Engaging directly in a dynamically expanding market with strong demands in Virtual Engineering from aerospace, energy, machinery and automotive sectors.

PARIS — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 13, 2012 — ESI Group, pioneer and world-leading solution provider in virtual prototyping for manufacturing industries, announces the opening of an office in Russia on 18 September, 2012. Based in Yekaterinburg, one of Russia’s prime locations for industrial consortia, the newly created ESI team is expected to help develop a portfolio of local clients in various industry sectors.

Opening of this new office has been motivated by the business growth ESI has achieved in the Russian market over the past decade. In fact, ESI started to distribute its software solutions in Russia more than ten years ago and recently has intensively piloted the Russian market via dedicated staff based in the neighboring Czech Republic. As one of the BRIC countries Russia (along with Brazil, India and China) provides ESI with significant geographical growth opportunity. For the first part of this year these countries collectively accounted for 13% of sales of licenses; in contrast to 10% in 2010/2011 and 11.5% in 2011/2012.

In the aerospace sector, ESI has built a strong relationship with the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) and the Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM); where ESI solutions are used most notably to address industrial challenges linked to development of aircraft engines and the use of advanced composite materials. Other industry sectors well represented in Russia, including Energy, Heavy Machinery, and Automotive also represent a substantial customer base for ESI solutions. Applications of the ESI solutions are diverse but in Russia there has been an especially strong focus on Virtual Manufacturing to address Casting, Sheet Metal Forming, Welding & Heat Treatment and Composites engineering processes, all of which are clearly important to the Russian Industrial Economy.

ESI key customers in Russian include PK Bezhicky Stateliteyny Zavod, a large machinery company using ESI’s Casting Simulation Suite: ProCAST & QuikCAST; PZ Mashinostroitel OAO (Machinery), Irkutsk Aviation Plant (Aeronautics), the Russian Academy of Sciences based in Yekaterinburg and other leading academic bodies such as the St Petersburg State Polytechnical University, the Moscow State Technological University STANKIN and the Perm State Technical University (PSTU).

The expanded activity in Russia will support growth within this existing customer base and will develop new opportunities in different sectors. Committed to building a strong local services team and to pursue a collaborative approach, this expert team will be backed up by ESI’s global services organization. Leveraging the process of Co-Creation integral to ESI’s business development strategy, the common goal will be to spur the development of proven solutions relevant to critical industrial challenges faced by innovative companies compelled to adopt numerical simulation and Virtual Engineering, in order to maximize their performance and global competitiveness.

Already responsible for all sales in Eastern Europe, Mecas ESI will be providing a bridge between ESI’s operations in Western and Eastern Europe. Based in Czech Republic, a country that has kept close ties to Russia, ESI’s Czech subsidiary will fully support establishing the new office in Yekaterinburg.

Dr Alain de Rouvray, Chairman and CEO of ESI Group, will meet major Russian customers and partners at an opening ceremony on 18 September, 2012. At that event, ESI will welcome Mr Pierre Filatoff, the General Consul of France in Yekaterinburg, and several delegates from Ubifrance; a French organization dedicated to encouraging the development of French companies abroad and which will provide support throughout implementation of ESI’s new office.

Please take note of ESI’s new address in Russia:

Mecas ESI, Vainera str. 51b, 3^rd floor, 620014, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation

For more information, please contact:

Natalia Nesvetova

Marketing Coordinator

Email Contact

Telephone/Fax: +7 343 3110233

For more ESI news, visit: www.esi-group. com/newsroom

About ESI Group

ESI is a pioneer and world-leading solution provider in virtual prototyping for manufacturing industries that takes into account the physics of materials. ESI has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to realistically simulate a product’s behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment’s impact on performance. ESI ’s solutions fit into a single collaborative and open environment for End-to-End Virtual Prototyping, thus eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company employs about 900 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in compartment C of NYSE Euronext Paris. For further information, visit www.esi-group.com.