 Gemplus
receives AMF approval for share buy-back program
Luxembourg, 20 December 2004, Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext:
LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world's leading provider of smart card
based solutions, today announces that it has received the approval from the AMF
(Autorité des Marchés Financiers) on 15 December 2004 for its information
memorandum regarding a buy-back program of up to 10% of Gemplus shares. This
corresponds to up to 59.5 million shares and could amount to a maximum of 178
million Euros.
The objectives are the cancellation of shares, the allocation of shares to
employees benefiting from a share allocation program such as the company stock
option scheme, the sale or transfer of shares resulting from convertible debt
instruments and the remittance of shares as payment or exchange in relation to
possible external growth transactions.
For more information, please visit http://investor.gemplus.com
About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is
the world's leading player in the smart card industry in both revenue and total
shipments (source: Gartner-Dataquest (2004), Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor.).
It has sold over 4 billion smart cards. With security at its core, and 2400
patents produced by its innovative R&D team, Gemplus delivers a wide range
of portable, personalized solutions in areas including Identity, Mobile
Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Healthcare,
WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, and access control.
Gemplus' revenue in 2003 was 749
million Euros.
www.gemplus.com
For more information, contact:
Press
Gemplus
Jane Strachey
Tel.: +33 (0) 4 42 36 46 61
Mob: +33 (0) 6 76 49 35 93
jane.strachey@gemplus.com
Edelman
Stephen Benzikie
Tel.: +44 (0) 207 344 1325
Mob: +44 (0) 774 003 8929
stephen.benzikie@edelman.com
Financial Communication
Gemplus
Celine Berthier
Tel.: +41 (0) 22 544 5054
celine.berthier@gemplus.com
Fineo
Tel.: +33 (0) 1 56 33 32 31
investors@gemplus.com
©2004 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus and the Gemplus
logo are trademarks and service marks of Gemplus S.A. and are registered in
certain countries. All other trademarks and service marks, whether registered or
not in specific countries, are the property of their respective owners.
Some of the statements contained in this release constitute
forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our
future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties,
and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of
activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future
results, levels of activities, performance, or achievements expressed or implied
by such forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ
materially. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the
forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results,
levels of activity, performance or achievements. Factors that could cause actual
results to differ materially from those estimated by the forward-looking
statements contained in this release include, but are not limited to: trends in
wireless communication and mobile commerce markets; our ability to develop new
technology, and the effects of competing technologies developed and expected
intense competition generally in our main markets; profitability of our
expansion strategy; challenges to or loss of our intellectual property rights;
our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships in our major
businesses; our ability to develop and take advantage of new software and
services; and the effect of future acquisitions and investments on our share
price. Moreover, neither we nor any other person assumes responsibility for the
accuracy and completeness of such forward-looking statements. The
forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of this
release. We are under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements
after this date to conform such statements to actual results or to reflect the
occurrence of anticipated results.
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