Taylor Wessing advises Multimap on sale to Microsoft Corporation

14-Dec-2007  |  Corporate, Employment & Pensions, Intellectual Property, Tax

Taylor Wessing in London has acted for the shareholders of Multimap on the sale of the company to Microsoft Corporation for an undisclosed sum.

Multimap is one of the United Kingdom's top 100 technology companies and one of the world's leading providers of online mapping and location-based services; the company’s internal figures show more than 10 million unique users per quarter and Comscore shows close to 9 million.

The partnership with Microsoft is intended to give Multimap new opportunities to build its mapping services into new technologies and applications, while Microsoft will benefit from powerful new location and mapping technology to complement existing offerings such as Virtual Earth, Live Search, Windows Live services, MSN and the aQuantive advertising platform, with future integration potential for a range of other Microsoft products and platforms. Multimap will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, as part of the Virtual Earth and Search teams in the Online Services Group.

Multimap, which was founded by Sean Phelan 12 years ago, also supplies online maps for third-party websites, where it counts groups including Ford, Royal Mail and Virgin as clients.

Founder of Multimap, Sean Phelan, comments:

"Speaking for all the Multimap shareholders, we were extremely pleased with the support we received from the Taylor Wessing team, and very impressed by their professionalism, perseverance, and dedication. We’ve worked with Howard Palmer, who led the Taylor Wessing team, for more than 10 years, and are delighted with the value his work has brought to Multimap since its inception, and now, with a very talented team, through this transaction.”

The Taylor Wessing team advising Multimap was led by partner Howard Palmer, working primarily in conjunction with Hilary Marr (corporate), Nikol Davies (tax), Ann Casey (employee benefits), David Brooks (IP), Kellie McCormack (employment).

FirstCapital acted as exclusive financial advisor to Multimap in this transaction.

Microsoft Corporation was advised by Reed Smith Richards Butler LLP

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Notes to editors

For more information please contact Sarah le Cheminant at Taylor Wessing:

Tel: +44 (0)20 7300 4930

Email: s.lecheminant@taylorwessing.com

Taylor Wessing LLP is a leading law firm providing legal support for commercial organisations doing business in Europe. Based in Belgium, France, Germany and the UK, Taylor Wessing provides the full range of legal services to major corporations and growing enterprises. Taylor Wessing boasts a strong reputation in the corporate, finance and real estate sectors alongside in-depth experience across the full range of legal services including intellectual property and technology, tax, litigation & dispute resolution, employment & pensions and private client.

www.taylorwessing.com

About Multimap

Multimap is one of the world’s leading providers of online mapping and location-based services. The company delivers more online maps, point-to-point driving directions and geo-spatial ("where's my nearest?") searches to more businesses and consumers than any other supplier in Europe. As well as providing a publicly available personal mapping service at www.multimap.com, the firm provides a range of integrated business services.