Bentley Acquires Haestad Methods.

EXTON, Pa. -- Bentley Systems, Incorporated, a global provider of software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure, today announced that it has acquired Haestad Methods, Inc., an international provider of water resources solutions.

Haestad solutions provide for design, analysis, and management of water distribution supply, municipal sanitary sewers, urban stormwater collection, roadway and civil site drainage, and flood control. These products are the leading choice of municipalities, transportation agencies, consulting engineers, and contracting firms. Bentley anticipates expanded international adoption of the Haestad Methods product line as a result of Bentley's extensive global operations.

"From its founding by John Haestad 25 years ago, Haestad Methods has been an amazing success story," said Bentley CEO Greg Bentley. "As most experts and practitioners in hydrology and related fields know, Haestad Methods has literally written the book for applying information technology in water systems. Along the way, its profitable growth to more than 100 colleagues and over $16 million in annual revenues has been consistent and entirely self-financed."

"I've met the Bentley team and studied their technology portfolio. The opportunities here are astounding," said John Haestad, president and CEO of Haestad Methods. "The Bentley vision and direction are irresistibly compelling, and will forever elevate the way that civil engineers produce and collaborate. This is an ideal match of culture and technology."

As water quality has become a critical issue worldwide, water-quality engineering is now a significant growth area in AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction). According to infrastructure industry management consultant Alan Farkas of Farkas Berkowitz & Company, the growth rate of water-quality engineering has increased just over 10 percent per year on a compounded basis for the last six years. "Water-quality engineering has been and should continue to be the most attractive engineering market segment in the U.S.," noted Alan Farkas. "With this acquisition, Bentley positions itself with a broad-based software offering to water-quality engineers."

In serving this market, Bentley and the Haestad team will continue to upgrade and extend Haestad's products and move to integrate them more directly into the AEC lifecycle spanning design, construction, and operations. These plans include supporting Haestad Methods functionality on Bentley's MicroStation, the standard design platform for 47 of the 50 state departments of transportation; connecting to Bentley ProjectWise, the company's collaboration servers; and remaining steadfastly committed to users' choice of platforms.

Haestad solutions run as standalone applications as well on the AutoCAD and ESRI platforms. Existing Bentley support for these platforms includes MX, from its acquisition of Infrasoft, and AutoPLANT, from Rebis, running on AutoCAD; MicroStation V8 native support of the Autodesk DWG format as well as Bentley's DGN format; and the Bentley Connector for ArcGIS software supporting workflows spanning AEC and GIS environments.

For Bentley, the acquisition of Haestad Methods is a continuation of its consolidation of AEC solutions to streamline the AEC lifecycle of asset owners and their providers. Other recent acquisitions furthering this vision include ISIS, the leading specialist in deploying municipal and other geospatial implementations in Benelux, and AspenTech's AXSYS applications for conceptual design of process plants.

John Haestad has been appointed senior vice president of Bentley Software. "We heartily welcome John and his entrepreneurial team, which will become integral parts of our product and operations groups," said Greg Bentley. The Haestad Methods responsibilities within Bentley will very soon be expanded at a new 54,000-square-foot headquarters facility in Watertown, Connecticut.

Henniker River Group, LLC, a business development firm, acted as consultants to Haestad Methods and helped facilitate the transaction with Bentley.

Bentley and Haestad will be holding online briefings for users, executives, and the press that will further detail this acquisition and related plans as well as answer questions. To register for a briefing, please send an E-mail to [e-mail].

About Haestad Methods

Haestad Methods has been in the business of enabling engineers with technology for 25 years and is internationally recognized as the world's leading water resources software company. The company provides hydrologic and hydraulic modeling software, services, continuing education workshops, and publications to hundreds of thousands of engineering professionals.

Haestad Methods' complete suite of engineering software products for water, wastewater, and storm water management includes CivilStorm Dynamic, WaterGEMS, WaterCAD, PumpMaster, HAMMER, GISConnect, Darwin, WaterSAFE, SewerCAD, StormCAD, PondPack, FlowMaster, CulvertMaster, and HEC-Pack.

About Bentley

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, provides software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure. The company's comprehensive portfolio for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial vertical markets spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With 2003 revenues reaching $260 million, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Design 500 and major owner-operators.

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Bentley, the "B" logo, AXSYS, Connector, MicroStation, and ProjectWise are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or Bentley Software, Inc. AutoPLANT is a registered trademark of Rebis. Rebis is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bentley Systems, Incorporated. CivilStorm Dynamic, WaterGEMS, WaterCAD, PumpMaster, HAMMER, GISConnect, Darwin, WaterSAFE, SewerCAD, StormCAD, PondPack, FlowMaster, CulvertMaster and HEC-Pack are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Haestad Methods, Inc. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.