Mr. Robert Courteau reports

ARGUS DEVELOPER 7.5 DELIVERS POWERFUL NEW LEVEL OF REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT ASSURANCE

Altus Group Ltd. has launched Argus Developer 7.5. The newly incorporated finance and accounting enhancements of Developer 7.5 provide powerful flexibility to manage project accounting costs, cash flows and actual-to-budget variances across multiple development phases and between systems for greater transparency and control.

"Developer 7.5 represents the most advanced, best-in-class solution in the industry to manage the entire development life cycle in one intuitive and user-friendly platform. It provides clients the visibility and confidence they require to make strategic and informed decisions allowing them to maintain control over the risks and returns of their development projects," said Robert Courteau, chief executive officer of Altus Group.

As a universal platform to support commercial real estate participants from inception through delivery on development projects, Developer 7.5 includes a number of enhancements to improve user experience, including:

• Flexible accounting and finance: Project costs can now be apportioned across multiple development phases using a fixed or percentage basis, and closed accounting periods may be reopened in order to make adjustments and corrections. In addition, specific costs and revenues may be separately accounted for through the introduction of line-item finance.
• Released budgets: Additional budgets may be released for any amount or proportion of the total development budget at any stage of the project. This provides the ability to better track actuals, create variance reports and enables clients to understand risk exposure at any stage of project.
• File-based storage: Project files may be saved and stored without the use of a database and access to, and transfer between, existing databases; and file-based storage systems is now included for distribution of project files to clients.
• English stamp duty: Users can handle tax on site acquisition costs and purchaser costs related to recent changes to stamp duty legislation made by the United Kingdom government.

"Argus Developer enables us to effectively analyze and forecast a variety of acquisition and new development projects, resulting in more strategic and informed decisions on project viability across our portfolio," said Joe Wright, business analyst at Barwood, a leading real estate development and investment management company in the United Kingdom.