Lernout & Hauspie to acquire Dragon Systems
By Gareth Vaughan
and Deborah Adamson, CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 6:01 PM ET Mar 28, 2000 NewsWatch
BURLINGTON, Mass. (CBS.MW) -- Shares of Lernout & Hauspie, the Belgian speech-recognition software maker, soared 16 percent Tuesday on news that it's acquiring U.S. rival Dragon Systems in a $593 million deal designed to bring voice control to consumer products.
Lernout & Hauspie (LHSP: news, msgs) is buying privately-held Dragon Systems for 5.45 million shares. The goal is to offer speech recognition ability in everyday products such as cell phones, hand-held devices, phones, personal computers, cars and appliances. With speech recognition, these devices will be able to respond to human voice commands and queries.
"We are positioning for the future, today," said Janet Baker, chairman and co-founder of Dragon Systems, in a conference call. "This industry has tremendous prospects."
Gaston Bastiaens, president and chief executive of L&H, said during the call that both companies "finally are in a position to create products and solutions that will be ready for mainstream application in the not too distant future."
He said there is a demand for a simple user interface -- the way a person interacts with a device -- especially with the proliferation of new technologies in every area of life and as they become linked to the Net.
"The human voice is the natural user interface," Bastiaens said.
The deal, which Bastiaens said is expected to close in a "couple of months," will provide a small boost to its earnings per share in the second half of 2000 and a much stronger boost after 2000.
By combining research and development resources and sales and marketing teams, the new company expects to add significantly to its revenue and opportunity base using about 8 percent of its market capitalization.
Baker will join L&H's board of directors and become chairwoman of the company's Technology Advisory Board. L&H said it will retain members of Dragon's executive team, including president John Shagoury, who will play a "vital" yet still unidentified role. Donald Waite, Dragon's CEO, will lend a hand during the transition period but will return to his executive job at Seagate Technologies, Dragon's largest outside shareholder.
Dragon Systems had revenue of about $60 million and posted a net loss of $22 million in the 1999 year. L&H last year had sales of $344 million and earnings of $40.2 million, or 67 cents a share, before special items. |
