St. Paul, Minn. — Merrill Corporation (www.merrillcorp.com), a leading global provider of technology-enabled services for the financial, health care, real estate, legal and other corporate markets, today announced that Merrill DataSite® has been selected the official Virtual Data Room (VDR) for the 2010 M&A Advisor Awards.

Merrill DataSite® was chosen because of its proven ability to provide and manage a secure platform for the highly confidential award nominating and judging process. Beginning with the issuance of nominations, the M&A Advisor will use Merrill DataSite®’s exclusive and trusted technology to ensure that all eligible applicants are able to submit their nominations confidentially.

“We are delighted to welcome Merrill DataSite® as our official Virtual Data Room partner,” said Roger Aguinaldo, CEO of the M&A Advisor. “We have always prided ourselves on the integrity and confidentiality of our nominating and judging process. Merrill’s VDR will not only further these goals, but will make the process more efficient. This is particularly important as the popularity of our awards continues to grow.”

Merrill’s ISO/IEC-rated security system, the only VDR security system certified for operations in both the United States and Europe, will protect the confidentiality of the winners until the announcements are made at the awards events.

Another advantage of Merrill DataSite® is its efficiency, according to Aguinaldo. This time-saving service will allow judges to simultaneously evaluate nominees from the comfort of their own offices, giving them the maximum amount of time to evaluate all award candidates.

The M&A Advisor sponsors major mergers and acquisitions awards programs annually, including: the Turnaround Awards in March; the Middle Market Financing Awards in June; the Global M&A Awards in September; and the M&A Awards in December.

“Merrill DataSite® is proud to be associated with the M&A Advisor and its prestigious awards programs,” said Richard Martin, Senior Director of Merrill DataSite®. “The M&A Advisor is the preeminent organization in the deal industry for connecting and recognizing dealmakers, and we look forward to bringing the most sophisticated Virtual Data Room services to the Advisor and the hundreds of companies that participate in its awards programs each year.”

About Merrill Corporation
Founded in 1968 and headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., Merrill Corporation (www.merrillcorp.com) is a leading provider of outsourced solutions for complex business communication and information management. Merrill's services include document and data management, litigation support, language translation services, branded communications programs, fulfillment, imaging and printing. Merrill's target markets include the legal, financial services, insurance and real estate industries. With more than 5,200 people in over 70 domestic and 15 international locations, Merrill empowers the communications of the world's leading companies.
 
About Merrill DataSite®
Merrill Datasite® (www.datasite.com) is a comprehensive virtual data room (VDR) solution that accelerates the due diligence process by providing a secure online document repository for confidential time-sensitive documents. Merrill DataSite® overcomes the many limitations of a traditional paper data room by enabling companies to present critical business information to multiple prospective buyers in a secure Web-based environment. As a result, transaction time and expense are dramatically reduced. Merrill DataSite® can be rapidly deployed and is accessible by viewers throughout the world via the Internet. As a leading provider of VDR solutions worldwide, Merrill DataSite® has empowered nearly 1.6 million unique visitors to perform electronic due diligence on thousands of transactions totaling trillions of dollars in asset value. Merrill DataSite® is the first VDR provider to understand the customers' and industry's need to provide the highest level of security by obtaining an ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certificate of registration, setting the standard as the world's only VDR certified for operations in the United States and Europe.
 
About The M&A Advisor
Since 1998, The M&A Advisor has been facilitating connections for and recognizing achievement of professionals in the mergers and acquisitions, distressed investing and related financial industries through its leading conferences, awards galas, online community and online M&A Alerts.