DBT ONLINE ACQUIRED BY CHOICEPOINT FOR $444 MILLION.

ChoicePoint Inc. (Alpharetta, GA), a provider of public record information for private and government clients, has acquired DBT Online (Boca Raton, FL) in a stock transaction valued at $444 million. DBT shareholders will receive 0.525 shares of ChoicePoint for every share of DBT.

DBT Online was created through the 1996 merger of Database Technologies and the Patlex Corp. In 1997, DBT acquired The Information Connectivity Group (Norcross, GA). DBT's information products are targeted to investigators in the legal, law enforcement, government, corporate and insurance sectors. Its products include "Auto- Track," a database of over 6 billion public records, and "SOS Plus," a combination of information gathering technology and data management tools targeted to the property and casualty investigative community. It is designed to help manage the cost and quality of anti-fraud efforts.

For Fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 1999, DBT showed revenues of $79 million, a 30.1% increase over the $60.7 million reported last year. Net income, however, fell 59.3%, going from $6.9 million in 1998 to $2.8 million last year. The merged company will have a valuation of about $1.6 billion.