Tuesday September 9 5:18 PM EDT
Company Press Release
Lightbridge to Acquire Coral Systems
BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 1997--
Pending Acquisition Will Enhance Lightbridge's Telesto(TM) Offering
for Customer Acquisition and Retention in the Telecom Industry
Lightbridge, Inc. (NASDAQ:LTBG), a leading provider of customer acquisition and retention
solutions for the global telecommunications industry, today announced it has agreed to acquire
Coral Systems, Inc., a privately owned developer of churn and fraud software products for the
telecommunications industry. This transaction will consolidate Lightbridge's leadership position in
fraud and churn management, and further enhance Lightbridge's Telesto offering for customer
acquisition and retention in the telecommunications industry.
Under terms of the agreement, Lightbridge will purchase 100 percent of the outstanding capital
stock of Coral Systems, Inc. in exchange for approximately 1,287,000 newly issued shares of
Lightbridge common stock and the payment of an estimated $1 million for expenses incurred by
Coral Systems in the transaction. The exact number of shares that Lightbridge will issue is subject
to certain closing adjustments and to a stock price collar. The value of the shares to be issued in the
transaction, based on Monday's closing price of $15.00 per share, would have been approximately
$18.9 million, after price adjustments. Shares issuable as purchase consideration will be subject to
staggered release, with one-third being released six months after the closing date, one-third
effective 12 months after the closing date, and the remaining third being released effective 18
months after the closing date. The acquisition will be accounted for as a purchase with a significant
portion of the purchase price being allocated to in-process research and development and expensed
at the time of closing. It is expected that the acquisition will be closed in the fourth quarter of 1997.
Coral Systems, with an employee base of approximately 70, will operate as a separate subsidiary of
Lightbridge and will maintain its office in Longmont, Colo. John Fraser, Coral Systems' current
president, will remain as president of the Coral Systems division of Lightbridge.
``Lightbridge's acquisition of Coral Systems is a continuation of our strategy to provide global
telecom carriers with the most complete, integrated solution for customer acquisition and
retention. Coral Systems' line of products will provide an excellent complement to Fraud
Sentinel(TM) and Churn Prophet(R), our existing solutions for fraud and churn management,'' said
Pamela Reeve, president and CEO of Lightbridge.
``Lightbridge and Coral Systems share many of the same carrier clients, partners and philosophies.
Specifically, one common philosophy is that carriers in this highly competitive, converging market
must offer technology solutions that are open and fully integrated with other business critical
customer interaction processes such as billing and acquisition,'' said John Fraser, president of Coral
Systems. ``We look forward to joining Lightbridge and its mission to help carriers move toward
convergence.''
Lightbridge will focus on integrating Coral Systems' software offerings ChurnAlert(R) and
FraudBuster(R) with Lightbridge's Churn Prophet and Fraud Sentinel solutions. Churn Prophet and
Fraud Sentinel are an integral part of Lightbridge's Telesto network of integrated customer
acquisition and retention solutions. Churn Prophet and ChurnAlert are analytical tools designed to
help carriers reduce churn (when a customer leaves one carrier for another) and increase customer
retention. While Churn Prophet utilizes predictive modeling to segment subscribers and identify
dynamic characteristics indicative of their likelihood to churn, ChurnAlert captures call detail
record (CDR) data from the switch to profile and score subscribers. Fraud Sentinel and
FraudBuster are designed to reduce the risk of fraud. While Fraud Sentinel identifies potentially
fraudulent subscribers at the point of sale (before activation), FraudBuster identifies usage trends
and patterns to analyze fraud at the back-end (after activation). The marriage of these products will
offer a complete, front- and back-end solution for fraud prevention and churn management. The
full product integration process is expected to continue over the 12 months following the closing.
About Lightbridge
Lightbridge, Inc. (NASDAQ:LTBG), based in Burlington, Mass., is a leading provider of
software-based services that help global telecommunications carriers quickly acquire customers
and retain them over time. Lightbridge has leveraged its credit processing expertise into solutions
that help carriers quickly and cost-effectively provide bundled services through new channels.
Telesto, Lightbridge's network of integrated customer acquisition and retention solutions, provides
best-in-class credit, fraud, churn, channel and market performance solutions to such clients as
AT&T Wireless, BellSouth Mobility DCS, Omnipoint Communications, PrimeCo Personal
Communications and Sprint PCS. It is the only complete, workflow-enhanced system for customer
interaction in the converged telecommunications marketplace. Additional information on the
company can be found on the Web at lightbridge.com . |
