I.R.I.S. Group, of Brussels, a publicly traded company (Euronext: IRI), leader in Automatic Document Recognition (ADR), Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Electronic Document Management (EDM), today announced that it has been listed 153 amongst the fastest growing European companies included in the 2003 Europe's 500, an annual listing endorsed by 3i, Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The Europe's 500 listing identifies and honours rapidly growing European companies for their employment creation. Officially unveiled at the Awards Ceremony on 28 November, the 2003 Europe's 500 recognized I.R.I.S. for its remarkable business achievements and growth in employment.
"The listing confirms that fast growing small and medium sized companies can effectively create jobs. Belgian and European governments should focus on removing barriers and help high growth entrepreneurial businesses create employment, It is also important for these companies to look to less traditional funding routes such as private equity, as these offer more flexible terms and will be able to supply long term effective support," said Chris Rowlands, Head of Growth Capital at 3i.
"We are delighted to have made the Europe's 500 list," said Dr. Pierre De Muelenaere, President & CEO of I.R.I.S. Group, comments this new award:
"We are pleased to be listed in the 2003 Europe's list. During the period
1998 - 2003, I.R.I.S. has achieved a revenue growth of 443%, and the team has increased by 227%. We have also been able to improve significantly our proprietary technologies and our market coverage. This remarkable achievement has been possible thanks to the efforts of a very motivated and talented team".
About Europe's 500:
1. Europe's 500 has been published annually since it was launched in 1996 as an initiative of GrowthPlus, the association for dynamic entrepreneurs.
The 2003 edition is endorsed by 3i, Boston Consulting, Microsoft and PricewaterhouseCoopers and is under the patronage of Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament and Philippe Maystadt, President of the European Investment Bank.
2. The listing is intended to focus attention on entrepreneurial achievement and fast-growth European companies. Its focus on job creation and growth in medium sized enterprises is unique and distinguishes it from other business rankings.
3. Companies from the 15 EU member states, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland were able to nominate themselves for the 2003 edition. In a reflection of tough economic times, only 247 companies from 17 countries (all except Luxemburg) actually met the listing's strict criteria this year but together they have created more than 111,000 jobs.
Europe's 500 judges company performance over five fiscal years (end 1997 - end 2002). Seven criteria are used to qualify companies: entrepreneurial involvement; independence; growth in turnover (at least 50%) and employment (at least 30%); organic growth; profitability; size (minimum 50 employees at end 2002) and operational for at least 3 years.
To quantify the performance of the companies that meet these criteria, Europe's 500 uses the David Birch Employee Growth Index (which combines relative and absolute job creation). The companies are ranked according to their BIRCH Index.
All companies in the 2003 listing had a BIRCH Index equal to, or higher than, the Europe's 500 ranking last year.
4. Detailed information on each of the 2003 Europe's 500 listed companies (searchable by country, industry, employment, turnover, and complete statistical data and tables (including downloadable graphs) are available at www.europes500.com (Results).
About I.R.I.S.
Image Recognition Integrated Systems (I.R.I.S.), a Belgian company founded in 1987 and listed on Euronext Brussels (IRI), is a leader in the "Document to Knowledge" market, and provides extremely high-quality solutions for converting paper documents into electronic formats for archiving, storing, managing and sharing digital information.
In 2002, the revenue of I.R.I.S. Group was Euro 41.646.974. I.R.I.S. has more than 220 employees based in Louvain-la-Neuve and Brussels (Belgium), Massy and Rueil-Malmaison (France), Luxembourg and Delray Beach (USA).
For more information on our company, our solutions or our products, visit the I.R.I.S. website at http://www.irislink.com.
To get more information:
I.R.I.S. Europe Headquarters
Press contact: Virginie Stainier
Tel: +32 (0) 10 48 75 13
Fax: +32 (0) 10 45 34 43
E-mail: virginie.stainier@irislink.com
Journalists can register on the I.R.I.S. Extranet web site by clicking on the link http://www.irislink.com/group/press. They will receive a personal login and password to access the Extranet web site where more corporate and product information is available.
Perscontact Nederland:
Raek! Communicatie
Doddendaal 27
5655 EL Eindhoven
Telefoon: 040-251 89 38
Email: Raek@wxs.nl