BT acquires Fresca

BT Group PLC
01 February 2008



DC08-025                                                        1 February, 2008

                           BT ACQUIRES FRESCA LIMITED


BT today announced the acquisition of Fresca Limited, the specialist retail
e-commerce service provider. The acquisition will significantly strengthen the
e-commerce and IT integration capabilities of BT Expedite, the retail solutions
division of BT, enabling it to provide a seamless multichannel shopping
experience for retail customers.

Established in 2000 and headquartered in High Wycombe, Fresca provides fully
managed and hosted e-commerce services to over 20 retailers and e-tailers such
as Mosaic Fashions (whose brands include Oasis, Karen Millen, Warehouse, Shoe
Studio, Principles and Coast), Thomas Pink, Great Little Trading Co., Habitat,
Moss, Phase Eight, Whistles and Harvey Nichols.

The acquisition of Fresca will allow BT Expedite to offer a comprehensive
e-commerce platform, highly customisable web store front and the flexible
integration capabilities of its e-commerce engine. Fresca's domain expertise and
complementary technologies will provide BT Expedite with the platform to deliver
an integrated multichannel shopping experience to retailers and customers.

Helen Slaven, CEO of BT Expedite, said: "We are delighted with the acquisition
of Fresca. Through its existing products Fresca gives BT Expedite a full suite
of solutions to support multichannel retailing. Fresca brings to us a strong
product set and one of the sector's leading experts in online retailing. We look
forward to working with retailers as their multichannel strategies develop."

John Bovill, Group IT Director of Mosaic Fashions, commented: "We congratulate
BT Expedite on their acquisition of Fresca. We have worked with both companies
for several years as jointly they provide the solutions for our entire
multichannel supply chain systems from sourcing to store and online. We look
forward to working closely with them as we continue to strengthen our
multichannel capability."


Sarah Hughes, MD of Fresca, said: "We are delighted to have been acquired by BT.
From our earliest discussions with Helen and her colleagues at BT Expedite, the
benefits of an acquisition by BT were clear for both our customers and
employees. We look forward to working as part of BT in strengthening its
e-commerce offering in the retail market."

BT is acquiring the shares in Fresca from the management and employees. The
gross assets of the company as at 31 March 2007 were £0.85 million.

                                      Ends


Inquiries about this news release should be made to Gemma Thomas in the BT Press
                          Office on [phone]



Notes to editors:

About Fresca

Fresca is the company behind many of the world's fastest-growing and most
successful e-commerce websites.

Leading retailers such as Mosaic Fashions (Oasis, Karen Millen, Warehouse, Shoe
Studio, Principles and Coast), Thomas Pink, Great Little Trading Co., Habitat,
Moss, Phase Eight, Whistles and Harvey Nichols retain Fresca to operate their
e-commerce websites, running their software and infrastructure on Fresca's
commerce platform.

The Fresca commerce platform offers complete web-store flexibility.

Additionally, multichannel support is built-in, as are back-office systems for
customer ordering, call-centre and fulfillment functionality. The platform is
feature-rich and covers all key retail functions, including campaign and
promotions management, catalogue management, trading analysis, and a highly
developed content management system for "magazine-style" content. It integrates
with leading web analytics and email campaigning software, and offers
standards-based integration with merchandising, fulfillment and payment systems.

For more information visit www.btfresca.com


About BT Expedite

BT Expedite is the retail specialist division within BT.  They provide best of
breed solutions to enable today's multichannel retailer to thrive in today's
competitive environment.  Their solution set spans every area of retailing;
planning, sourcing, merchandising, store, sales analytics and CRM, plus network
infrastructure, hardware and professional service expertise.

For more information visit www.btexpedite.com



About BT


BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and
services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include networked
IT services; local, national and international telecommunications services;
higher-value broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/
mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business:
BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale. In the year ended 31
March 2007, BT Group plc's revenue was £20,223 million with profit before
taxation of £2,484 million.


British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group and
encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is
listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. For more information, visit
www.bt.com/aboutbt





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