Paris, February 10th, 2006: ESI Group (ISIN FR0000065849), a pioneer and world leading solution provider in virtual prototyping and manufacturing processes, announces the acquisition of the Services branch of activity of IPS International, a South Korean company. This acquisition concerns IPS International’s digital simulation services for engineering applications (CAE), as well as the intellectual property rights to their virtual human models “H-Models”.

This acquisition will allow ESI Group to strengthen its presence in South Korea, with the integration of a team of 14 experienced engineers. Complementing Hankook ESI’s offer, this team in particular works on projects of automotive platforms under development for Hyundai Motor incorporating know-how in passenger safety simulation. Other customers such as LG, Renault-Samsung Motor and Samsung Electronics complete its clientele.

Through this operation, ESI Group aims to complement its services offer, notably in production projects, in Korea initially. Moreover, the virtual human models acquired were already being used under licence by ESI Group within the framework of innovative occupant safety projects.

Financial information and details of the operation

This deal was concluded on January 25 2006, in the form of a transfer of activity incorporating the clientele, workforce, know-how, commercial contracts of the company and the intellectual property rights.

Within the framework of the agreement, this activity will be integrated within the Group’s Korean subsidiary Hankook ESI from 1 February 2006. Its turnover for the financial year ending 31 December 2005 should be close to KRW 1 billion, i.e EUR 0.860 million (KRW 1 159 = EUR 1 as of February 8th, 2006).

This operation will be carried out in cash. It should be accretive from the moment it is integrated within the Group’s scope.

Alain de ROUVRAY, Chairman and CEO of ESI Group, concludes: “This operation clearly shows ESI Group’s intent to develop its high end service activity to support innovation and simulation adoption with its lead customers and to strengthen installed base support.”

About ESI Group

ESI Group is a world-leading supplier, and a pioneer of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. ESI Group has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry oriented applications to realistically simulate a product’s behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and evaluate the environment’s impact on product performance. ESI Group’s products, which have a proven track record in manufacturing and have been combined in multi-trade value chains, represent a unique collaborative and open virtual engineering solution known as the Virtual Try-Out Space (VTOS), enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous and collaborative manner. This integrated protocol allows all the company’s solutions to work with each other and with applications developed by independent software vendors. By significantly reducing costs and development lead times and enabling product/process synergies, VTOS solutions offer major competitive advantage by progressively eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company generated sales of circa €60m in 2004, employs almost 500 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in Eurolist compartment C of Euronext Paris. For further information, visit www.esi-group.com.

ESI GROUP has been qualified as “an innovative company” since January 20 2000 by the ANVAR and is eligible for inclusion in “FCPI” (venture capital trusts dedicated to innovation).

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Full Year Sales 2005 will be released on March, 8th 2006 (after closure of the markets)

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