Outstanding European achievements in business honored in Brussels

• Winners of the pan-European "Best of European Business" competition will be honored in Brussels on February 21, 2008
• Prizes are to be awarded in two categories: "Growth" and "Cross-border M&A". A special "Green Business" award will be presented to the company who has excelled at integrating "green" technology into its activities
• The awards ceremony will take place as part of the European Business Summit
• Nominees include insurance giant AXA, global chemicals leader BASF and one of the world's largest energy providers, Grupo EDP
• CNN is the international media partner for the BEB awards in Brussels

European companies with outstanding performance in growth and cross-border mergers and acquisitions will receive a "Best of European Business" (BEB) award in Brussels on February 21, 2008. The awards ceremony is the capstone of the overall BEB initiative, held across Europe's strongest economies in 2007/2008. Winners will receive their prizes as part of the two-day European Business Summit (EBS), the premier conference for business and politics in the European capital. International news broadcaster CNN is the official BEB media partner of the competition.

Launched by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in 2005, the Best of European Business initiative examines business performance by European companies in different categories each year.

Over nine months, Roland Berger's team of experts rated more than 6,000 companies across Europe's largest economies based on publicly available data and specialized indices. An independent, international jury of business leaders, journalists and academics selected the winners from each country. National awards presentations were held in late 2007 and the first few months of 2008.

All winners of previous national competitions are nominated for the pan-European prizes in Brussels. Two awards will be presented in each of the two categories: "Growth" and "Cross-border M&A".
To determine the winner in the "Growth" category, the jury studied companies' business performance and examined their business strategy, in the context of their overall revenue figures.

The evaluation of company performance in the "Cross-border M&A" category was based on an assessment of actual value created through the merger or buy-up, as measured by the abnormal stock return. This is the difference between how a stock actually developed following the announcement of a deal and the development it would have presumably made without the merger.
In addition to prizes in these two categories, one company will receive a special award for exceptional commitment to integrating environmental technologies into their business and developing new opportunities through the use of "green" energy.

The Brussels awards ceremony is part of the two-day European Business Summit (EBS), which brings together more than 2,500 leaders from politics and business to debate the future of Europe's "green" economy. Roland Berger Strategy Consultants is serving as strategic partner to the EBS for the second time since 2008. Participants include ENEL CEO Fulvio Conti, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, and business analyst Jeremy Rifkin.

For further information about the "Best of European Business" initiative, please see: www.best-of-european-business.com  

Additional information on the European Business Summit can be found at: www.ebsummit.org