Montreal: Cinar Corporation, Canada’s most capitalized pubco, is back in the acquisition business reporting a definitive us$40.2 million cash agreement to purchase all outstanding shares of Tel Aviv-based multimedia publisher Edusoft.

In the past two weeks, the company also signed a new merchandising toy deal for preschool series Wimzie’s House with Learning Curve International of Chicago and an agreement with Toronto Internet company H+a (I. Hoffman + Associates) to codevelop an animation tv series based on H+a’s popular Web characters.

Edusoft shareholders are expected to receive over us$8.33 a share. The deal has been approved in principle by the board of Degem Systems, which holds about 60% of Edusoft shares.

Founded in 1991, Edusoft (www.edusf.com) publishes and markets interactive multimedia titles for both consumer and educational markets, selling products in over 40 countries, primarily outside North America.

Listed on Nasdaq (edusf), Edusoft reported net profits of just over us$3 million in fiscal ’97 based on revenues of us$13.6 million. Top line for the first nine months of ’98 (end Sept. 30) is us$12 million.

On the H+a venture, Cinar says it’s the first time in Canada – and one of the first times anywhere – digital characters are being developed for a tv series.

H+a’s Nikolai and Neow-Neow teach kids about history and the world and are featured at nikolai.com, cbs.nikolai.com and netscape.nikolai.com locations and in eight best-selling cd-rom releases.

Cinar Educational’s expanding operations now include Edusoft and two wholly owned u.s.-based companies, Carson-Dellosa Publishing and HighReach Learning.