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Woodland
Hills, Calif., January 10, 2000 – Vertel® (NASDAQ: VRTL), a leading global provider of carrier-grade network management solutions, today announced that Sierra Ventures, a private venture capital firm, disclosed that its Sierra Ventures V Limited Partnership distributed its 4.5 million share holding in Vertel common stock to its various partners.
The distribution, made on Dec. 16, 1999, was made on a pro-rata basis to both limited and general partners pursuant to the terms of the partnership agreement. Sierra Ventures V, established in 1995, became a Vertel shareholder in January 1996 and was a co-investor in Vertel's most recent private placement in September 1998. A Form 4 describing this distribution was filed by Sierra Ventures with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Jan. 10, 2000.
"We are extremely pleased with the turnaround that Bruce Brown has orchestrated at Vertel," said Jeff Drazan, general partner of Sierra Ventures. "Our investment premise four years ago has proved out with the old hardware business of Retix spun out into the flourishing Sonoma Systems, the successful sale of the wireless business, and the recent acquisition and turnaround of Vertel."
"Sierra has been instrumental in our success, and I have asked Jeff if he would continue to serve out his term on the Vertel board," said Bruce Brown, president and chief executive officer of Vertel. "I am pleased to report that he has agreed. As disclosed in his SEC filings, Jeff has substantial personal stock holdings in Vertel, and we look forward to his continued counsel as a director."
"During the fourth quarter we distributed our position in Vertel to our institutional and individual investors culminating the involvement of the Sierra Ventures V Limited Partnership investment in Vertel," said Drazan. "The distribution made by Sierra Ventures was not predicated on any single event or automatic trigger, but was part of the normal evolution of regular distributions of the firm's various investments to its partners.
"We believe that Vertel's next generation telecommunications products position the company well for long-term growth. As such, we have indicated to the company that through one of our more recent funds, Sierra Ventures VII, we would be interested in, again, considering an investment in Vertel as a growth opportunity should such an opportunity arise," concluded Drazan.
About Vertel Corp.
Vertel is a leading global provider of carrier-grade, broadband Internet software infrastructure and management solutions. Vertel offers a wide range of technologies and applications, supporting end-to-end network and service management with the highest quality of service for network operations.
Vertel's solutions are deployed worldwide by service providers, network operators, software vendors and systems integrators. Vertel also delivers turnkey management applications that fit individual customer requirements through its Professional Services Unit. The company is based in Woodland Hills, and has sales offices throughout the world.
Contact Vertel on the World Wide Web at
http://www.vertel.com.
About Sierra Ventures
Sierra Ventures is a $650 million private venture capital firm which focuses its investments on early stage information technology companies. As active lead investors, Sierra works with entrepreneurs and management teams to originate and build new companies into large and profitable businesses.
In addition to its work with Vertel, Sierra Ventures has been the largest or one of the initial venture capital investors in such industry leading companies as Fatbrain.com (Nasdaq:FATB), Healtheon (Nasdaq:HLTH), Intuit (Nasdaq:INTU), MicroMuse(Nasdaq:MUSE), Quinta (purchased by Seagate), Saleslogix (Nasdaq:SLGX) and StrataCom (Nasdaq:STRM; purchased by Cisco). Sierra Ventures is located in Menlo Park, Calif. and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sierraventures.com.
"Safe Harbor" Statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Except for the historical information presented, the matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements. These statements should be evaluated together with the many risks and uncertainties that affect its business, including timely and successful development of products and technologies; successful introduction and customer acceptance of new and enhanced products and technologies in existing and new markets; the possibility that delays or difficulties will arise in implementing complex products and technologies and enabling them to work successfully with other complex products and technologies; the possible development and introduction of competitive products and new and alternative technologies; pricing, currency and exchange risks; governmental and regulatory developments affecting Vertel and its customers; the ability to identify, conclude and integrate acquisitions on a timely basis; the ability to retain and attract key personnel; and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in public disclosure filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by Vertel, including, but not limited to, the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 1998 and the quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 1999.
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