Ibas joins forces with BELFOR International, the world leader in disaster recovery services

The distribution agreement will combine BELFOR International's expertise in disaster recovery and Ibas leading data recovery services, and is a strategic and important move towards customer that suffers from fire and water damages.
 
BELFOR International specialises in the recovery of buildings, production facilities, industrial sites, ships and offshore units after fire, water, smoke or storm damage.

Electronically-stored information is critical for any business, and loss of data can often be more disastrous for customers than a fire itself Recent research from Department of Trade and Industry in UK showed  that 87 % of UK enterprises are dependent on data. Less than 20 % back up such information or store it outside their own premises. These proportions are likely to be similar worldwide.

"It's important for us to be able to help customers with the full range of disaster-recovery services to get them back in business in the shortest possible time," explains Andre Bluemel , Managing Director for sales and marketing at BELFOR International.  We're increasingly seeing that customers lose large amounts of critical data from fire and water damage, and we think this market will expand quickly. In our view, Ibas is the leading international player able to complement the service range we offer to our customers in this area."

"Many businesses are unaware of available data recovery services, so it's important for us to seek new market channels such as the one BELFOR International is opening for us," commented Bjørn Arne Skogstad, President and CEO for Ibas AS.

Skogstad describes the deal as the most important distributor agreement concluded by the company so far, and he states "By having the world leader BELFOR International offering our data recovery service to their customers on site and when the customer needs it, we expect to see an increase in this particular field were we have done great work in complicated matters before."

Ibas is a world leader in the field of data recovery and erasure services. Computer forensics, which is a fast-growing market, is another important business area for the company. Ibas has a total of 82 employees, working at the main offices in Kongsvinger, Norway and in subsidiaries in eight countries - Sweden, Denmark, Finland, England, Germany, Poland, France and Singapore. The company also has distributors and agents in a number of other countries in Europe, Asia and America. Ibas (Ticker:IBAS) is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

Since its inception in 1989, Belfor has grown to be the world leader in restoration services. With offices in 25 countries and 150 offices and 3000 employees, BELFOR is uniquely positioned to marshal a recovery operation anywhere in the world. It belongs to the international Haniel group with 56 000 employees and EUR 23 billion in annual revenues.