MEDICAL & SCIENTIFIC INFO PROVIDER & ITALIAN CO. SOLD TO WOLTERS KLUWER.

In related news, Wolters Kluwer division Ovid Technologies (New York) has acquired SilverPlatter Information (Boston, MA), a provider of scientific and medical databases and related software. No terms were given.

SilverPlatter had 2000 annual sales of about $70 million. The company provides search and retreival technology to medical, academic, corporate and educational researchers worldwide with access to more than 250 online reference databases. Its "SilverLinker" product provides more than 2.5 million links to over 6500 journals and 2 million articles. The company has over 11,000 institutional customers, including a "strong market presence" in the academic library market.

Ovid Technologies is a provider of online information to the scientific, technical and medical markets. It has over 5000 institutional customers and provides links between bibliographic and full text resources.

Wolters Kluwer has also acquired OSRA (Milan), a provider of tax compliance and human resource software in Italy. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. OSRA develops tax compliance, general ledger and payroll software to professional tax advisors and corporate enterprises. It has over 15,000 customers.

Also, Kluwer has sold its Financial Training Co. Ltd. (London) operations to that company's management. No terms were given. Financial Training is a part of Kluwer's Professional Training Company and is active in the field of providing training services and training solutions to corporations, nonprofits and professionals in the accountancy, tax and financial markets industries. It has 2000 sales of EUR 47 million and has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.