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GFI Energy Ventures to acquire SPL WorldGroup and merge SPL,
Synergen, and Mobility

Under the SPL brand, the combined company will offer a
utility-specific application solution set that includes customer care & billing,
asset management, mobile workforce management, outage management, and
distribution management.

San Francisco, California, October 19, 2004 - SPL today announced a
tender offer from GFI Energy Ventures for all of its outstanding shares.
Upon completion of the acquisition, GFI will incorporate another of its
investments, Synergen, Inc., into SPL. The series of transactions
should conclude before the end of the year, pending regulatory and other
approvals. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"Earlier this year, when we announced the acquisition of CES's outage
and distribution management solutions, we made public our intention to
become a focused provider of a broad suite of utility-specific
applications," said SPL CEO Harry Debes. "We believe we have found the ideal
partner in GFI Energy Ventures to help make that vision a reality. GFI
brings substantial capital resources, industry knowledge and
relationships, and directly relevant experience."

GFI is also the majority shareholder of Synergen, the award-winning
provider of asset management systems (the Synergen Series(tm)) and
mobile workforce management solutions (Mobility) to the utility and other
asset-intensive industries. GFI will be merging Synergen into SPL
concurrent with the closing of the tender offer.

"Synergen's asset and mobile workforce management offerings will be a valuable, highly complementary addition to SPL's existing offerings. Integrating these applications
with SPL's customer care and billing, outage, and distribution management
systems will make the new SPL the one company that can provide the
integrated end-to-end solution utilities have long sought." Debes said.
"This new SPL utility application solution set-to be enhanced with
additional, future acquisitions and internal development-will deliver a
flexible set of integrated applications that will stand head and shoulders
above the fragmented vendor offerings in today's utility marketplace. The
benefit for our customers will be improved service and lower cost."

Richard MacDonald, who founded Synergen in 1986 and will continue to
lead the Synergen Series product within SPL, expressed strong
satisfaction with the agreement. "I have never been more proud of Synergen and
its employees than I am today," he said. "For almost two decades, we've
delivered on our commitment to provide our customers with the highest
quality products-products that help capital-intensive companies meet and
exceed their goals. Our exceptional growth, especially in the past few
years, results from that commitment. Now, we are seeing that commitment
carried forward into an expanded future."

The combined company, which will go to market under the SPL brand,
will offer each major application both as a stand-alone product and as a
product pre-integrated with one or more additional offerings.

In describing the effect of the SPL announcement on the marketplace,
Debes commented, "Today's utilities face major problems in attempts to
keep pace with changes in customer demands, security, asset
optimization, regulatory environment, and market requirements. There is simply no
way utilities can respond to these changes with a set of applications
that were not designed to work together. SPL's expanded menu of
pre-integrated offerings," he said, "will solve a major problem utilities
face."

"In the current industry environment, operational efficiency and
regulatory compliance are top priorities for utilities. In order to drive
costs out of the business, utilities need to integrate and optimize
complex business processes such as revenue, customer, commodity and asset
management," said Rick Nicholson, vice president and director at META
Group, a leading provider of IT research, advisory services and strategic
consulting. "Vendors offering a suite of applications including
customer information systems, outage management systems, mobile workforce
management systems, and work and asset management systems will be in a
position to meet the needs of the market."

Kristian Steenstrup at Gartner pointed out, "The buyers of software
realize that there is a need for the fusion of business processes, that
is, a continuous flow across activities in a company. With the
integration of support and fulfillment functions in utilities, companies will
seek solutions that are integrated across processes, but with each step
as functionally complete as those provided by best-of-breed vendors."


About SPL
SPL (www.splwg.com) delivers the proven software applications that
help utilities around the world achieve competitive advantage and
excellence in business performance. SPL solutions in customer care and
billing, outage management, and distribution management are specifically
designed for energy, water, and service companies, providing a platform
from which they serve residential, commercial, and industrial customers in
regulated and competitive markets, across multiple products and
jurisdictions. Working with systems-integration and technology partners around
the world, SPL has an unparalleled record of implementation success.
Financially strong, and with customers on six continents, SPL focuses on
clients' return on investment and fosters long-term relationships based
on confidence and trust.

Visit SPL at www.splwg.com or call +1-866-468-6775 (San Francisco), +44-207-851-6840 (London), or +61-2-8258-8200 (Sydney). Within the US and Canada, call +1-800-275-4775.

About Synergen
Synergen, Inc. (www.synergen.com) develops enterprise operational
software and mobile workforce management solutions designed to optimize
capital and human resources for asset-intensive industries. The
award-winning Synergen Series(tm), is a Web-architected software solution that
address all aspects of collaborative work management; asset reliability
and maintenance; resource optimization and scheduling; safety and
regulatory compliance; inventory control, purchasing, and contract
management; operational accounting; reporting and analytics; capital project
tracking; and document control. Synergen's Mobility workforce management
solution offers state-of-the-market mobile workforce dispatch and
scheduling, automatic vehicle location (AVL) and customer information
systems.

Established in 1986, Synergen has major installations in the
utilities, public sector, manufacturing, transportation and facilities markets.
Supported by the latest in Internet technology, users need only a
standard Web browser to rapidly install, deploy and access Synergen
solutions across the enterprise.

About GFI
GFI Energy Ventures LCC (www.gfienergy.com
<http://www.synergen.com/www.gfienergy.com ) is a significant equity
investor in established, industry-leading companies in the energy
industry. Since 1995, GFI has originated more than forty investments in
successful companies that provide systems, software, equipment and services
primarily to the utility industry and related sectors. GFI oversees a
portfolio of companies with a market value in excess of $2 billion and is
the co-general partner with Oaktree Capital Management, LLC of the $454
million OCM/GFI Power Opportunities Fund, L.P.


* 2004 SPL WorldGroup, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SPL is a trademark
owned by SPL WorldGroup B.V. or its subsidiaries. SPL is registered as a
trademark in the United States and in certain other jurisdictions. The
Synergen Series is a trademark and Synergen is a registered trademark
of Synergen, Inc. All other trademarks and brand, product and company
names herein are used for identification purposes only and are the
property of their respective owners.