Agfa Monotype is Acquired by TA Associates; Changes Name to Monotype Imaging.

BOSTON & WILMINGTON, Mass. -- Agfa Monotype Corp., a worldwide provider of fonts and imaging technologies, and TA Associates, a leading private equity and buyout firm, today announced that TA Associates has purchased a majority interest in Agfa Monotype from Agfa Corp., the U.S. subsidiary of the Belgium-based Agfa-Gevaert Group. Employees of Agfa Monotype hold the remaining interest in the privately held company, which has been renamed Monotype Imaging Inc.

"The sale represents the unfolding of a plan our management team started four years ago," said Robert M. Givens, who remains as president and chief executive officer of the company. "Although we've been successful as an Agfa subsidiary, we realized that as a software company focused on consumer electronics, office printers and the end-user font market, our core competencies differed from those of Agfa, which has a rich history of providing prepress solutions to the graphic arts industry. Agfa has been supportive in our efforts to separate, which led us to TA Associates, a Boston-based global company ideally suited to partner with us to expand our business and provide capital for new opportunities. TA Associates understands and supports our technologies, as well as our culture of close partnerships with our customers. Our senior management team and staff will remain the same."

"Monotype Imaging is a great example of the high-quality intellectual property businesses in which TA invests," said Bruce Johnston, a managing director of TA Associates. "The company is run by a strong management team that has the expertise and vision to guide and grow the organization. Monotype Imaging has an outstanding record for developing long-lasting partnerships with important customers. We look forward to partnering with the company and adding momentum to advance font development and technologies for customers."

The name, Monotype Imaging, reflects both the heritage of the company's century-old Monotype typeface brand and the imaging technologies used today in consumer and office devices. The company was established as Agfa Monotype Corp. in 2000 as a subsidiary of Agfa when its Typographic Systems Division merged with Monotype Typography, a typeface foundry that began in 1887 as the Lanston Monotype Machine Company. Also in 2000, Agfa Monotype acquired International Typeface Corporation, a typeface design and marketing firm serving graphic professionals for more than 30 years. In 2003, Agfa Monotype acquired Faces Ltd., a typeface distributor in the U.K., and Granite Systems Inc., a print driver software development company.

Monotype Imaging's main products for printer devices include UFST(R) (Universal Font Scaling Technology), MicroType(R) compression technology, Granite(TM) print drivers, color management and screening solutions customized for the desktop markets, and trademarked fonts to comply with Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Adobe font standards. Products for display-based devices include the iType(R) font engine, multilingual typefaces engineered for optimal readability, and the WorldType(TM) Layout Engine, a software library for composing, positioning and rendering multilingual text. Fonts are available for consumers from Monotype Imaging's www.fonts.com, ITC's www.itcfonts.com and Faces' www.faces.co.uk Internet storefronts. Monotype Imaging also specializes in designing custom typefaces to suit corporate brand identity projects.

Senior vice presidents Doug Shaw and John Seguin of Monotype Imaging have been named to its board of directors along with Givens and Johnston. Jonathan Meeks, a principal at TA Associates, has also joined the board. Dave McCarthy remains as vice president and general manager of Printer Imaging, and Al Ristow continues as vice president of engineering. The senior management team of Monotype Imaging also includes Jeff Burk, vice president of finance, Geoff Greve, vice president of type development, John McCallum, managing director of Monotype Imaging Ltd., David DeWitt, general manager of the U.S. consumer division, and Pattie Money, director of human resources.

About TA Associates

Founded in 1968, TA Associates is one of the largest and most experienced private equity and buyout firms. With offices in Boston, Menlo Park, Pittsburgh and London, the firm manages over $5 billion in capital and has invested in 340 companies. TA Associates provides growth equity capital, leveraged recapitalization and management buyout financing primarily for technology, financial and business services, healthcare and consumer businesses. More information about TA Associates can be found at www.ta.com.

About Monotype Imaging

Based in Wilmington, Mass. with regional offices in the U.K., Chicago, Redwood City, Calif., Japan and China, Monotype Imaging provides fonts and font technologies to graphic professionals, software developers and manufacturers of printers and display devices. Formerly Agfa Monotype Corp., the company also provides print drivers and color imaging technologies to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). Monotype Imaging is home to the Monotype(R) typeface library, a collection that includes widely used designs such as the Arial(R), Times New Roman(R) and Gill Sans(R) typeface families. Monotype Imaging offers fonts and industry-standard solutions for most of the world's written languages. Information about Monotype Imaging and its products can be found on the company's Web sites at www.monotypeimaging.com, www.fonts.com, www.monotypefonts.com, www.customfonts.com, www.fontwise.com, www.itcfonts.com and www.faces.co.uk.

The Monotype Imaging logo is a trademark of Monotype Imaging Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. (C) 2004 Monotype Imaging Inc. All rights reserved.