NORTH CANTON, Ohio -- Diebold, Incorporated (NYSE: DBD) has amended the terms of its non-binding letter of intent relating to the the acquisition of Global Election Systems Inc. (Amex: GLE; Toronto: GSM) by Diebold that was announced on June 21.
As a result of due diligence and Global's financial performance, Diebold revised its offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Global -- currently 21.4 million shares on a fully diluted basis -- for a combination of cash (20 percent) and stock (80 percent) valued at $1.135 per common share of Global Election Systems.
The stock portion of the consideration is subject to a maximum of .03027 Diebold shares and a minimum of .02421 Diebold shares for each Global Election Systems share, according to a Diebold news release.
Diebold recently completed financing of approximately $5 million to Global, and is producing more than 500 AccuVote-TS touch screen voting terminals for Global under a contract manufacturing agreement.
"This acquisition would complement our existing core competencies in self-service technology and security," said Walden W. O'Dell, Diebold chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Global possesses outstanding voting solutions, and would provide Diebold with considerable expertise and knowledge of the U.S. election solutions market."
According to O'Dell, Diebold expects the U.S. voting marketplace to generate $1.5 to $2 billion in hardware revenue during the next four to five years.
Procomp Amazonia Industria Eletronica, a Brazilian company purchased by Diebold in October of 1999 sold 186,800 polling terminals and accessories, software development, installation, training, logistics and service to Brazil's Tribunal Superior Eleitoral The order, valued at US $105.5 million, was the largest contract in Diebold's history.
More than 850 jurisdictions in North America utilize Global Election Systems' AccuVote (optical scan) or AccuVote-TS (touch screen) voting systems. Its product line also includes VoteRemote, a high speed automated absentee ballot printing and processing system.
