21 February 1997. Reed Elsevier plc has today announced the sale of Folio Corporation, its US based developer of information publishing software, to Open Market Inc., a leading provider of Internet commerce software. The purchase consideration will be $45 million to be paid partly in cash and partly in stock of Open Market Inc., which is quoted on NASDAQ. Folio was acquired by Reed Elsevier in December 1994 as part of the LEXIS-NEXIS purchase.

Nigel Stapleton, Chairman of Reed Elsevier plc, noted "As one of the world's leading publishing and information companies, Reed Elsevier has an acute interest in the success of commercial Internet publishing. We believe that Folio and Open Market create the perfect combination of vision and technology that will yield a powerful whole product publishing solution. Reed Elsevier looks forward to continuing and extending the technical partnership with Open Market's Folio Division on the supply of information retrieval software."