Harris Interactive Acquires French Online Specialist

Harris Interactive(r) has announced the acquisition of the Paris-based online market research firm Novatris S.A. The deal will result in the creation of what is believed to be the largest online panel in Europe, with close to 1.7m members.

Novatris, which will become part of HI Europe, has 20 staff, $3 million in revenue and one million panel members, making it France's leading online research specialist. The existing HI Europe panel has 700,000 members.

Novatris will continue to provide custom research solutions to clients in France and Belgium, as well as being HI Europe's service bureau to provide online data collection to other MR firms. The company was founded by Nathalie Perrio-Combeaux and Patrick Van Bloeme in 1995, each of whom was granted 50,000 stock options by Harris Interactive as part of the deal, to be vested over the next 4 years. The options were priced at the close of the market on March 1, 2004 at $8.55 per share.

Van Bloeme and Perrio-Combeaux issued a joint statement expressing their confidence that customers will benefit from Harris Interactive's 'innovative methodologies and powerful technologies', while HI Europe President George Terhanian said the company's customers worldwide would gain from Novatris' understanding of the French and Belgian research markets: 'Our increased capability to conduct timely, affordable research among hard-to-reach groups in Europe is by no means the sole benefit of this acquisition'.

Robert E. Knapp, the new Vice-Chairman and CEO of Harris Interactive said that the acquisition creates 'the critical mass needed for Harris Interactive to conduct large-scale or low-incidence research in both North America and Western Europe... We will continue to grow our European Internet panel by about a million members per year, and we expect it to exceed two million by July 2004'.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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