Under the terms of the agreement, Stratos will acquire 100 percent of Plenexis from 3i, Europe's largest private equity and venture capital company, and management.

The combined organization will take advantage of an enhanced geographic presence to further expand on its already-strong capabilities as a truly global provider of industry-leading remote communications solutions for energy, government and military, and enterprise sector customers in Europe and throughout the world.

In addition, as a result of today's agreement, both Stratos and Plenexis customers will now benefit from an enhanced network infrastructure and expanded suite of advanced mobile and fixed-site satellite solutions - including Plenexis' high-quality teleports and network operations in Europe and Russia, and Stratos' industry-leading portfolio of Inmarsat mobile satellite solutions and fast-growing StratosITek IP-based VSAT platform.

"We undertook this transaction because we firmly believe that Plenexis' customer base and operations are natural complements to Stratos' existing VSAT business," said Jim Parm, Stratos' president and chief executive officer.

"We look forward to leveraging our newly enhanced scale and geographic presence to further improve on the already-robust service offerings and support that we provide to better serve both Stratos and Plenexis customers."

Stephan Witte, chief executive officer of Plenexis Group, added, "Teaming up with a strong partner like Stratos, who shares our core business, enables us to both offer a wider product portfolio to our customers and to extend the geographic reach of our industry-leading network solutions to additional regions throughout the world."

Martin F. Bartholomew, chairman of Plenexis Group, said, "We have planned for consolidation in this marketplace for the last three years and we are delighted to join with Stratos, a profitable, publicly held company with a proven track record and aggressive plan for continued growth and success in the global satellite services industry."

The transaction is expected to close by the end of the month. Touchstone Securities acted as advisor to 3i on the sale process.

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