Lernout & Hauspie Announces Filing of Shelf Registration Statement Covering Sale of Up to $150 Million of Its Common Stock.Business/Technology Editors IEPER, Belgium and BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 10, 2000 Intended Uses for Proceeds Include Support of Separate Entity Strategy, Enhancing Market Opportunities and Growth Lernout & Hauspie (Nasdaq: LHSP LHSP List Hosting Service Provider LHSP Left Handed Starting Pitcher , Easdaq: LHSP) (L&H), a worldwide market leader in speech and linguistic technologies, products and services, today announced that it has filed a shelf Registration Statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission covering the sale by L&H of up to $150 million of its Common Stock. L&H expects to sell the shares from time to time to a limited number of institutional investors Institutional Investor A non-bank person or organization that trades securities in large enough share quantities or dollar amounts that they qualify for preferential treatment and lower commissions. . This additional capital should further enhance L&H's ability to expand its business activities and add shareholder value. L&H expects to use net proceeds Net Proceeds The amount received after all costs are deducted from the sale of a piece of property or security. Notes: In the case of an investor selling a security, net proceeds represent the proceeds from the sale minus any trading costs (i.e. commissions). from the offering to help support ongoing preparations to create separate entities for its Healthcare Solutions, Globalization globalization Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation and Internet Translation, and Enterprise and Telephony Solutions business groups. Proceeds may be applied to provide working capital and funds to pursue strategic acquisitions for these entities. The company may also use proceeds for other general corporate purposes. "The rapid growth and changes in our key markets - healthcare, globalization and telephony - require us to enhance our resources and create more focused, autonomous, transparent businesses," said Gaston Bastiaens Gaston Bastiaens (Westerlo (Belgium) December 16, 1946) is a Belgian engineer and businessman. As a vice president of Philips Electronics, he was responsible for the Compact Disc as well as for CD-i, CD-ROM, Philips' contributions to the MPEG standard and the foundations for the , president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of L&H. "We are responding to those market requirements through the acquisitions we have made in the recent past, as well as with our many technological breakthroughs and product enhancements." Globalization and Internet Translation Group As part of its strategy to enhance its Globalization and Internet Translation business group L&H also announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Linguex, a leading translation/localization company in France and has signed a letter of intent to acquire a linguistics engineering and testing company in Ireland. The assets from these acquisitions will help make L&H's globalization/localization business in France the largest in that country and will provide it with additional experienced engineering staff to help enhance and integrate its linguistic technologies. Widely-regarded throughout Europe, Linguex brings L&H a solid client base that includes companies such as Alcatel, Honeywell, Mitsubishi and Alstow; a strong sales force; seasoned management and well developed processes and tools. Linguex is well known for having developed WordFast, a computer-aided translation software program based on a Translation Memory (TM) engine. L&H expects to integrate WordFast with its own highly regarded translation memory technology, creating an enhanced offering. The total purchase price for the two companies is approximately $8.2 million, with total potential earnouts of up to $3.9 million. This purchase price, including the earnouts, is payable in L&H common stock. L&H expects that the acquisitions will be non-dilutive for the year 2000 and accretive in 2001 and beyond. Healthcare Solutions Group Enhancements L&H also previously announced acquisitions and its intention to acquire healthcare industry assets that will help accelerate creation of a technology-enhanced enterprise solution for the healthcare market. "The company has sufficient cash and short-term investments to acquire these healthcare and globalization businesses," said Carl Dammekens, CFO See Chief Financial Officer. for L&H, "however, the additional funds from the shelf registration provide us with the financial flexibility to pursue additional acquisitions as well as other strategic investments." L&H expects that these healthcare industry acquisitions, the globalization market acquisitions announced today, and other strategies it has recently implemented will put its Globalization and Internet Translation and Healthcare Solutions business groups in a good position to begin operating as separate legal entities as early as the end of the first quarter of this year. Enterprise & Telephony Solutions Contracts The company also recently announced more than a dozen new contracts with telecommunications developers in Korea and elsewhere in the Pacific Rim Pacific Rim, term used to describe the nations bordering the Pacific Ocean and the island countries situated in it. In the post–World War II era, the Pacific Rim has become an increasingly important and interconnected economic region. and Europe, further readying L&H's Enterprise & Telephony Solutions business group for separate legal entity status. Contracts were signed for L&H solutions that include dialogue systems to provide customers with a fast, simple and convenient way to access information; embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. speech engines and language technologies. The new contracts were signed with Hyundai Securities, Samsung Securities, LG Securities, Daishin Securities, Daewoo Securities, Delfi, GenSoft EPC (1) (Entertainment PC) See HTPC. (2) (Electronic Product Code) A standard code for RFID tags administered by EPCglobal Inc. (www.epcglobalinc.org). Asia and NeoTelecom, among others. About Lernout & Hauspie Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) is a global leader in advanced speech and language solutions for vertical markets, computers, automobiles, telecommunications, embedded products, consumer goods consumer goods Any tangible commodity purchased by households to satisfy their wants and needs. Consumer goods may be durable or nondurable. Durable goods (e.g., autos, furniture, and appliances) have a significant life span, often defined as three years or more, and and the Internet. The company is making the speech user interface (SUI Sui (swā), dynasty of China that ruled from 581 to 618. This short-lived dynasty reunified China in 589 after 400 years of division and laid the foundation for further consolidation under the T'ang dynasty. ) the keystone key·stone n. 1. Architecture The central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks its parts together. Also called headstone. 2. The central supporting element of a whole. of simple, convenient interaction between humans and technology, and is using advanced translation technology to break down language barriers. The company provides a wide range of offerings, including: customized solutions for corporations; core speech technologies marketed to OEMs; end user and retail applications for continuous speech products in horizontal and vertical markets; and document creation, human and machine translation services, Internet translation offerings, and linguistic tools. L&H's products and services originate in Verb 1. originate in - come from stem - grow out of, have roots in, originate in; "The increase in the national debt stems from the last war" four basic areas: automatic speech recognition (ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Using voice recognition to replace keypad entry for telephone voice menus. Typically used to speak the digits 0 through 9 insted of keying them, ASR systems may be able to recognize a limited vocabulary. See voice recognition and AVSR. ), text-to-speech (TTS (1) See text-to-speech. (2) (Transaction Tracking System) Software that monitors a transaction until completion. In the event of a hardware or software failure, it ensures that the database is brought back to its former state before the attempt to ), digital speech and music compression (SMC SMC Saint Mary's College SMC Santa Monica College SMC Solaris Management Console SMC Smooth Muscle Cell SMC Small Magellanic Cloud (also see LMC) SMC Safety Management Certificate (maritime shipping) ) and text-to-text (translation). For more information, please visit Lernout & Hauspie on the World Wide Web at www.lhsl.com. This News Release contains forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainties, including statements about the company's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions. Such statements include, without limitation, discussions concerning the company's use of proceeds of the offering, the company's strategic direction, new product introductions and developments, the expected developments of targeted markets, the expected completion of the acquisitions referenced in this release, and the financial and other contributions expected from those acquisitions. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements forward-looking statement A projected financial statement based on management expectations. A forward-looking statement involves risks with regard to the accuracy of assumptions underlying the projections. involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially than those set forth in the forward looking statements. The risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the early stage of the speech technology market, the management of growth, the successful integration of the company's recent acquisitions, the ability of the company and its customers and strategic partners to develop and successfully market new products, the ability of the company to enter into advantageous strategic alliances, rapid technological change and competition. In addition, acquisitions involve numerous risks, including difficulties in the assimilation of operations and products of acquired businesses, the ability to manage geographically remote units and the potential loss of key employees of the acquired companies. Moreover, consummation CONSUMMATION. The completion of a thing; as the consummation of marriage; (q.v.) the consummation of a contract, and the like. 2. A contract is said to be consummated, when everything to be done in relation to it, has been accomplished. of the acquisitions that have not yet been completed are subject to certain conditions. As a result, there can be no assurance that any of these expected acquisitions will be consummated on the terms described herein, if at all. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this News Release. The company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statement to reflect any change in the company's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstance on which any such statement is based. All product names and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of L&H or their respective owners. |
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