monday 22 october 2001

Deal to deliver and sell digital downloads

Tornado Group PLC (“LSE: TDO”), Europe’s leading Digital Service Provider, and Fredgaard, one of the premier High Street retailers of Entertainment products in Denmark, today announced a ground-breaking agreement. Through this deal, Tornado will provide Fredgaard with the global technical infrastructure to enable it to sell digital music direct to consumers via its website, www.fredgaard.dk. Through accessing this site, consumers in Denmark will be able to download and purchase digital music content quickly and securely, whilst safeguarding the content owners intellectual property rights. It is anticipated that the service will launch on 1st February 2002.

Fredgaard, which currently has 35 outlets throughout Denmark and is expanding fast, will integrate with Tornado’s Digital Distribution System, thereby enabling its customers to buy a wide range of downloadable music. The two groups will start working together with immediate effect to aggregate the right content for this important launch. Initially, the digital content will be music, but the two companies are exploring opportunities for other digital media content including computer games.

The Tornado Digital Distribution system, which stores and securely delivers digital content, enabling consumers to download music, games directly onto PCs and various hand-held digital players (including the new generation of Palms), is designed to operate across multiple digital platforms and provide maximum copyright protection together with the flexibility to enable Fredgaard to provide a great, simple consumer experience.

Commenting on the agreement, Jesper Siber, Marketing Manager of Fredgaard said: “To participate in this new opportunity, to distribute and sell music via the Internet, is a natural and logical step. It enables Fredgaard to fulfil its commitment to customers to being the preferred supplier of products and functionalities over a broad spectre of product categories. We welcome this opportunity to show our present and future customers that Fredgaard is going to be among the first to provide the benefits of the emerging new technology.”

“The support of this leading Scandinavian brand further strengthens Tornado’s position in this field in the European market and represents an immediate route to revenue for us and our content partners” added Neil Ferris, Tornado’s Commercial Director. “This is a fantastic agreement to follow on from our other recent retail deals with VShops and Virgin Megastores plus last week’s major announcement regarding the first “Artists only Subscription Service” for BMG Entertainment’s major recording artist, Westlife. This new partnership is further evidence that the future of delivering entertainment products is digital.

“Tornado’s mission is to continue spearheading this revolution in the distribution of digital media so that content owners and retailers can develop new revenue streams and meet the increasing consumer demand for digital downloading.”