and Indianapolis.

In the Bay area, it has been jointly decided to merge the offices of Maritz and McGettigan within the coming weeks to achieve operational efficiencies and leverage the talents of each company's associate base. The staff will occupy the larger offices of McGettigan MeetingsPlus in Walnut Creek, under the experienced leadership of Carolyn West. The Bay area merged office will operate as Maritz McGettigan.

According to Duffy, "We are extremely pleased to have reached this agreement with a well-respected industry leader like Maritz Travel. In addition to providing us with a stronger worldwide presence, we see this as an opportunity to bring greater resources to McGettigan's existing clients and to serve a rapidly expanding global marketplace."

The acquisition also provides the opportunity to leverage the respective strengths of McGettigan's leading-edge technology platform and Enterprise Solutions, which includes McGettigan's well-known consolidation services, with Maritz' award-winning technology solutions.

Maritz' technology solutions include: Event Connections(SM), a suite of event registration websites that offers three tiers of customization from highly interactive and strong visual imagery to more turn-key sites with standard, yet efficient functionality; MeetingHQ(SM), a meeting consolidation website for the "do-it-yourself" marketplace, which increases user productivity; and IMPACT(SM), Maritz Travel Company's proprietary central database and attendee management system.

McGettigan's strategic technology platform enables unprecedented flexibility, scalability and expandability, particularly to Enterprise Solutions customers, in meeting-related, procurement and data management technology.

It will be business as usual as both companies continue to operate all programs without interruption. Clients will begin to see the benefits of the new partnership early next year.

About Maritz Travel Company

Maritz Travel Company is the global leader in meeting, event and incentive travel management services. With annual revenues of $800 million USD, Maritz Travel employs 2,150 business professionals who serve Fortune 1000 clients in key markets throughout the world.