Norway's Fast Search & Transfer ASA and Japan's Rakuten Inc announce JV

Nordic Business Report, August 23, 2007

NORDIC BUSINESS REPORT-23 August 2007-Norway's Fast Search & Transfer ASA and Japan's Rakuten Inc announce JV(C)1994-2007 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD http://www.m2.com

Norwegian real-time search solutions provider Fast Search & Transfer ASA (FAST) said on Thursday (23 August) that it has signed a joint venture agreement with the Japanese Internet service company Rakuten Inc.

The new company, Rakuten FAST Mobile Search Inc, will develop and provide mobile search and advertising services. The new services will initially be introduced on Rakuten's mobile sites, but will eventually also be offered to third parties on an OEM basis

Rakuten FAST Mobile Search will be 50/50 owned by FAST and Rakuten, and will have a capital reserve of JPY800m.

Fast Search & Transfer, headquartered in Oslo, Norway, is a global provider of real-time data search solutions with offices on six continents. The company has some 60 engineers and annual revenues of USD162m. Fast Search & Transfer is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and traded under the ticker FAST.

One British pound (GBP) is worth approximately 231.01 Japanese yen (JPY). One British pound (GBP) is worth approximately 1.97 US dollars (USD).

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