NEW YORK, Aug. 30 Bowne & Co, Inc. the world's largest financial printer and a leader in document and information management, today announced it has finalized the transaction to acquire Mendez S.A. (Mendez) from Lernout & Hauspie (L&H). Merrill Lynch, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Simpson Thacher & Barlett and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Bowne on the transaction. Mendez will be integrated into the Bowne Global Solutions (BGS) division, effectively creating the leading enterprise in the globalization and localization industry with 2001 annualized revenues of the combined entity of approximately $150 million. By adding Mendez' machine translation technology, technical writing and translation services to its portfolio of globalization solutions, BGS offers the most complete range of technology-enabled globalization and localization services in the market. The acquisition establishes a major professional resource in the industry with approximately 1,600 employees and production facilities in every key market in the world. "In 1996, Bowne and Mendez were the first two companies behind the initial consolidation in the localization services industry,'' said Robert Johnson, chairman and chief executive officer of Bowne & Co. "It is exciting and rewarding to combine these two industry pillars into one powerhouse company.'' According to Alex Motsenigos, senior analyst of IDC's Globalization and Localization practice, "The acquisition of Mendez will allow Bowne Global Solutions to provide end-to-end solution offerings in both the globalization technology and outsourced services segments. Bowne Global Solutions expands and strengthens its existing services portfolio, enhances its position in the financial sector, and adds exposure in the transportation, aerospace and health care sectors. This acquisition should improve Bowne Global Solutions' global scale, operational competency, and ability to fulfill customer requirements in a services market which IDC's recent research indicates is growing in excess of 25% annually.'' "This strategic acquisition strengthens our leadership in the globalization and localization industry in a number of ways,'' said Carl Glaeser, chief executive officer of Bowne Global Solutions. "It enables us to combine complementary lines of business, improve efficiencies, enhance our service offerings, open new vertical markets and consolidate two profitable globalization and localization businesses into one. We are now the clear leader in services and technology with machine translation and other advanced linguistic technologies which are being integrated into our professional globalization service solutions.'' Florita Mendez, president of Mendez S.A. added, "We are confident that our customers, workforce and technology will successfully integrate and prosper at BGS. The combined service offering balances our strengths with their outstanding localization, global project management and Web content creation services. Our confidence is reinforced by Bowne's financial stability and profitability. This combination of companies is a story of our individual success leveraged into true industry leadership.'' "It is very satisfying to relaunch BGS today,'' Mr. Glaeser stated. "Our executive management team developed a strategic plan to first deliver consistent profitability, and then capitalize upon our platform to begin the next round of consolidation in our industry. We built a vision of comprehensive global services and I'm proud to be leading our worldwide team into the next generation of industry development.'' The combined Bowne Global Solutions and Mendez company has approximately 1,600 employees in 20 countries around the globe. Production operations are located in: United States, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Japan, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, China, The Netherlands, Taiwan, Korea, Norway and Slovakia. Transforming Digital Capital(TM) Global competition for products and services continues to intensify as companies pursue new markets and new customers around the world. As a result of the velocity and depth of information available through the Internet, the ability to rapidly and effectively reach new buyers is a critical success factor for the globally active enterprise. Digital Capital is the intellectual property, information and processes which companies own in digital format -- such as source code, web content, documentation and training materials. BGS' mission is to utilize its skills, expertise and technology to help unlock the unrealized potential in the client's Digital Capital by transforming it into forms useful and appropriate for customers in distinct markets around the world. Transforming Digital Capital(TM) means taking enterprise and application software and operating systems and creating language-specific versions. It means understanding a client's target market requirements to create and manage country and locale-specific web content. It means working with design engineers to create technical support documentation, and delivering source and multiple language versions in online and print formats. It means combining professional services with the latest in linguistic technologies to improve the speed and quality of multi-language communication services. Comprehensive Globalization Service Solutions and Technologies BGS brings a complete array of integrated, professional globalization services and related technologies that transform digital capital. Its services include international market strategy consulting, technical documentation authoring and translation, software internationalization, technology product localization, and web content creation and management. These services are united with machine translation and related linguistic technology to bring new levels of efficiency and quality to the translation process, such as automatic translation of technical document stores and online machine and human translation services. This complete service offering is specifically designed for the complete outsourcing of international product development and communication services. The objective of bringing this comprehensive palette of services together is to help an enterprise to more effectively compete in diverse local markets and focus its resources on core activities. Integration Team Launched "Once the euphoria of mergers passes, the hard work of combining global business begins,'' said Mr. Glaeser. "We are able to leverage our experience and track record of successfully combining companies into a globally integrated organization and have launched an integration team. This team, comprised of members of both organizations, has already delivered a fast track plan to bring our companies together. We are all focused on rapidly bringing the benefits of our new services to our customers around the world,'' he concluded.