Ariadne Capital Advises Simply Zesty on its Acquisition by UTV Media plc

Ariadne Capital Advises Simply Zesty on its Acquisition by UTV Media plc

LONDON, March 19, 2012/PRNewswire/ --

Ariadne Capital, the London based investment and advisory firm announces another
successful transaction has been completed by its M&A team acting as the sole corporate
finance adviser to social media agency Simply Zesty on its sale to UTV Media plc.

Simply Zesty is a social media agency whose international client base of over 100
companies includes blue chip brands such as Sony, Vodafone, Teradata, Volkswagen Group,
News International, Kaspersky Labs and ebookers.com. The company was established in 2009
and specialises in providing social media marketing services to assist businesses in
creating innovative social media campaigns.

Simply Zesty's shareholders appointed the Ariadne team to advise on a sale, led by
Director of M&A, Ian Findlay. UTV Media plc operates in the UK and Ireland incorporating
radio, television, new media and publishing. It emerged as the favourite bidder for a
combination of reasons including the opportunitiy for the founders to continue to develop
Simply Zesty as part of UTV's New Media division, leveraging its position as a leading
multi-media company.

The total value of the deal is EUR6million, EUR4 million of which is tied into Simply
Zesty's future trading performance.

Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of Simply Zesty said, "Ariadne was an excellent adviser, who ran
a great sale process and we were delighted with the outcome."

Ian Findlay, Director of M&A at Ariadne Capital said, "We are always delighted when we
complete on an acquisition that marries two strategic agendas so successfully. Simply
Zesty is ideally positioned to leverage UTV's profile and reach as their social media
experts, while UTV has stated that the acquisition delivers on its strategy to create a
diversified multi-media business."

This is Ariadne Capital's fifth successful sale transaction in the last 18 months and
the latest to follow on from the sale of BeatThatQuote.com to Google Inc where it acted as
sole financial advisor.

About Ariadne Capital

Ariadne Capital is a leading investment and advisory firm specialising in
technology-enabled and digital firms in the media & entertainment, financial technology,
health, retail and smart-cities sectors. The Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund (ACE)
backs outstanding entrepreneurs at the seed stage.

Founded in 2000 by Julie Meyer with 60 leading entrepreneurs as founding investors,
Ariadne has advised Skype (sold to Ebay), Espotting (now MIVA), Zopa (P2P lending and
borrowing) and Monitise (mobile money firm backed by VISA and listed on the London market
with a market capitalisation of >GBP350 million). It holds equity stakes in 20 high growth
start-ups. Ariadne Capital also runs Entrepreneur Country, the community for high-growth
businesses - http://www.entrepreneurcountry.com [http://www.entrepreneurcountry.net ].

Source: Ariadne Capital

For further information please contact the Ariadne Press Office: Sarah Caddy or Sara Firouzyar, Gong Communications, +44(0)20-7935-4800, Ariadne@gongcommunications.com

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