Viisage, ZN Vision Technologies Merge

LITTLETON, Mass.
Published: April 4, 2003

Biometrics provider Viisage Technology announces it will merge with ZN Vision Technologies, a European-based facial-recognition provider. Under the definitive agreement, ZN will exchange all of its capital stock for more than 6 million newly issued Viisage shares, uniting a major U.S. and European player in facial-recognition technology.

Through 1,625 U.S. systems in almost 1,500 locations in 19 states, Viisage delivers more than 28 million digital-identification documents annually. In addition, Viisage installed the largest facial-recognition database worldwide, with more than 12 million images. ZN is a provider of facial-recognition solutions in ID documents, access control, criminal ID databases, intelligent video surveillance and privacy-enhancing technologies. The company has more than 170 customers, including police forces and border and immigration authorities in several states in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The transaction has been approved by the both companies’ board of directors. Completion is subject to approval by the shareholders of Viisage at a special meeting of shareholders, to be announced at a later date, as well as other customary conditions. Viisage officials say they expect to close the transaction by the end of July.

“For the past several months, the Viisage and ZN teams have been partnering on a number of large-scale government opportunities and it’s clear from the results of our initial testing that our combined products and technologies meets the increasing performance demands of the world wide marketplace,” says Bernard Bailey, president and CEO of Viisage. Marcel Yon, CEO of ZN Vision Technologies, adds, “The merger of the two corporate cultures and the combination of these patented technologies enables us to offer our customers unique global business activities.”

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ZN’s Hierarchical Graph Matching facial recognition technology has proven to be highly effective and has demonstrated exceptional customer acceptance across the globe. This technology will be a core element of combined products and solutions, according to company officials.

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Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series