LexisNexis Butterworths India Merges with Leading Indian
Legal Publisher, Wadhwa Nagpur

Merger establishes LexisNexis as leader in legal information in India and demonstrates growing commitment to the region

New Delhi – June 4, 2008 – LexisNexis, a leading global provider of business information solutions, today announced the merger of Wadhwa Nagpur, one of India’s providers of legal publishing information, with LexisNexis Butterworths India.  The combined company, headquartered in New Delhi, will be the leader of legal information solutions in India.  The merger reinforces LexisNexis’ commitment to the India market and bolsters the company’s ability to take advantage of additional market growth drivers, including digitization of courts, the rapidly growing legal profession and the increasing demand for information solutions. 

LexisNexis Butterworths India is recognized in India as a premier legal publisher and solutions provider, offering products such as Halsbury’s Laws of India and Mulla series which are widely used and respected in the legal community.  Wadhwa Nagpur offers a number of products in the field of legal, tax and regulatory (LTR) treatises such as: Ramaiya’s Guide to the Companies Act, Tannan Banking Law & Practice in India, Chaturvedi & Pithisaria on Income Tax Law and Ratanlal & Dhirajlal series on The Indian Penal Code. 

"We are very excited to bring together these two strong companies to better serve the rapidly growing demand for legal content in India," said John Atkinson, Managing Director, LexisNexis Butterworths India. "We have been in India for more than a decade and this merger significantly strengthens our content suite, the platform for our future growth in online and print publishing. This merger enables us to provide richer, more comprehensive solutions to the Indian legal industry including integrated content from key markets such as the United Kingdom and Australia.”

LexisNexis Group has been steadily transforming itself into a global information solutions provider that combines integrated business information tools, content, software and services which enable customers to increase productivity and performance. As part of its transformation, LexisNexis Group has made numerous acquisitions in the last several years.  Wadhwa Nagpur marks the most significant addition in India for LexisNexis to date, and further demonstrates the company’s commitment to the Indian market.

“LexisNexis is now extremely well positioned to grow in India,” said Andy Prozes, Chief Executive Officer of LexisNexis Group.  He added, “With the addition of Wadhwa Nagpur, LexisNexis continues on its path to provide the best local and global content and is an important step in our transformation to a global information solutions provider.  This merger makes us the premier provider of legal information in India, one of the largest legal markets in the world measured by number of lawyers, and one of the fastest growing legal markets in the world.”

With an increasing global demand for Indian legal content, this union will offer new opportunities to make Wadhwa Nagpur content available to the worldwide marketplace.  The combination of LexisNexis Butterworths India and Wadhwa Nagpur offerings will address needs across the spectrum of LTR users.  This will serve as the foundation of the LexisNexis Butterworths India online offerings.   

“We are very excited about this deal and believe it will provide significant value for the rapidly developing Indian market,” said the Wadhwa Brothers, of Wadhwa Nagpur. “Combining with LexisNexis enables us to serve the global legal community’s interest in India more effectively.”

About LexisNexis

LexisNexis® (www.lexisnexis.com) is a leading provider of information and services solutions, including its flagship Web-based Lexis® and Nexis® research services, to a wide range of professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. A member of Reed Elsevier [NYSE: ENL; NYSE: RUK] (www.reedelsevier.com), LexisNexis serves customers in 100 countries with 13,000 employees worldwide.

 About LexisNexis Butterworths India

LexisNexis Butterworths India (www.lexisnexis.co.in) began operations in 1997 under the name Butterworths India, a premier publisher of texts in law, taxation and business. Since then, LexisNexis Butterworths has established a reputation for its timely publication of Kanga and Palkhivala’s Law and Practice of Income Tax, the Mulla series of books, including those on Civil Procedure, Hindu Law, Mahomedan Law, Transfer of Property and Contract and Specific Relief and a 45-volume encyclopedic series “Halsbury’s Laws of India,” which covers the whole spectrum of Indian law, modeled on the Halsbury’s Laws of England.

About Wadhwa Nagpur

Wadhwa Nagpur is India’s premier law book publisher and provider of legal information and solutions which are well regarded as a hallmark of accuracy, content quality with currency and absolute dependability. Wadhwa Nagpur provides the foremost legal research material through their repertoire of thoroughly researched treatises which are relied upon by the highest courts in the country and are considered as the last word for complex interpretations by both the Bench and the Bar.  It has a vast network of distributors and resellers throughout India. Wadhwa Nagpur was founded by Late Shri Chetan Das Wadhwa & Late Smt. Ram Pyari Wadhwa, and subsequently was jointly owned by Wadhwa Brothers, O.P.Wadhwa, K.K.Wadhwa, V.K.Wadhwa and S.K.Wadhwa.