Lernout & Hauspie offloads its assets

NEWS Bowne & Co, the world's largest financial printer, has agreed to buy Mendez S.A. and related assets from Lernout & Hauspie for $44.5m. Mendez is a document translation and website globalisation service. The Bowne offer more than doubles the $27m offer recently made by Lionbridge technologies. Lernout & Hauspie had been desperate to offload assets following its highly publicised fraud scandals last year. Founders Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie are currently in jail awaiting trial. The agreement is subject to the approval of the US Bankruptcy Court, which has scheduled a hearing for 7 August 7 2001.