DSET Corporation Announces Reverse Stock
Split
Bridgewater, NJ - August 14, 2001 - (Nasdaq: DSET) - DSET
Corporation today announced the approval of a reverse stock
split effective at the close of business on August 21, 2001,
pursuant to which one new share of common stock of the company
will be issued in exchange for every four outstanding shares
of common stock.
The DSET board of directors approved the reverse split under
New Jersey law, reducing the company's authorized common stock
four-fold from 40 million to 10 million shares.
The company's common stock is expected to begin trading at
the post-split price on August 22, 2001. For 20 trading days,
beginning on August 22, DSET will trade on the Nasdaq National
Market under the symbol DSETD, with the "D" added to indicate
that a reverse split has taken place. After the reverse split,
DSET will have approximately 2.9 million shares of common
stock outstanding.
DSET had received a notice on July 9, 2001 from Nasdaq indicating
that it faced the possibility of delisting from the National
Market System (NMS) because the company's common stock had
not maintained a minimum bid price of $1.00 over the preceding
30 consecutive trading days. There are various other listing
requirements that the company is in compliance with, such
as net tangible worth, number of market makers, trading volume,
and market value of shares.
If the company's common stock trades at more than $1.00 for
10 consecutive days before October 8, 2001, the company may
be considered in compliance with the listing requirements.
The company has until October 8 to regain compliance or the
delisting would become effective. At that time, the company
would have an additional seven days to appeal the decision.
Commenting on the reverse split, William P. McHale, Jr., DSET's
president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board
stated, "The board of directors believes that the reverse
stock split will increase the market price per share of our
common stock to well above the minimum bid price of $1.00,
thus resolving the delisting issue.
"As our investors know, we have taken a series of steps over
the past eight months to re-size and redirect the focus of
our company. These efforts have been particularly difficult
because we were in the midst of withdrawing from certain product
lines i.e. application development tools and local
number portability while simultaneously expanding our
line of electronic-bonding gateways, which were designed for
250-300 competitive service providers in the U.S.
"The sale of gateways in the U.S. to competitive service providers
continues to be difficult. We are, however, upbeat about the
prospects of our offering provisioning software that will
allow any service provider, enterprises or communication companies,
to activate new services over IP networks. We believe that
this market is truly in its early stages and there is no dominant
competitor. This software can help enterprise customers save
money, and service providers such as an RBOC can save money
and generate new revenue by offering new services to their
customers. We believe that this software is the nucleus of
our company going forward and we will continue to invest in
this area.
"There are many industry projections about the future of the
high-tech and telecom sectors indicating that it may take
until 2002 or 2003 for a turnaround. We are in the race for
the long haul and will continue to do whatever is necessary
to rebuild the company so that we can provide a return on
investment to our shareholders.
"Reducing the size of our staff, implementing a shareholder
rights plan, resolving delisting issues or merging with another
company are all examples of doing whatever is necessary to
provide an acceptable return to our shareholders."
About
DSET Corporation
DSET is a leading supplier of software known as electronic-bonding
gateways that enable competitive service providers in the
telecommunications industry to implement an automated Trading
Partner Network (TPN). A TPN plays a critical role in lowering
the cost of acquiring customers, reducing the amount of time
required to provision new phone services for customers, and
minimizing the time required to resolve service outages to
ensure higher customer satisfaction and less customer churn.
DSET provides the installation, training, interoperability-testing,
and maintenance services needed to put TPNs into production
and maintain efficient operation. DSET is headquartered in
Bridgewater, New Jersey, and the company's Web site can be
viewed at www.dset.com.
Statements regarding financial matters contained in this press
release, other than historical facts, are forward-looking.
Since all statements about DSET's plans, estimates, and expectations
are based on current projections that involve risks and uncertainties,
and are subject to change at any time, the company's actual
results may differ materially from expected results. Investors
should consider these risks and uncertainties, which are discussed
in documents filed by DSET with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. These documents identify important factors that
could cause the actual results to differ materially from those
contained in the projections or forward-looking statements.
DSET expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking
statements.
DSET Contacts
Financial: Bruce Crowell, Chief Financial Officer,
908-526-7500 Ext. 1775,
e-mail: bcrowell@dset.com
Media Relations: Dean Maskevich, Marketing Communications,
908-526-7500 Ext. 1366,
e-mail: dmaskevi@dset.com
Investor Relations: John P. Murphy, Westfield Investor Relations,
908-233-1558,
e-mail: westfieldir@worldnet.att.net
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