ANSR Hackett Grp., Inc.(The) (MM)

Answerthink, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANSR), today announced that employment inducement restricted stock awards covering an aggregate of 676,695 shares had been granted to seven employees that joined the Company in connection with acquisition of REL Consultancy Group Limited ("REL") by its subsidiary, The Hackett Group, Limited, on November 29, 2005. These awards comprised a restricted stock award to the CEO of REL with fifteen years of service to REL, to the President of the Americas of REL with six years of service to REL, to the Head of Analysis for REL with six years of service to REL, to the European Head of Operations of REL with eleven years of service to REL, to the US Head of Operations of REL with sixteen years of service to REL, to the Global Controller of REL with over two years service to REL, and to the Global Resourcing Director and Head of Human Resources of REL with fifteen years of service to REL. Each of the recipients will serve in similar roles with Answerthink's Hackett-REL Total Working Capital division in the United States and Europe. Answerthink considers the cost of these grants part of the overall consideration for the acquisition. The grants are designed to preserve the value of the business acquired through the retention of its leadership. They will also provide incentives to the recipients which directly correlate to the success of Answerthink as reflected in the appreciation of its shares. The shares issued in connection with these grants were distributed on March 6, 2006. In accordance with NASDAQ Rule 4350(i)(1)(A), these restricted stock awards were made outside of an equity plan for which stockholder approval has been obtained. Rule 4350(i)(1)(A) requires public announcement of equity grants made under this type of plan. All of the above restricted stock awards were granted on terms that include the following: (i) the shares are subject to restriction on transfer and are subject to forfeiture in the event of termination of employment for any reason prior to the lapse of such restrictions; (ii) lapsing of restrictions with respect to 50% of the shares on the second anniversary of the acquisition closing date and as to 25% of the shares on each of the third and fourth anniversary of such date, until fully vested. About Answerthink Answerthink, Inc. (http://www.answerthink.com) is a leading business and technology consulting firm that enables companies to achieve world-class business performance. By leveraging the comprehensive database of The Hackett Group, Answerthink's business and technology solutions help clients significantly improve performance and maximize returns on technology investments. Answerthink's capabilities include benchmarking, business transformation, business applications, business intelligence, and offshore application development and support. Founded in 1997, Answerthink has offices throughout the United States and in Europe and India. About The Hackett Group The Hackett Group (http://www.thehackettgroup.com), a strategic advisory firm and an Answerthink company, is a world leader in best practice research, benchmarking, business transformation and working capital management services that empirically define and enable world-class enterprise performance. The foundation of Hackett's services is a proprietary database of Hackett-Certified(TM) Practices, approaches that correlate with superior performance. Only The Hackett Group empirically defines world-class performance in sales, general and administrative (SG&A) and supply chain activities with analysis gained through 3,400 benchmark studies over 14 years at 2,000 of the world's leading companies. Hackett clients comprise 96 percent of the Dow Jones Industrials, 77 percent of the Fortune 100 and 92 percent of the Dow Jones Global Titans Index. From the 2005 acquisition of REL Consultancy Group, a global leader in generating cash improvement from working capital, Hackett offers Total Working Capital Management services to liberate cash flow from operations through improved working capital, reduced costs and increased service quality. REL has enabled clients in more than 60 countries free up over $25 billion through working capital optimization in the last 10 years alone. This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Answerthink's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that impact such forward-looking statements include, among others, the ability of the products, services, or practices mentioned in this release to deliver the desired effect, our ability to effectively integrate acquisitions into our operations, our ability to attract additional business, our ability to effectively market and sell our transformation advisory product offerings and other services, the timing of projects and the potential for contract cancellations by our customers, changes in expectations regarding the information technology industry, our ability to attract and retain skilled employees, possible changes in collections of accounts receivable, risks of competition, price and margin trends, changes in general economic conditions and interest rates as well as other risks detailed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2004 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.