ActiveState Acquired by Employees and Pender Financial Group; Company Renews Focus on Tools and Solutions for Dynamic Languages.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- ActiveState, the leading provider of tools and services for dynamic languages, announced yesterday that it has been acquired by ActiveState Software Inc., a new company jointly owned by the employees of ActiveState and Pender Financial Group Corporation, an investment company focused on technology and healthcare. All of ActiveState's business, assets, and liabilities were acquired from Sophos, Inc., a subsidiary of Sophos Plc., for the purchase price of US$2,250,000.

As an independent entity, ActiveState will continue to develop and support its award-winning programming tools, language distributions, and enterprise support services for dynamic languages, with major releases of all tools scheduled to ship later this year.

ActiveState will be led by Bart Copeland as President and CEO, and Dr. David Ascher as CTO and VP, Engineering.

Copeland brings 20 years of leadership, management, finance, and business experience to his role. Most recently, he was Interim CEO of iMessaging Systems, Inc., a New Hampshire-based interactive voice response software company, President & CEO of Recombo, Inc., a content integration technology company, and President and CEO of PhotoChannel Networks Inc., an online image and printing/picture messaging services for retailers and wireless carriers.

"I'm excited to be joining ActiveState at this stage in the company's evolution," said Copeland. "They are an established leader who have achieved many successes to date, and are well-positioned to be a major force in the industry. I look forward to leading the company to further success."

As CTO and VP, Engineering, Ascher will focus on product and technology strategies. He has spent the past six years providing business and technical leadership for ActiveState, most recently in the position of Chief Technologist, and has over 17 years of experience as a developer, consultant, and advocate of open source software.

"This investment allows ActiveState to once again be independent," said Ascher. "This is great news for us, and, more importantly, for our customers, who will benefit not only from our renewed focus on current product lines, but also from the wealth of expertise and resources that Bart and our new investors will contribute toward future growth."

In addition, Kelly Edmison, President and CEO of Pender Financial Group, will become Chairman of ActiveState's Board, and David Roberts, President of PenderFund Capital Management Ltd., will join Edmison and Copeland as a Director.

About Pender Financial Group Corporation

Pender Financial Group Corporation (TSX VENTURE:PDF) is a publicly traded investment company that owns or manages approximately $35 million of assets focused on technology, life sciences and healthcare companies based in British Columbia. Pender's strategy is to build long-term value by investing its capital into a relatively few undervalued companies and to actively participate in their development so as to enhance their value and the liquidity of Pender's investments. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, PenderFund Capital Management Ltd., Pender is the manager of Pender Growth Fund (VCC) Inc. and Pender NDI Life Sciences Fund (VCC) Inc.

About ActiveState

ActiveState is the leading provider of tools and services for dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl. Over two million developers rely on ActiveState's cross-platform professional development tools, high-quality language distributions, and enterprise services.

(C) 2006 ActiveState

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