BETHESDA, Md., Oct. 20, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CoStar Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSGP), the number one provider of information, marketing and analytic services to the commercial real estate industry, today announced the acquisition of Resolve Technology, Inc., a leading provider of business intelligence and portfolio management software serving the institutional real estate investment industry.
Resolve was founded in 1990 by CEO Eric Forman and is based in Needham, Mass. Its clients include many of the world's leading real estate advisory and investment management firms, REITs, pension funds, and life insurance companies. Resolve's Request and Portfolio Maximizer software solutions enable investment managers to integrate data spread over numerous disconnected systems and countless Excel spreadsheets in one centralized information solution for the management of their real estate investments.
Resolve's investment analysis tools automatically consolidate historical, budget, and pro-forma financial and property information. They also tie together information related to assets, debt, and partnerships so clients can quickly understand the impact on performance and returns. The software facilitates the analysis of historical and forecasted performance of investments and enables what-if scenarios in order to optimize the performance of real estate portfolios.
According to CoStar Group President and CEO Andrew Florance, the strategic acquisition is expected to further strengthen the appeal of CoStar's, PPR's and Resolve Technology's offerings to a broad range of investors, financial institutions, and advisory firms engaged in direct real estate investments.
"CoStar and PPR's tools can become much more valuable when presented in context with the client's own asset information," Florance stated. "Resolve's sales efforts can benefit from CoStar's strong balance sheet -- and from CoStar's scale in marketing and sales. In addition, we believe Resolve can also become much more valuable when it uniquely integrates client information with CoStar's leading independent third party market information and forecasts."
"For example, Resolve's tools have always made it easy for a client to quickly identify a property in their portfolio with a higher-risk concentration of lease expirations within a given year," Florance continued. "What it could not tell you was whether or not those lease-rollovers were likely to result in lower or higher net operating incomes for the property. Once the CoStar and PPR data is integrated with Resolve's products, a client will be able to understand immediately whether or not current market rents are higher or lower than the expiring rents, and whether or not similar properties are leasing quickly or not at all. We believe this enhanced capability will be invaluable for institutional investors with larger, complex portfolios in different property types spread over many markets."
"The ability to support rapid buy-sell-hold decisions based on accurate data and thorough analysis is a paramount concern for institutional investors and lenders alike," said Florance. "Using Resolve's technology, portfolio managers can quickly evaluate different acquisition, disposition and financing strategies, and accurately measure and track complex risk parameters much more effectively."
In addition, Florance said the acquisition is in keeping with CoStar's announced strategy of capitalizing on the current environment to leverage its strong financial position and acquire companies that can support strong strategic long-term growth.
"For more than 20 years, CoStar has focused on expanding our research and market coverage to offer the most comprehensive source of commercial real estate information available online," added Florance. "Having largely completed our comprehensive domestic market coverage, we are increasingly focused on helping our subscribers do more with the enormous amount of information available to them. We believe that providing additional, value-added options for accessing and analyzing commercial real estate information will enhance CoStar's value for existing clients, and appeal to a large number of firms in the investment, banking and financial services sectors, ultimately expanding the overall market for our services."
"I am very excited about the potential to expand our business intelligence and analytics platform under CoStar," stated Resolve Technology CEO Eric Forman. "Our vision, which is shared with CoStar, is to provide automated processes and technologies that empower the real estate investment industry to make timely, information-driven investment decisions. Given CoStar's unmatched resources for aggregating and making available a wealth of property, tenant and sales information, and its extensive client relationships, I expect the combination of our firms will speed the widespread adoption of this more efficient and cost-effective technology in the marketplace."
The acquisition will have no effect on CoStar Group's third quarter 2009 results, scheduled to be released on October 21, 2009, and the Company reaffirms its guidance for the third quarter. Also, the acquisition is not expected to significantly affect CoStar Group's 2009 revenue and earnings. A more detailed discussion of the acquisition is planned for CoStar Group's Third Quarter 2009 Conference Call scheduled for Thursday, October 22, 2009.
About Resolve Technology
Resolve Technology helps institutional real estate investors and investment managers make timely and informed decisions that maximize returns and minimize risk. Resolve's solutions ensure the timeliness, integrity, and visibility of investment information, enabling historical and forward-looking analysis to be performed with insight, confidence, and speed. Resolve's products are used by the world's leading advisory and investment management firms, REITs, life insurance, pension fund, and banking institutions, managing over two billion square feet of real estate worth more than half a trillion dollars. Customers include Behringer Harvard, Glenborough, LaSalle Investment Management, Prudential Real Estate Investors, Principal Global Investors, and UBS. Founded in 1990, Resolve is headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.resolvetech.com.
Shasta Partners, LLC advised Resolve Technology on this transaction.
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSGP) is the number one provider of information, marketing and analytic services to commercial real estate professionals in the United States as well as the United Kingdom. CoStar's suite of services offers customers access via the Internet to the most comprehensive database of commercial real estate information throughout the U.S. as well as in the United Kingdom and France. Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, CoStar has approximately 1,400 people working for the company worldwide, including the largest professional research organization in the industry. For more information, visit http://www.costar.com.
This news release includes "forward-looking statements" including, without limitation, statements regarding CoStar's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. These statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. More information about potential factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including CoStar's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, and CoStar Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, under the heading "Risk Factors." In addition to these statements, there can be no assurance that Resolve's software will result in optimized performance of real estate portfolios; that the acquisition of Resolve Technology will further strengthen the appeal of CoStar's, PPR's and Resolve Technology's offerings to a broad range of investors, financial institutions and advisory firms engaged in direct real estate investments; that CoStar's and PPR's tools will become much more valuable when presented in context with the client's own asset information; that Resolve's sales efforts will benefit from CoStar's strong balance sheet and scale in marketing and sales; that Resolve will become much more valuable when it uniquely integrates client information with CoStar's leading independent third party market information and forecasts; that once the CoStar and PPR data is integrated with Resolve's products, a client will always be able to understand immediately whether or not current market rents are higher or lower than the expiring rents, and whether or not similar properties are leasing quickly or not at all; that by using Resolve's technology, portfolio managers will be able to accurately measure and track complex risk parameters much more effectively; that CoStar will continue to capitalize on the current environment by acquiring companies that can support strong strategic long-term growth; that by providing additional, value-added options for accessing and analyzing commercial real estate information, CoStar will enhance its value for existing clients, and appeal to a large number of firms in the investment, banking and financial services sectors, ultimately expanding the overall market for its services; that Resolve will expand its service platform under CoStar; that the combination of CoStar and Resolve will speed the widespread adoption in the marketplace of more efficient and cost-effective technology; and that the acquisition will not significantly affect CoStar's 2009 revenue and earnings. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to CoStar on the date hereof, and CoStar assumes no obligation to update such statements.