MZ and BoardVantage Announce Joint Development of Investor Portal

HRT pioneers offering portal access to its shareholders. Relationship between MZ and BoardVantage also includes an exclusive agreement for selling BoardVantage's NextGen board and investor portals alongside MZ's technology offering for the Greater BRIC region.

News provided by

MZ Group

Dec 22, 2010, 12:00 ET

NEW YORK and MENLO PARK, Calif., Dec. 22, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- MZ Group (www.mz-ir.com), a leading global consulting firm providing integrated investor relations, financial services, technology and integrated communication services, and BoardVantage (www.boardvantage.com), the leading provider of secure board portals, trusted by half of the Fortune 100, today announced the launch of InvestorVantage (App for iPad).

InvestorVantage (www.investorvantage.com) is a unique and rich mobile investor portal conceived and developed to enhance information flow and collaboration among shareholders and the management team of public companies worldwide. This development is a result of a joint effort of the leader in board portal technology (SAS 70 Type II certified platform) and one of the leaders in content generation for listed companies (market intelligence, competitive positioning and value gap analysis). InvestorVantage allows for an upgrade in corporate governance practices and provides compliance with Regulation FD, promoting full and fair disclosure to shareholders.

"We are excited to be the first mover in the arena of investor portals. The InvestorVantage platform combines BoardVantage's next generation board portal with MZ's Online General Meetings infrastructure (www.onlinegeneralmeetings.com). InvestorVantage will enable shareholders to promptly access documentation and vote their proxies directly in the platform, by using digital certificates that provide a secure, fast and easy way to vote online. Shareholders will also receive confirmation on how their vote was cast in the general meeting," said Enzo Villani, President and partner of MZ North America. "Our relationship with BoardVantage contemplates exclusivity for MZ in content generation and updates for InvestorVantage, as well as the ability for bundling next generation board and investor portals into our current technology offering. MZ will offer BoardVantage technology products to clients worldwide, with exclusivity for the Greater BRIC region (Brazil, Russia, India, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan)," continued Villani.

The first version of InvestorVantage was launched today with HRT (www.hrt.com.br), an independent company involved in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, which successfully concluded its IPO on October 21, 2010. HRT shareholders may register on the company's website to receive their log-in/password to access InvestorVantage, which will be available for free download from the iTunes App store. The investor portal requires content customization and continuous updates for each company and shareholders can only benefit from it after an interested company licenses the platform. Future versions are scheduled for release in March 2011 and June 2011.

InvestorVantage is intended to also provide corporate peer information (shareholder base/identification, analyst estimates, news, trading activity, share performance, SWOT analysis and value gaps to benchmarks). BoardVantage's NextGen architecture is the heart of InvestorVantage's collaboration system that allows dispersed teams to communicate and collaborate confidentially.

Commenting on InvestorVantage's development and potential, Joe Ruck, President and CEO of BoardVantage, said: "InvestorVantage provides a way to improve the effectiveness of shareholder communications that is both secure and easy to use. Our relationship with MZ not only brings best-in-class investor domain expertise to our joint solution, but also illustrates the flexibility of our NextGen Platform. We are also excited about the opportunity in Greater BRIC, where I believe the availability of trusted tools such as BoardVantage will accelerate the development of emerging markets. Again, we believe MZ's experience will be key."

Media Contact: for more information, please contact Amanda Munhoz (e-mail [email protected] or phone +1 (212) 813-2975) or Tim Hampson (e-mail [email protected] or phone +1 (650) 614-6021).

About MZ Group: MZ Group (www.mz-ir.com) is a leading global consulting firm providing integrated investor relations, financial services, technology and integrated communication services. Established in 1999, MZ Group focuses on innovation and customized client service with its unique "one-stop-shop" IR model. With offices in New York, Sao Paulo, Hong Kong, Beijing and Taipei, MZ Group currently has 220 professionals serving more than 400 clients in 10 countries. MZ Group's services include: planning and implementing global investor relations programs; structuring companies for IPOs; market intelligence; IR applied technology, corporate communications and two exclusive programs worldwide: IR Global Rankings (www.irglobalrankings.com) and Online General Meetings (www.onlinegeneralmeetings.com).

About BoardVantage: BoardVantage (www.boardvantage.com) is the leading provider of secure board portals. Trusted by half of the Fortune 100, BoardVantage provides a secure and user-friendly Web portal for centralizing board documents, processes and communications. BoardVantage is SAS 70 Type II certified (www.boardvantage.com/security), and meets or exceeds the standards of the most security conscious IT departments, including those of major financial institutions.

SOURCE MZ Group