Lernout & Hauspie Signs Agreement to Acquire Globalink; Also Acquires
Ailogic and Neocortech to Add Asian Languages
BURLINGTON, MASS. & IEPER, BELGIUM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 20, 1998
Business/Technology Editors
With These Acquisitions L&H Will Have the Most Comprehensive
Language Translation Offerings in the Market
Lernout & Hauspie (NASDAQ:LHSPF, EASDAQ:LHSP-ED) (L&H), a worldwide market
leader in speech and linguistic technologies, products and services,
announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Globalink, Inc.
(AMER:GNK), best known for its Barcelona machine translation technology.
The company also announced today the acquisitions of AILogic Corporation and
NeocorTech, both leading providers of machine translation technology for
Asian languages.
L&H intends to acquire Globalink, Inc. in an all-stock deal of $5.60 per
share of Globalink's outstanding common stock (subject to adjustment). With
approximately 12.7 Million shares outstanding, the total price equals
approximately 1.2 Million shares of L&H common stock. AILogic has been
acquired for $5.5 million in cash and Neocor for $1 million in cash. The
company expects the acquisitions after intial write-offs of in process R&D,
to be non-dillutive to earnings per share initially, and accretive in 1999.
The Globalink transaction is expected to be completed within a few months,
following a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and approval
by Globalink's stockholders. L&H is planning to immediately integrate these
acquisitions into its Language Technology Division headed by Peer van
Driesten.
L&H will integrate the languages gained through the acquisitions into
products and services, such as its search, summarization and translation
service for the Internet, called iTranslator. It will expand iTranslator's
language translation offerings to include various language pairs comprised
of Italian, Brazilian Portugese, Japanese and Chinese. iTranslator currently
supports machine translation of web pages and other Internet documents for
English<>German, English<>French, English<>Arabic and English<>Spanish
language pairs. The company is planning to launch iTranslator this fall.
"These acquisitions let L&H add a number of widely-used languages to our
speech and language products and services," said Gaston Bastiaens, president
and CEO, L&H. "As a result, our Language Technology Division has secured the
market leadership position with what is now the most comprehensive language
translation offering on the market. Going forward we will focus on the
successful market introduction of our Internet based translation service and
language solutions for the corporate market."
Through the acquisition of Globalink, L&H gains not only new machine
translation language pairs but also a number of new retail translation
products, e-commerce translation business and access to Globalink's
multinational customer base. Access to Globalink's products and customers
will help L&H expand its global selling efforts and augment its retail sales
channel base. The AILogic and Neocor acquisitions provide Chinese-English
and Japanese-English machine translation language pairs, web translation and
optical character recognition products for PC, NT and enterprise platforms.
In addition, these acquisitions will bring approximately 50 highly qualified
engineers and linguists.
"Globalink has long recognized the tremendous potential of the worldwide
translation market, which many analysts estimate to be a billion dollar
market in the coming years," said Harry Haggerty, Chairman and CEO of
Globalink. "By joining forces with Lernout & Hauspie, the market leader in
speech and linguistic technologies, we can amass the resources required to
develop world class machine translation products and solutions to meet the
growing needs of the market."
"As with so many other applications, speech has the power to dramatically
simplify access to and use of the World Wide Web," said Jo Lernout chairman
of L&H. "In the not to distant future we envision that users will employ a
speech user interface for hands-free, interactive, multilingual Web access."
About Globalink
Globalink is a leading provider of language translation software and
services. The company is a pre-eminent developer of machine translation
software that automatically translates human language. Globalink software
products help companies and individuals access information in foreign
languages and communicate across language barriers.
About AILogic
AILogic provides translation software to individuals and corporations that
communicate in Japanese using PCs. Its products include E-JBANK, an
English-to-Japanese machine translation software for PCs that has sold more
than 100,000 copies since 1987.
About Neocor
NeocorTech provides machine translation, OCR, e-mail and Web translation
software for NT and enterprise platforms.
About L&H
Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products (L&H) is a global leader in advanced
speech and language solutions for 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 cultural barriers. 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.lhs.com.
This Press Release contains forward-looking information, including but not
limited to statements involving the financial and other contributions
expected from the acquisitions referenced in this release. There can be no
assurance that actual results will not be materially different than those
anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Factors which could cause
actual results to materially differ from those anticipated in these forward
looking statements include known and unknown risks, including those set
forth below. 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. In addition, the technologies and
businesses being acquired by L&H are subject to the significant risks and
uncertainties generally applicable to L&H's machine translation technology
business, including uncertainty of new product development, early stage of
development of the translation technology market, uncertainty of market
growth, rapid technological change and intense competition, as well as other
risks set forth in L&H's filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including the L&H's Annual Report on Form 20-F. Moreover,
consummation of the acquisitions are subject to certain conditions,
including, in the case of Globalink, the approval of the Globalink
stockholders. 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. L&H cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such
forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. L&H
expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any
updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in the
L&H's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstance on
which any such statement is based.
CONTACT: L&H Worldwide PR/IR:
Lernout & Hauspie
Ellen Spooren, (781) 203-5344
espooren@lhs.com
or
L&H Corporate Comm US:
Lernout & Hauspie
Audrey Pobre, (781) 203-5341
apobre@lhs.com
or
Investor Contact Europe:
Lommaert & Blondeel Consultants
Annemieke Blondeel, (44) 181 850 6880
lommaertblondeel@netmatters.co.uk |
