Authoria, Inc., the leader in comprehensive talent management solutions, today announced that the company has agreed to be acquired by Bedford Funding – a private-equity firm with $800 million in available capital, based in White Plains, New York – for $63.1 million.  In addition to the purchase price, Bedford Funding will make an additional $8-million investment in working capital to enhance Authoria’s overall corporate growth.  Founder Tod Loofbourrow will continue to lead Authoria as its CEO, as the company accelerates the expansion of its operations and market presence.

“Authoria is a platform for building the first billion-dollar company in talent management,” said Loofbourrow. “Our partnership with Bedford brings us an investor well matched to the size of the market opportunity before us, and enables us to accelerate our next phase of growth. We continue to be chosen by the world’s leading organizations – including Aetna, Citrix Systems, Exelon, Intuit, Popular, Inc., Sun Life, and many others – to fuel their drive to attract, retain, and grow top talent and to build efficient, optimized, performance-driven organizations. This partnership with Bedford Funding will provide us with a debt-free capital structure and injection of growth capital to expand our operations, drive new sales growth, and extend our leading solutions in all aspects of talent management. I look forward to leading our experienced team as we broaden our global presence.”

“Bedford Funding chose Authoria for the company’s impressive enterprise customer base, the breadth and depth of its new Authoria Talent Management solution, demonstrated leadership in meeting the needs of the world’s largest employers, and the stellar management team,” said Charles S. Jones, Managing Partner of Bedford Funding. “We see the talent-management market as one of the largest emerging markets in software-as-a-service.  We look forward to working with Tod and his team to optimize and expand the company’s market opportunity.”

Bersin & Associates recently cited the market for Talent Management Suites to be $2.3 billion in 2008 with a 20-percent annual growth rate, yet noted that the market opportunity largely remains untapped.  Authoria recently announced 93-percent year-on-year bookings growth in the second quarter of 2008.

"The critical talent challenges facing all industries - including leadership development, talent shortages, difficulty in filling key roles, and creating a performance-driven culture - are fueling the growth of integrated talent management solutions.  We see this market as the next big software opportunity," said Josh Bersin, president of Bersin & Associates, a research and advisory firm. "Authoria has maintained a leadership position in this highly competitive market. The company's recent investment news has the potential to make Authoria an even stronger force.  The timing is also right as large organizations are eager to leverage technology to integrate all facets of talent management and look to industry leaders, such as Authoria, to provide those solutions."

About Authoria
Authoria® helps the world’s most competitive employers achieve superior business results, by optimizing the way they recruit, develop, compensate, retain, and engage top talent. Designed for business managers as well as HR professionals, the company’s comprehensive talent management solutions enable more effective recruiting, performance management, compensation management, and succession planning across an organization. Authoria serves more than 300 large organizations and 4 million managers and employees with our on-demand Internet-based solutions. Customer companies include Aetna, Alcon, and Boeing.

About Bedford Funding
Bedford Funding is a private equity firm specializing in investment opportunities in the consolidating and fragmented technology sector with an initial focus on the software and IT services sectors. The firm offers extensive strategic operating and financial management expertise and advice with the intention of providing exceptional performance and financial returns for its portfolio companies and its investors. Bedford Funding serves the IT and investment communities worldwide from its headquarters located in White Plains, NY.  For more information, visit www.bedfordfunding.com.

Authoria, Inc., the leader in comprehensive talent management solutions, today announced that it solidified its position as the provider of choice for large global enterprises during the first half of 2008. Results included a 36-percent increase in bookings from 2H07 to 1H08, and an impressive 93-percent increase from Q207 to Q208.

Authoria also extended its dominance among large enterprise customers, during the first half of this year. Marquee organizations that either selected Authoria as their talent-management provider, or expanded an existing relationship, included:

• Aetna
• Boy Scouts of America
• Citrix Systems
• Integrys
• Intuit
• Planned Parenthood Federation of America
• Popular Inc.

In other notable highlights of the first half of 2008, Authoria:

• Delivered several major new releases of Authoria Talent Management, lauded by Bersin && Associates as "...a monumental event in our emerging talent management systems market."ⁱ Authoria Talent Management is the first solution to give line of business managers and HR professionals single-point access to the strategic talent functions of recruiting, performance management, compensation, employee development, and succession planning.
• Celebrated a highly successful 10th-anniversary Authoria Customer Conference in April, featuring customer presentations from Alcon, Aetna, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), MDS, Inc., Qwest, Regis Corporation, Starbucks, and Wellpoint, among others.
• Was positioned in the Visionaries quadrant of Gartner, Inc.'s "Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software" report.ⁱⁱ
• Expanded a long-standing partnership with Development Dimensions International, Inc. (DDI), to embed DDI's market-leading competencies as a core component of Authoria Talent Management (delivered May 2008).

"The first half of this year marked yet another tremendous period of growth and achievement, further cementing Authoria as the 'vendor of choice' for enterprise talent management," said Tod Loofbourrow, Authoria Chairman and CEO. "Strong growth in our customer base in sectors such as retail, financial services, and healthcare, along with the expansion of our existing customer partnerships, continues to validate Authoria's vision and the value of strategic talent-management initiatives."

About Authoria
Authoria® helps the world’s most competitive employers achieve superior business results, by optimizing the way they recruit, develop, compensate, retain, and engage top talent. Designed for business managers as well as HR professionals, the company’s talent management solutions enable more effective recruiting, performance management, compensation management, and succession planning across an organization. Authoria serves more than 300 large organizations and 4 million managers and employees with our on-demand Internet-based solutions. Customer companies include Aetna, Alcon and Boeing.

ⁱAuthoria's Latest Release: A Major Step Forward for the Talent Management Systems Market, by Leighanne Levensaler, Bersin & Associates, May 13, 2008.

ⁱⁱMagic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software, by James Holincheck, Gartner, Inc., June 10, 2008.

About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted June 10, 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Authoria, Inc., the leader in comprehensive talent management solutions, today announced that Chairman and CEO Tod Loofbourrow will be a keynote speaker at The Conference Board’s upcoming Succession Management Conference. Loofbourrow will provide actionable insights on how employers can use new approaches, including leveraging social-networking techniques, to meet the challenges of succession management and leadership development.

The Conference Board events, to be held in Chicago and New York, will provide attendees with valuable and thought-provoking discussions on how to identify and develop the next generation of leaders; build functional pools of internal and external talent; and make talent decisions that have real impact on business results.

Joining Loofbourrow as speakers at these events will be senior executives from two distinguished Authoria customers – Aetna, one of the nation's leading diversified healthcare benefits companies, and Sun Life Financial, a leading financial-services organization. The details of the events and speakers include:

• Keynote Presentation: "Building Your Future Workforce Today," Tod Loofbourrow; Friday, September 19, 2008, 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. CT, InterContinental Chicago; Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. ET, Westin New York at Times Square.
• "The Right Person in the Right Position at Aetna," Laurel Ennis, Executive Development, Aetna Business Operations; Friday, September 19, 2008, 3:45 – 5 p.m. CT, InterContinental Chicago.
• "Best Practices in Succession Planning: Engage the Line Manager with a Talent Management Solution," Cathryn Klassen, Vice President, Leadership and Talent Development, Sun Life Financial; Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 3:45-5 p.m. ET, Westin New York at Times Square.

About Authoria
Authoria® helps the world’s most competitive employers achieve superior business results, by optimizing the way they recruit, develop, compensate, retain, and engage top talent. Designed for business managers as well as HR professionals, the company’s talent management solutions enable more effective recruiting, performance management, compensation management, and succession planning across an organization. Authoria serves more than 300 large organizations and 4 million managers and employees with our on-demand Internet-based solutions. Customer companies include Aetna, Alcon and Boeing.

Authoria, Inc., the leader in comprehensive talent management solutions, today announced a complimentary webcast that will clarify the role of competencies and performance management in achieving business goals and objectives.

HCA, the nation's leading provider of healthcare services, has integrated market-leading competency libraries from Development Dimensions International (DDI) with the performance-management capabilities of Authoria Talent Management. Executives from all three companies will discuss how this combination has enabled HCA to more effectively hire, develop, and retain top talent – and contribute to corporate goals of improved patient care, profitability, and growth.

Webcast attendees will learn:

• How to integrate leadership and functional competencies into their performance-management process
• Best practices for changing their organization from one that conducts performance appraisals, to one that implements a performance-management culture
• How competencies and talent management can help their organization achieve its specific goals

WHO:
John Gering, Central Group Director, Organizational Effectiveness, HCA, Inc.;
Bruce Marks, Director of Global Strategic Partnerships, DDI;
Nina McIntyre, Senior Vice President of Strategic Talent Management Marketing, Authoria, Inc.

WHAT:
Webcast: "Don't Just Appraise Performance: Develop It! Lessons Learned from HCA's Integration of Leadership and Functional Competencies"

WHEN: Wednesday, September 17, 2008, from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT

WHERE: Please visit www.authoria.com/competency to register for this free online event.

This event is the third in the Authoria 2008 Talent Management Webcast Series, which will examine best practices and trends in strategic talent management throughout the year. All attendees will receive a white paper titled Make Talent Count: Talent Management for Progressive HR Executives.

Earlier this year, Authoria announced an expanded partnership with DDI. The collaboration includes embedding DDI's competency libraries within the comprehensive Authoria Talent Management solution, as a core component of the base offering.

About Authoria
Authoria® helps the world’s most competitive employers achieve superior business results, by optimizing the way they recruit, develop, compensate, retain, and engage top talent. Designed for business managers as well as HR professionals, the company’s talent management solutions enable more effective recruiting, performance management, compensation management, and succession planning across an organization. Authoria serves more than 300 large organizations and 4 million managers and employees with our on-demand Internet-based solutions. Customer companies include Aetna, Alcon and Boeing.

Authoria, Inc., the leader in integrated talent management solutions, today announced that it has achieved substantial customer momentum in the retail sector. Ahold USA, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Genuine Parts, Phillips-Van Heusen, Starbucks, and Toys R Us are some of the marquee retail organizations that have leveraged Authoria Talent Management to reduce employee turnover, sell higher-margin products and services, increase profitability, and improve customer satisfaction.

While many industries face a shortage of qualified candidates for critical positions, retailers are especially hard-pressed. Industry-specific challenges include high annual employee turnover, the need to create a compelling talent brand for job-seekers, and the difficulty of aligning managers and employees in highly distributed store operations. "Despite the threat of an economic slowdown, the demand for people with exceptional abilities and skills applicable inside a [retail] organization will exceed the supply for years to come," says Knowledge Infusion, a recognized consulting authority on HR and talent management, in a just-published report.

To fill these significant gaps in workers and skill sets, executives and HR professionals in the retail industry must implement strategic talent-management initiatives that attract, identify, develop, reward, and retain the next generation of business leaders. A key requirement of such initiatives, according to Knowledge Infusion, is that they unify talent-management functions that have traditionally been treated as silos, including talent acquisition, performance management, compensation, employee development, and succession planning.

"At Family Dollar, talent management is a key component of our strategy as we move to develop, reward, and retain our high-performing team members," said David Strauss, HRIS Manager for Family Dollar. "Implementing a comprehensive talent management solution for performance, compensation, and succession reinforces our commitment to this strategy and helps drive a culture focused on talent and performance."

"Retailers have a strong appetite for tools that can help replenish the supply of qualified workers, mobilize them, and align them effectively with business goals," said Tod Loofbourrow, Authoria Chairman and CEO. "Retail managers, HR professionals, and employees all require comprehensive, 'iPod-simple' solutions in order to make the connection between individual and team performance and organizational results. Today, more than 800,000 retail managers and employees leverage Authoria's industry-leading usability, helping companies such as Family Dollar ensure that they continue to grow and deliver excellent financial results."

Authoria Talent Management is the first solution to provide HR professionals and business managers with single-point access to all strategic talent functions – including recruiting, performance management, compensation, succession planning, and employee development. Leveraging a centralized "core," shared data, and a single user interface, Authoria Talent Management enables HR professionals and business managers to maximize the effectiveness of their workforce in achieving business goals.

The Knowledge Infusion white paper Do or Die: The Talent Management Imperative in Retail is available free, for a limited time, at www.authoria.com/retail.

About Authoria
Authoria® helps the world’s most competitive employers achieve superior business results, by optimizing the way they recruit, develop, compensate, retain, and engage top talent. Designed for business managers as well as HR professionals, the company’s talent management solutions enable more effective recruiting, performance management, compensation management, and succession planning across an organization. Authoria serves more than 300 large organizations and 4 million managers and employees with our on-demand Internet-based solutions. Customer companies include Aetna, Alcon and Boeing.