Kortrijk, January 7, 2002. BARCO n.v., the parent company of Barco Graphics, and Kirkbi A/S, the parent company of the Danish firm Purup-Eskofot, are announcing the signing of the contract for the merger of the two subsidiary companies. For Barco Graphics, this involves the business units Packaging Systems and Commercial Printing, which will be incorporated into the newly merged company when the deal is closed. BARCO n.v. will own 49% of the shares in the new company. In the mean time, the other two Barco Graphics business units have already found definitive accommodation in new entities. The agreement for the establishment of the Joint Venture Mania-Barco GmbH between BARCO n.v. and Mania Technologie AG was closed late December 2001. The ETS business unit of Barco Graphics is included in this Joint Venture, in which BARCO n.v. holds a 33% interest. Mania-Barco GmbH is one of the major suppliers in the worldwide capital goods market for the production of printed circuit boards. Additionally, in December the Industrial Printing business unit was incorporated into a separate company, dotrix n.v. BARCO is now concentrating entirely on its three core activities within Image Processing: BarcoProjection, BarcoView and BarcoVision.