Hagler Bailly Inc. and Cap Gemini SA and subsidiary Cap GeminiAmerica Inc. formed a joint venture to deliver informationtechnology consulting services and solutions to electric, gas andwater utilities and service providers in the United States andCanada.

The joint venture, known as Cap Gemini Hagler Bailly LLC, willbe owned equally by Hagler Bailly and Cap Gemini America. Thepartners will each invest capital in the venture and transfer keysenior professionals to it. Concurrently with the creation of thejoint venture, Cap Gemini is purchasing 470,975 newly issued sharesof Hagler Bailly common stock. The LLC will build on HaglerBailly’s consulting engagements in the United States and Canada andgo to market with a series of offerings.

Founded in 1967, Cap Gemini ranks in the top five InformationTechnology (IT) services firms in the world, ranks No. 1 in Europein the telecommunication industry and is a leader in the electricand gas industries as well. Cap Gemini reported revenues of $4billion in 1997. It employs 35,000 people in 15 European countries,the United States and the Far East.

“We now can deliver to our clients strategy, businessoperations and information technology consulting and implementationin a fully integrated fashion,” said Henri-Claude Bailly, CEO ofHagler Bailly. “The IT capabilities of Cap Gemini are formidableand range from IT consulting to systems integration, softwaredevelopment and outsourcing. Their experience in the U.K. andSweden, two markets ahead of the transformations now affecting U.S.and Canadian utilities, combined with their IT capabilities in theU.S., will be extremely valuable to our clients.”

Cap Gemini Hagler Bailly will be headquartered in theWashington, DC metropolitan area and is expected to be fullyoperational by September 1998.

High-end IT solutions include: advanced trading and riskmanagement systems, customer care and billing systems, and networkenergy logistics where information becomes a substitute for pipesand wires capacity resulting in margin transfer from the physicaldelivery system to the IT-based Knowledge System.

Founded in 1980 and publicly traded since July 1997, theArlington, VA-based Hagler Bailly offers professional services tocorporate and government clients worldwide with a focus on energyand network industries. Over the past 12 months, Hagler Bailly hascompleted several acquisitions and announced on June 11 that it hadsigned a merger agreement with Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett.

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