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Lernout & Hauspie Announces Filing for Reorganization Protection; Company Will Continue Operating and Remain Focused On Rebuilding Its Asset Base
Business Wire - November 29, 2000 15:28
IEPER, Belgium & BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 29, 2000--Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV (NASDAQ: LHSP, EASDAQ: LHSP) (`L&H' or `the Company'), a world leader in speech and language technology, products and services, today announced that it has voluntarily filed a Chapter 11 petition for reorganization protection under the U.S. bankruptcy code and that it would file a request for a concordaat reorganization under Belgian law.
The chapter 11 filing, made today in Wilmington, Delaware, will enable L&H to continue addressing its past problems, while developing a new strategic plan to leverage the Company's unparalleled base of technology assets and market access, as well as restore profitability. In addition to the filing, L&H is in active negotiations to obtain debtor-in-possession financing.
John Duerden, President and Chief Executive Officer of L&H, said: "We have tried, without success, to reach an acceptable accommodation with our bank lenders. After an intensive analysis of L&H's world-wide business operations and a careful assessment of its financial position, we concluded that a voluntary reorganization filing is both prudent and necessary to preserve and rebuild our valuable customer base and technology assets."
Daniel Hart, General Counsel of L&H explained that, "an important factor in the decision to seek reorganization protection was the recent discovery of a very significant cash shortfall on the balance sheet of the Korean subsidiary, the circumstances of which we will vigorously investigate with the assistance of external resources."
Mr. Duerden expressed confidence that this was the right decision for the company at this time: "This court-supervised process will enable us to focus on realizing the enormous commercial potential of L&H's considerable technology resources, while continuing to investigate and remediate problems emanating from the past."
Roel Pieper, Chairman of the Board, said, "Despite L&H's financial situation, we remain a market and technology leader, which gives us a strong foundation on which to build a new and profitable company. With this reorganization we now have the opportunity to chart a new course for L&H."
In the US, the filing was made by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV, Dictaphone Corporation, and L&H Holdings USA, Inc., the successor corporation to Dragon Systems Inc., for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In Belgium, a concordaat reorganization filing will be made by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV.
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 and the Internet. The company is making the speech user interface (SUI) the keystone 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 four basic areas: automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), digital speech and music compression (SMC) and text-to-text (translation).
For more information, please visit Lernout & Hauspie on the World Wide Web at www.lhsl.com. |
