News Releases

Halyard Capital, a New York-based private equity fund and member of BMO Financial Group (NYSE, TSX: BMO), today announced that it has acquired a majority interest in eLearners.com, LLC. Current eLearners.com founder and president C.J. DeSantis and his management team will remain in place. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

eLearners.com^® is an online marketing firm focused on the post-secondary and continuing education markets with a specific expertise in online education. The eLearners.com portal provides resources to prospective students and connects them with online education providers. The portal also offers a variety of services for students and institutions, such as the eLearners Index^SM, eLearners News^SM and eLearners Advisor^TM, a unique self-assessment tool that eLearners has developed for prospective students.

“We view eLearners as the clear leader in providing student leads to post-secondary education institutions as well as providing important content to prospective students,” said Bruce Eatroff, a Halyard Capital partner and Head of the Media, Communications & Technology Group at Harris Nesbitt, the U.S. investment banking arm of BMO Financial Group. “We look forward to supporting the company’s continued growth initiatives in this very exciting market.”

eLearners.com features over 100 educational partners, including University of Phoenix Online, Walden University and Tulane University. eLearners.com provides information on more than 1,200 degrees and certificates and over 6,200 courses.

C.J. DeSantis, Founder and President of eLearners.com, said, “Since its inception six years ago, eLearners has been a pioneer in connecting learners to education. We are excited about partnering with Halyard Capital and believe, collectively, we have an opportunity to grow eLearners to serve the diverse needs of the education market.”

About Halyard Capital

Halyard Capital, a member of BMO Financial Group, currently manages a $450 million private equity fund. Halyard Capital invests in growth financings and management buyout opportunities within the media, communications and business services industries.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817 as Bank of Montreal, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified North American financial services organization (NYSE, TSX: BMO). With total assets of $292 billion as at April 30, 2005, and more than 33,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and solutions. BMO Financial Group serves clients across Canada through its Canadian retail arm, BMO Bank of Montreal, and through BMO Nesbitt Burns, one of Canada's leading full-service investment firms. In the United States, BMO serves clients through Harris, an integrated financial services organization that provides more than 1.5 million personal, business, corporate and institutional clients with banking, lending, investing, financial planning, trust administration, portfolio management, family office and wealth transfer services.

About eLearners.com

eLearners.com, founded in 1999, was established to respond to the explosive growth of the distance learning industry by educating prospective students and helping them to evaluate the wide variety of available learning programs.

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