Acquisition of Prodat Systems plc by DMG Information

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Wednesday 23 June 1999

DMG Information, the information publishing division of DMGT, has completed the acquisition of Prodat Systems plc (Prodat).

Prodat will be merged with Landmark Information Group (Landmark), to form the largest enterprise of its kind in the UK, focused on the delivery of property-based information to professional users.

Landmark produces site-specific environmental reports for leading firms of environmental and geo-technical consultants, civil engineers and large industrial landowners; while Prodat has the most efficient software available (Promap) for delivering Ordnance Survey's large-scale mapping to the professional desk top either via CD-ROM or the Internet.

In the most recent financial year to 30 September, 1998, Prodat had revenues of £2.8 million and at that date had net assets of £1.1 million.

Details

Landmark Information Group, a subsidiary of DMG Information (DMGI) and a member of the Daily Mail & General Trust plc, has acquired Prodat Systems Plc. The operations of the two companies will be merged to form the largest enterprise of its kind in the UK, focused on the delivery of property based information to professional users

Landmark produces site-specific environmental reports for leading firms of environmental and geotechnical consultants, civil engineers, and large industrial landowners; while Prodat has the most efficient software available (Promap) for delivering Ordnance Survey's large-scale mapping to the professional desk top either via CD-ROM or the Internet.

Landmark's data linked to Prodat's delivery systems will provide the foundation for a variety of high-volume low-cost search services, on paper, on CD/DVD-ROM and over the Internet. Information is combined with robust and easy-to-use software tools to provide real business solutions to the desks of property professionals.

The mission of the combined company is to deliver many of the promised benefits of a National Land Information Service (NLIS) to all professionals working in the property sector.

Martin Morgan, Chairman of Landmark and Managing Director of DMG Information Limited, said: "The two companies complement one another to an extraordinary degree and we are delighted to be able to unlock the potential synergy. The customers of both companies should feel immediate benefits from the combination."

Bob Fairchild continues as managing director of the merged enterprise, with Anthony Wrigley (Prodat), Christopher Roper (Landmark), Richard Barnes (Prodat), James Cadoux-Hudson (Landmark) and Russell Cockrell (Prodat) forming the executive management.

Bob Fairchild said: "The existing businesses will continue to grow and all existing product lines will continue to be supported. There is relatively little overlap between the two customer lists, and we believe Promap customers will welcome easy access to environmental data; and Landmark's customers can certainly use instant access to OS mapping."

Note to Editors Back to Top

Together Landmark and Prodat can deliver map-based information, flexibly and cost-effectively to a wide range of professionals working in the property industry;

Landmark's data linked to Prodat's delivery systems will provide the foundation for a variety of high-volume low-cost search services, on paper, on CD/DVD-ROM and over the Internet;

Information is combined with robust and easy-to-use software tools to provide real business solutions to the desks of property professionals.

Landmark now forms part of a global group of companies owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust Plc that specialise in delivering environmental information;

The National Land Information Service has been an unrealisable dream promoted by successive governments over the past decade. Landmark can now deliver much of the dream;

History and evolution of Landmark and Prodat Back to Top

Landmark and Prodat were founded within months of one another in 1994, when Ordnance Survey first decided that the best way to open up new markets for digital mapping was to work closely with innovative Value Added Resellers. They took very different routes to market.

Landmark, using off-the-shelf technology, brought together data from a variety of different sources to build one of the largest databases of its kind in Europe. It produces site-specific environmental reports for leading firms of environmental and geotechnical consultants, civil engineers, and large industrial landowners - like British Gas and Railtrack. It also delivers environmental reports to solicitors acting on behalf of homebuyers.

In pursuit of its goals, Landmark scanned all Ordnance Survey's large scale maps, going back to 1850 - more than half a million individual map sheets - and became one of the first organisations in the country to build a database containing large scale Ordnance Survey digital mapping for the whole of mainland Britain.

It then analysed the historical maps, identifying 250,000 areas of unknown fill - old quarries and brickpits, canal basins and ponds - which might create problems for present-day developers. They also built an inventory of 400,000 old industrial sites, which might have polluted the local environment.

Prodat, on the other hand, set out to build a proprietary software system for putting Ordnance Survey's digital mapping onto the desks of surveyors, builders and other property-related businesses in an easy to use, cost effective manner. They compressed and encrypted the map data for the whole of the country on to just 12 CD-ROMs and produced unique metering software that allows the user to pay only for the data used.

Today, Prodat has the most efficient software available for manipulating and delivering Ordnance Survey's large-scale mapping to the professional desk top either via CD-ROM or the Internet.

Landmark's founders saw that Prodat's distribution system, based on metered CD-ROMs, could also carry Landmark's environmental data, giving their customers greater flexibility and control over the service they received. Prodat's founders saw that Landmark's data could open new markets for the Promap discs, and increase sales of the metered mapping.

Both believed that their customers would welcome the combination of Landmark's data and Prodat's technology, even though there was relatively little overlap between the two customer lists. First discussions, which might have led to a merger of the two companies, took place in 1997.

Following the acquisition of Landmark by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in 1998, discussions began again in earnest, as DMGT has been building a global portfolio of similar business. Most significantly, they own Risk Management Solutions, with offices in California, London and Delhi, a company that supplies insurance companies with software and data that helps them manage a variety of global risks, including earthquakes, flooding and storms.

DMGT also owns Environmental Data Resources Inc, which occupies a position in the United States similar to that of Landmark in the UK.

For further information contact:
Helen Ridgway, Landmark Information Group. Tel: 01392 441727 Fax: 01392 441709
e-mail: Helen Ridgway

or Russell Cockrell, Prodat Systems Plc, Tel: 01491 413030 Fax: 01491 413031
e-mail: Russell Cockrell

Paul Sykes, FD, DMGI. Tel: 01223 273 420