News Releases

First Combination of Distribution, Policy Administration and CRM Components to the P&C Industry

New York and Boston – 19 November 2009: Sword Group (NYSE Euronext: SWP) today announced the acquisition of the full share capital of privately-held Boston-based AgencyPort, the industry leader in insurance distribution technology. The acquisition is further evidence of Sword's commitment to the global insurance marketplace and to expand its presence in the North American market.

Founded in 2000, AgencyPort provides web-based software and solutions to property and casualty insurance companies to automate distribution. With a blue-chip customer base in excess of 50 insurers, AgencyPort brings Sword Group a widely-installed software base, a development and delivery organization with deep domain expertise and an accomplished management team within the insurance technology industry.

Coinciding with the acquisition Steve Hauck, co-founder of AgencyPort, will lead Sword's insurance division as CEO in the Americas and AgencyPort co-founder Eric Harnden will take on the Global role of CTO for Sword in insurance. They will join an elite team of executives from Sword to drive the newly-combined division consisting of 350 experienced staff, pro-forma revenues of more than $77 million in 2009 and forecasted revenue of $100 million in 2010.

Sword's insurance proposition will bring a unique combination of products that span policy administration (Sword Intech) and multi-channel CRM (Sword Ciboodle) with AgencyPort’s distribution technology (the renamed Sword AgencyPort). Each of these three components will retain its own product development strategy to remain best-in-class and additional resources will be allocated to realize product integration.

Commenting on the impact on the property & casualty market, Matthew Josefowicz, head of the insurance practice at Novarica stated "Bringing together AgencyPort's strong front-end solutions and loyal client base with Sword's core processing and CRM capabilities creates a very interesting option for US P&C insurers."

Heath Davies, Chief Executive Officer Sword Group said, "The acquisition of AgencyPort is a strategic step for the Group and our customers. We are moving towards our goal of providing an impressive a-la-carte portfolio of leading software solutions encompassing policy administration, CRM and distribution technology to the global insurance marketplace. AgencyPort’s customer base in the Americas, ACORD-based product suite and over 100 professionals trained in insurance IT delivery will be a strong addition to our existing operations and key ingredients as we grow our US and global market footprint."

"We are very pleased that AgencyPort has joined Sword Group," confirmed Steve Hauck. "Sword is a rapidly growing and global software business with a proven acquisition strategy which allows us to immediately extend our market presence and offer even greater value to both the Sword and AgencyPort client bases. The best reflection of our strategic synergy is the fact that already numerous customers and prospects are engaged in evaluating the combination of our respective offerings."

"This agreement brings together a unique combination of best-of-breed components," said AgencyPort’s Eric Harnden. "Our team, our culture, our focus on innovation and our ability to execute for customers have been the key drivers for our success and these won’t change. Sword brings us both a complementary suite of proven products and the resources needed to help us scale on a global level such as internationalization of our products, 24x7 hosting services, offshore development and a global delivery infrastructure."

Kevin Ebers, Senior Vice President of Information Technology at WR Berkley stated: "As a customer of both Sword Intech and AgencyPort, we are enthusiastic about deriving the additional value resulting from the combination of these two companies."

For more information about Sword’s software portfolio visit www.sword-group.com

For more information on AgencyPort, visit www.agencyport.com

Sword Group (NYSE Euronext: FR0004180578 SWP) leading global provider of business improvement solutions today announced its inclusion on the Software Magazine’s Software 500 ranking of the world's largest software and service providers, now in its 27th year.

Globally Sword Group was ranked 127, with revenue of $302.988 million. Highlighted as a top performer in the report with 23 per cent year-on-year growth Sword Group is ranked the 13th largest software company in Europe.

Heath Davies, CEO Sword Group said: "We are delighted to be recognized by software Magazine as one of the world's largest software companies. This is the first time Sword has been included in Software 500 and our strong ranking is testament to our commitment in our growing portfolio of software and solutions."

Davies continues: "Today Sword's software revenue, including license, maintenance, support and associated services constitutes over 60 per cent of our annual income as a result of our strong organic growth and acquisition strategy to augment our offerings. By 2010 we expect our software revenue to represent 80 per cent of our total annual revenue."

"The 2009 Software 500 results show that revenue growth in the software and services industry was healthy, with total Software 500 revenue of $491.3 billion worldwide for 2008 representing 8.8% growth from the previous year" says John P. Desmond, editor of Software Magazine and Softwaremag.com.

Sword Group's portfolio includes Sword Ciboodle the global leader in process-centric CRM software as recognized by industry analysts Forrester and Sword Intech insurance software one of the few providers specializing in b2b property/casualty insurance lines over €1bn premium as highlighted by the US analyst Novarica in August 2009. In addition the Group's services portfolio has successfully evolved into a $150m business in conjunction with international partners including Microsoft and Google to become a leading player in the information management marketplace.

The Software 500 is a revenue-based ranking of the world's largest software and services suppliers targeting medium to large enterprises, their IT professionals, software developers and business managers involved in software and services purchasing.

The ranking is based on total worldwide software and services revenue for 2008. This includes revenues from software licenses, maintenance and support, training and software-related services and consulting. Suppliers are not ranked on their total corporate revenue, since many have other lines of business, such as hardware. The financial information was gathered by a survey prepared by King Content Co. and posted at www.Softwaremag.com, as well as from public documents.

Sword Intech, a leading global vendor of policy administration software for commercial lines insurers, today announces the appointment of Senior Vice President Delivery & Operations Chuck Gomez to its Americas Executive Team. This appointment demonstrates Sword Intech's commitment to continued expansion in the North American P&C insurance market.

In his new position as SVP Delivery & Operations, Gomez will report to David Warren, President of Sword Intech Americas. Gomez brings to Sword Intech over 18 years of technology experience in the P&C insurance industry; building, delivering, and managing core insurance business systems across specialty, commercial and personal lines of business.

Commenting on the appointment, David Warren said, "I am delighted to announce the addition of Chuck to our team. Our plan is to aggressively expand our footprint in North America, and Chuck will be instrumental in helping us to achieve this goal. I look forward to leveraging his leadership and experience to ensure our U.S. clients gain maximum benefit from Sword Intech."

Gomez added, "I am excited to have the opportunity to work with the Sword Intech team and the Open Co+ insurance suite at such an exciting time and I have been very impressed by the team and their offering to the North American insurance marketplace."

Prior to joining Sword Intech, Gomez was most recently a principal with Integro Insurance Brokers, a start-up brokerage delivering global risk management and brokerage services. Earlier in his career, Gomez worked with several insurance carriers, holding positions such as Vice President of Business Systems with Arch Insurance Group and Director of Information Technology with AIG. Other professional experience includes working with Ernst & Young for nine years, including serving as a senior manager in the insurance consulting practice.

In addition to his professional experience, Gomez holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sword Intech appoints John Krekis as Director of Implementation. John has over 20 years’ experience at senior level in the insurance market. He joins Sword Intech from Amsphere where he was Operations Director, responsible for delivery and quality assurance. Prior to that he was IT Director at Brit Insurance, the international general insurance and reinsurance group specialising in commercial insurance where he was responsible for the development and implementation of a new group-wide software solution.

The appointment comes at a time of significant global development for Sword Intech and follows the release of phase 2 of its highly successful Open+ technology.

John Krekis said about his appointment "I am delighted to be playing a major role in Sword Intech's development - Open+ is a great product and on track to dominate the market. Its capability and flexibility gives us a unique global opportunity at a time when major insurers are gearing up to take advantage of an anticipated market up-turn. Sword Intech is gaining momentum in this market and we are already supporting the product with new offices in New York and Bermuda. My role is to manage the 'professional services' to maximise new client opportunities by delivering a first class product to client specification within a managed timeframe. As our customers are demanding increasingly global deployments, I will also be responsible for establishing knowledge sharing initiatives to enable us to maximise 'partnering' opportunities that will enhance our global capability and status".

Heath Davies Sword Group CEO commented "we are delighted to welcome someone of John's experience and credibility into the Sword Intech business - the Insurance market continues to be a significant focus for the group both in terms of people and R&D as we see great potential for the Open+ product range".

Sword Intech software and consultancy is chosen by leading insurers and reinsurers globally to deliver comprehensive, integrated insurance administration systems. Key to Sword Intech’s success is their unique combination of industry and technology experts who are committed to delivering innovative solutions in collaboration with their clients. Sword Intech is part of global technology company, Sword Group.

New York, Bermuda and London, August 3rd, 2009: Sword Intech, a leading global vendor of policy administration software for commercial lines insurers, today announces that it features in the most recent Novarica Market Navigator™ for property/casualty insurers. Novarica is a leading provider of information, insights, and perspective on markets, operations and technology to insurance executives.

The Novarica Market Navigator™ report is relied upon by insurers to help identify and better understand the breadth and capability of policy administration solutions. The report is based upon an in-depth evaluation of each vendor’s key functionality and client base.

In the report, Novarica identifies Sword Intech as one of a select number of vendors offering a full suite policy administration system for US property/casualty insurers that specialize in commercial lines.

Novarica references the extensive out-of-the-box functionality of Sword Intech’s software, which has been specifically designed to meet the needs of global and domestic commercial, E&S and specialty insurers. Combined with a high degree of configurability and implementation times of less than six months, these attributes facilitate rapid development and roll out of new products.

Chad Hersh, principal, Novarica, said: “Despite an increasing demand for E&S systems that can support the major markets (US, Bermuda, and the UK), only a handful of vendors have focused on this market, and fewer still have live implementations in each. Sword Intech has likely found a strong niche by doing just that, and primarily with large carriers.”

David Warren, president, Sword Intech US, said: “Sword Intech is delighted to have been recognized for the first time in the Novarica Market Navigator™ report, which is testament to our growing presence in both the US and Canada.”

To view a copy of the Novarica Market Navigator™ click here.

Notes to Editors

About Sword Intech

Sword Intech’s next-generation policy administration system, Open Co+, is trusted by leading property and casualty (P&C), excess and surplus (E&S) and specialty insurance and reinsurance companies to reduce cost, improve operational efficiency, minimize time to market for new products and enhance user experience.

A comprehensive, end-to-end solution, Open Co+ streamlines and integrates policy generation and administration, underwriting, reinsurance, accounting and claims processing operations. Designed to be flexible, configurable and scalable, the system can be deployed rapidly across multiple lines of business, geographic locations, currencies, languages, tax and regulatory requirements, with consolidated accounting and reporting. Rules-based configurability allows new product development and product changes to be performed by users and business analysts, not programmers.

Sword Intech has offices in New York, Bermuda and London. For more information, please call (212) 279-6734, or visit the Sword Intech website at www.sword-intech.com.

Sword Intech is part of international technology company Sword Group. For more information, please call (212) 279-6734, or visit the Sword Group website at www.sword-group.com.

About Novarica

Novarica provides information, insights, and perspective on markets, operations, and technology to financial services and insurance executives and project teams. The company delivers its service through published research, retained advisory services, and project-based consulting. Novarica's research includes market and trend analyses, best practices research, case studies, and independent analyses of insurance software vendors. Novarica is a division of Novantas, LLC, the leading management consultancy and information services provider for the financial services industries.

For more information about Novarica, please call (212) 419-2520, or visit the Novarica website at www.novarica.com.

Sword Intech, the leading business software and services for the global insurance and reinsurance industries, has announced that it will be showcasing the latest release of its policy administration software suite Open Box+ at the IT Providers Trade Fair to be held at Lloyd’s of London on Monday 15th June.

Open Box+ is Sword Intech’s modular, comprehensive policy administration software suite specifically designed for the Lloyd’s market. Developed to incorporate all the functional and messaging requirements of the Lloyd’s market through nearly 40 years of close association with the market, syndicates & underwriters. Sword Intech’s Open Box+ is capable of supporting the complete lifecycle of the Lloyd’s insurance business processes.

As a long standing and trusted supplier to numerous syndicates within the Lloyd’s market, Sword Intech appreciate the need for insurers and reinsurers to have unparalleled flexibility, scalability and functionality to accelerate their speed to market for existing as well as new lines of business. The latest version of Open Box+ satisfies all these requirements within a proven modern architecture, which also provides a hedge against obsolescence.

Sword Intech, the leading provider of business software and services for the global insurance industry, will be showcasing the latest release of its policy administration software Open Co+ v2 at Acord Loma.

Open Co+ is a comprehensive policy administration software suite for today’s global markets, capable of supporting the complete lifecycle of insurance business processes.

This new release brings unparalleled flexibility, scalability and functionality to insurers and reinsurers can increase competitive agility by accelerating speed to market for new lines of business. You may be interested in finding out about:

• Reduced time to market: Our pre-configured out-of-the-box software is quickly deployed, agile and scalable enabling rapid configuration changes.
• Feature-rich: The highly-functional feature-rich software supports a range of classes and specialist lines including commercial, retail, marine, Lloyds and the London market.
• Future proof: Built with the agility to respond to the evolving needs of your operation supporting both the extension of business lines and international expansion.
• Integrated: Comprehensive insurance administration functionality linking with, or replacing, existing legacy solutions.
• Modular: Based on modular components our easily configurable software ensures that our clients only need to implement the functionality that is required to support their business.
• Global capability: The ability to manage multiple sites, legal entities, currencies and tax scenarios to truly support today’s market requirements is integral to our software.
• Comprehensive: Supporting all of your business processes from the set-up of policy information to underwriting, reinsurance, claims processing and accounting.
• Business process management: Real-time information management, financial control and audit capability fully support back-office requirements and minimize risks.

Our team of industry and technical experts will be on hand at Booth 303 providing live demonstrations of our Open Co+ software and answering any questions you may have. If you are interested in learning more before the show or would like to reserve a demonstration slot, please call David Warren on 212 2796734.

New York and Bermuda operations consolidate Group’s dominant position in the market

Sword Intech, a leading policy administration solutions provider, continues to strengthen its presence in the global insurance market on the back of several new wins and implementations.

As part of Sword Group, Sword Intech has been successfully delivering software and solutions to the insurance market for nearly forty years. Having recognized the benefit of establishing a local insurance presence and support opened offices in New York in 2007 followed by its operation in Bermuda in 2008 to effectively support its existing customer base and tap into future business opportunities. This localized strategy is paying off for the Group and has enabled Sword to consolidate its global position as a leader in policy administration software and ramp up its presence in the North American market.

John Pomeroy, Business Development Director for Sword Group underlined Sword’s commitment to the global markets: “With North American analysts united in their predictions of both continued IT investment (albeit focused) and the increased preference for packaged systems, our next generation modular Open+ platform (launched in 2007), now well proven and live in over 10 insurers supporting multiple lines of business, across several countries, currencies and markets, is perfectly positioned to satisfy this growing demand.

“The potential demand and opportunity in the North American market is such that Sword Intech does not want to constrain the products potential based purely on our ability to provide direct services. Our strategy in these markets will be to provide sufficient product expertise and support to enable partner organizations with the necessary business analysis and project management skills to provide a quality service around the delivery of our product to clients. Due to the nature of our products there is tremendous potential for successful partners of Sword Intech to develop their own specific branded versions, or extensions to the client deliverable.

“In addition to system integration partnerships, as an experienced supplier we appreciate that every market has specific requirements and technology or integration partnerships are equally important. Sword Intech as part of its existing North American deployments have been involved in integrations with a number of specialist products from US vendors and will be looking to strengthen these relationships into business partnerships as the year progresses.”

Sword Group has a long and successful track record of partnering with major IT vendors, having strong partnership’s already in place with Microsoft, IBM, EMC and Google. Sword Intech will be showcasing its commercial market software at the forthcoming Acord Loma show in Orlando from May 17th to 20th.

State of the art technology centre bucks the trend

International technology company, Sword Group, has today announced that it is on track to exceed ambitious growth targets agreed with the Welsh Assembly Government for its new Technology Centre in Cwmbran.

Sword’s world class information Technology Centre which opened in January 2008 with two employees has grown in 12 months to sixty seven people. Despite the current global economic turmoil Sword’s staffing levels in Cwmbran are expected double in 2009 and the firm is opening a second building in March to enable this continued growth.

The Centre was established in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government who awarded a £3.6m grant to the Group in 2007. As well as attracting a first class employee base from surrounding areas, Cwmbran is strategically placed to support the Group’s UK operations with easy links to all major cities.

The Centre operates as a support nucleus for Sword Group’s growing IT portfolio. Its focus is on research, development and operational support but with a wider brief to extend functionality of current Sword applications with a comprehensive ‘build-out’ strategy.

Heath Davies, chief executive officer of Sword Group is delighted with the Centre’s success: “Our confidence in South Wales coupled with the tremendous support from Welsh Assembly Government has been rewarded by an outstanding first year. Not only has Cwmbran proved an excellent geographic location, we have managed to attract a first class and loyal skills pool. I’m looking forward to a very positive 2009”.

Ieuan Wyn Jones, Minister for the Economy and Transport, described it as excellent news.

“It is particularly pleasing in this current economic climate to hear that Sword Group’s new Welsh centre is exceeding expectations and already playing a key role in supporting the Group’s operations.

“I am delighted the Assembly Government has been able to support Sword Group in their decision to open this technology centre in Wales. It is exactly the type of investment we want to attract to Wales in order to drive forward a knowledge based economy.

“The research and development element of this investment is of particular importance to the Welsh economy while also providing superb career opportunities for Welsh graduates. I should like to congratulate Sword Group on this early success and shall look forward to seeing them expand operations in Wales.”

Internationally Sword Group has had a successful 2008 with year-end revenue projected at over €205 million and operating profit of over 17.5%.

Bermudian practice boosts software group’s international insurance operations

Sword has today underlined its commitment to Bermuda with the announcement that the insurance software leader is now supporting seven carriers on the Island from its newly opened office in Hamilton.

Sword’s new regional office in Bermuda opened its doors in summer 2008 and complements its existing insurance practices in New York and London.

To mark its presence on the island, the company is hosting an official launch event in Hamilton on Tuesday 21st October to celebrate the new office opening showcase its insurance and reinsurance expertise.

At the launch the company will be signing a partnership agreement with Bermuda-based IT services company CCS Limited. This agreement with CCS is designed to accelerate Sword’s implementation capabilities and strengthen the local professional services resource available to customers using a trusted provider with extensive knowledge of Bermuda’s insurance and reinsurance industries.

Sword’s Stuart Browes has relocated to Bermuda from the UK office to help the establish the company’s practice on the island.

Tony Holland, COO Sword Group said: ”Bermuda is a key hub for our international insurance and reinsurance business. We see our agreement with CCS as a significant opportunity to both accelerate and enhance the professional services available to our clients in Bermuda.”

Sword’s integrated insurance and reinsurance solutions “Open Co+” and “Open Exposure” provide accurate, up-to-date land-based and/or offshore aggregations for underwriters. These applications combine the latest business process management technologies with proven insurance functionality with the ability to configure insurance products specific to customers’ business processes, as well as lines of business they want to write.

Sword Intech, the specialist Insurance software division of the Sword Group, announced today the signing of a new contract with Hannover Re to supply their innovative risk aggregation solution Open Xposure™.

Hannover Re has implemented Open Xposure™ to manage the aggregations of their worldwide Energy and Facultative Property lines of business, replacing their previous systems which were a combination of third party and in-house solutions Dr. Matthias Hausknecht, Corporate Development Senior Manager and in charge of the overall implementation, said “We decided on Open Xposure™ because of the current software features and the planned future development of the product. Open Xposure™ and Sword Intech were selected because of the profound expertise demonstrated by Intech and their thorough understanding of our business. We are looking forward to a lengthy, trustworthy and effective relationship.”

Business Unit Director at Sword Intech, Eugene Brien commented. “Hannover Re has long been regarded by the market as an organisation that maintains a very high level of underwriting discipline and one that has a lean, efficient infrastructure, facilitating rapid decision-making. I’m excited that an organisation such as Hannover Re has selected Open Xposure™ to help them maintain this underwriting discipline. We look forward to a long and mutually rewarding partnership.”

New senior management appointment

Sword Group announced today the appointment of Steve Westley as business unit director for the newly formed health business unit. This new unit will capitalise on Sword Intech’s innovative Open Health+ policy administration solution to provide the backbone of their business process outsourcing (BPO) service. In addition this new unit will benefit from Sword’s vast experience in providing innovative solutions to the insurance industry.

This new business unit is FSA approved for policy administration and supporting the full end-to-end insurance process. Having Open Health+ as the technical platform proved invaluable in gaining this approval. With its proven audit capabilities, control mechanisms, security, flexibility and resilience, this new business unit was able to demonstrate that treating customers fairly was at the heart of everything they do. Steve Westley brings with him a wealth of experience in establishing and running BPO operations, particularly in the healthcare arena. In previous roles, he was instrumental in setting up and operating successful BPO operations for several leading UK and International health insurance companies. Steve has also recently been appointed to the executive committee of the Association of Medical Expenses Insurers (AMEI).

Steve commented: “I’m excited to be part of this new venture with SWORD. This is a new area of the market for Sword and I’m delighted that the response from the market has been so encouraging. Using Sword’s new £30m technology centre in Cwmbran and Open Health+ has enabled us to provide a truly exceptional service to our customers and their clients.

Tony Holland the COO of Sword is equally enthused about the prospects, “The healthcare market is one of the fastest growing business economies worldwide. With the total spend available set to rise from $4,000bn in 2005 to $14,000bn in 2020, the need for increased efficiencies and stringent controls over costs couldn’t be greater. This new business unit is well positioned to capitalise on this demand, with a truly world-class solution.”

Tony went on to say “I’m delighted that Steve’s accepted the challenge of not only setting up a new venture from scratch, but also of becoming FSA approved. It comes therefore as no surprise that in the short time that the business unit has been operating, Steve and his team have already developed a significant book of business in excess of £10m and an equally strong pipeline.”