[January 09, 2013]

TPG Growth and Instawares Launch Red Book Connect, First-of-Its-Kind Technology Platform

TPG Growth and Instawares Holding Company announced today the launch of Red Book Connect, the first-of-its-kind comprehensive, cloud-based technology platform for the restaurant, hospitality and retail industries. The Red Book Connect platform joins industry leaders Red Book Solutions, MacromatiX, My Recruiting Center, HotSchedules, and SchooX to offer best-in-class technology with the financial firepower of global investment firm TPG. The company will be led by John Chidsey, former CEO and Chairman of Burger King, and backed by an ownership group with an impressive track record for innovation and disruption in the technology and service industries.

"Our community is starved for a single-source platform like Red Book Connect to run more effective and efficient operations across single and multi-location organizations," said John Chidsey, Executive Chairman of Red Book Connect. "Combined under one brand, Red Book Connect is now the largest cloud-based technology solutions company in the industry. By acquiring or partnering with additional industry leaders in the future, we are committed to meeting our customers' evolving needs with the latest technology and solutions."

The offerings of the combined companies will help managers solve complex managerial challenges, increase operational efficiency and improve profitability. Many of the most common management tasks, including hiring application processing, labor scheduling, recruiting and onboarding, and inventory management, have historically been accomplished through disparate systems or manually implemented processes. With the creation of Red Book Connect, all of these activities will be consolidated into one integrated platform.

The innovative solutions that embody this new scalable venture are:

• Red Book Solutions: the nation's premier provider of management playbooks for over 20 years, with a complete suite of tools designed to help individual units realize their performance objectives by addressing consistency around task management, communication, key metric evaluation, crisis management and training. Red Book Solutions serves 75% of the top 20 quick service restaurants, 80% of the top restaurant chain management companies, and 100% of the top 10 largest hotel chains-reaching over 325,000 managers in more than 100,000 locations aross the globe. Within this new endeavor, Red Book Solutions' flagship tool, The Manager's Red Book, will be offered in a new digital format in 2013 in response to client demand, along with the popular print version.
• MacromatiX: the global leader in cloud-based retail and hospitality management solutions designed to increase productivity and operational excellence, including the MacromatiX Retail Operating System, a complete inventory and supply chain management tool.
• My Recruiting Center: a comprehensive pre-employment SaaS (News - Alert) platform designed for smaller businesses, which provides access to products and solutions typically available only to large enterprises.
• HotSchedules: through its minority ownership of HotSchedules, Red Book Connect offers HotSchedules' suite of intuitive mobile and web-based shift scheduling, forecasting and digital hiring solutions that streamline the employee scheduling process, and help reduce labor costs and increase employee retention, reaching 850,000 active users with 23 million monthly logins. Its mobile apps are consistently rated by AppToday as one of the Top 10 Business Apps.
• SchooX: Red Book Connect also has an agreement to deliver SchooX's online social learning platform, which offers a wide range of courses developed by expert knowledge providers from both within and outside an organization. The environment can be adjusted to reflect a company's curriculum structure in their own Corporate Academy. For example, restaurants, hotels and other franchises can simply and affordably provide a continuous learning and training platform to all of their employees and locations, helping to boost compliance, training, succession programs, and self-learning.

The Red Book Connect Board of Directors consists of William McGlashan and Ransom Langford (TPG Growth), John Chidsey (Red Book Connect), Cam Lanier (Instawares Holding) and Ray Pawlikowski (HotSchedules).

About Red Book Connect

Red Book Connect is the largest technology solutions company supporting the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries' comprehensive operational needs in a fast, efficient and affordable way. The company offers solutions and products from industry leaders Red Book Solutions, MacromatiX, My Recruiting Center, Hot Schedules, and SchooX. Currently serving more than 1.2 million users in over 127,000 locations across 27 countries worldwide, Red Book Connect is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with major offices in Denver, Colorado, Austin, Texas, and Sydney, Australia. www.redbookconnect.com

About TPG Growth

TPG Growth is the middle market and growth equity investment platform of TPG, the global private investment firm. With $3.7 billion under management, TPG Growth targets investments in a broad range of industries and geographies, utilizing leveraged buyout, growth equity, and private investment in public equity (PIPE) structures. The firm is backed by the resources of TPG, which has $54.5 billion of assets under management. TPG Growth has offices in the United States, China and India. www.tpggrowth.com.

About Instawares Holding Company

Led by legendary technology investor Cam Lanier, Instawares Holding has been assembling best-in-class technology companies focused on the vast and growing restaurant marketplace. Their online solutions range from ecommerce restaurant supply to new customer acquisition technologies that leverage online banking platforms. www.instawaresholding.com

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