James D. Lindner Named Mitchell International Chairman of the Board; Lindner Will Retain Current Positions of President and Chief Executive Officer

    SAN DIEGO--May 17, 2001--Mitchell International today announced that James D. Lindner, president and chief executive officer, has been appointed to the additional position of Chairman of the Board.
    The announcement was made by Joseph Niehaus, managing director of Hellman & Friedman LLC, a San Francisco-based private equity firm that acquired Mitchell a year ago, and former Chairman of Mitchell International's Board of Directors.
    "I am pleased to announce that Jim Lindner has been appointed Chairman of the Mitchell International Board of Directors," Niehaus said. "As we pass the one year milestone of the acquisition of Mitchell International by Hellman & Friedman, the Board of Directors has unanimously agreed that it is in the best near-term and long-range interests of Mitchell International to appoint Jim as the Chairman of the Board, in addition to retaining the CEO and President responsibilities."
    Lindner joined Mitchell as president and CEO in February 1997 and has been responsible for leading the company through a new era of accelerated growth. Recently, he has led several major strategic initiatives including the launch of eMitchell.com, the industry's premier Internet workspace, which serves as a single access point to a suite of existing and future on-line applications, end-to-end claims processing functionality, services and e-business partner content and commerce.
    Prior to joining Mitchell, Lindner was president and CEO of Attachmate, a large remote computing and host connectivity company. His other previous executive positions include serving as president of Memorex Telex Corp.'s Networks Group and chairman and CEO of ISC--Bunker Ramo Corp. Lindner began his career with IBM, where he spent 15 years in a variety of sales, marketing and general management positions.

    About Hellman & Friedman LLC

    Hellman & Friedman LLC is a private equity firm founded in 1984. The firm has raised and managed more than $4.8 billion of capital which it has invested in 39 companies. Representative technology-based service investments have included Digitas, a leading Internet marketing services firm focused on Fortune 100 companies; National Information Consortium , the nation's largest provider of internet-based, e-government services; Blackbaud Inc., a leading provider of software, services and content to the nonprofit community; Western Wireless , and Voicestream Wireless . Limited partners in Hellman & Friedman funds include many leading government, corporate, and nonprofit institutions. Hellman & Friedman's Web site can be found at www.hf.com.
    Hellman & Friedman's strategy is to be the most knowledgeable, value-added and flexible investor in the global media, professional services, telecom, software and technology-based services industries. H&F seeks to partner with world-class management in growing businesses. Since its inception, Hellman & Friedman has generated gross annual returns of more than 60 percent for its investors.

    About Mitchell International

    Mitchell International, founded in 1946 and headquartered in San Diego, is The Source for information software and e-business solutions for the insurance and automotive repair industries. Providing services that enhance productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction, Mitchell facilitates several million electronic transactions between more than 16,000 business partners each month. Mitchell's own parts and labor database, a critical connectivity point between shops and insurers, is trusted for its accuracy and respected as the industry standard. For more information on Mitchell International, call Chris Andrews, director of marketing, at 858/578-6550, ext. 8321. Visit our Web sites at www.mitchell.com and www.emitchell.com.