TORONTO
and BOSTON – May 17 , 2005 – Avotus® Corporation (TSX Venture: AVS) today
announced that its common shareholders, at its annual meeting of shareholders
which took place yesterday at Avotus’ offices, approved a going private
transaction to be accomplished via a common share consolidation of one new
Avotus common share for each 1,850,000 existing Avotus common shares. The common
share consolidation was approved by holders of 99.89 % of the common shares
present at the annual meeting or voting by proxy, according to Computershare
Investor Services. The common share consideration was also approved by holders
of 99.77% of those common shares that will be redeemed following the
consolidation, present at the annual meeting or voting by proxy.
Avotus
plans to immediately file an application with the TSX Venture Exchange to delist
its common shares. It is anticipated that the Avotus common shares will be
delisted as of the end of the trading day on Friday, May 20, 2005. Avotus also
plans to file an amendment to its constating documents shortly after the
delisting of its common shares in order to effect the consolidation. Upon filing
of the amendment to the Avotus constating documents, Avotus plans to apply to
applicable provincial securities commissions to cease to be a reporting issuer
in the jurisdictions it currently has that status. Avotus anticipates this
entire process will take two to three weeks to complete.
If you are a
holder of Avotus common shares, following the effectiveness of the common share
consolidation, your Avotus common shares will represent a right to receive $0.25
per pre-consolidation common share. In order to redeem your Avotus common shares
for cash, you will need to complete and submit the Letter of Transmittal, in
accordance with the directions set forth therein, that you received in your
management information circular on or around April 20, 2005. If you have any
questions or require a copy of the Letter of Transmittal, please contact Leslie
Haddow of Avotus Corporation at mailto:leslie.haddow@avotus.com, or
(905) 568-6918.
About Avotus
Avotus is the
leader for groundbreaking technology-based telecommunications and data expense
management (TEM) solutions. The company has a 20-year history of empowering
companies of all sizes to gain lasting control over their complete worldwide
communications environment through the effective management of their voice, data
and converged communications spend. Only Avotus brings together e-Procurement,
expense, and usage management into a fully integrated solution. Avotus provides
dramatic and verifiable cost savings of as much as 50% of an enterprise’s
current communications spend and a triple digit in-year ROI. Combining
technology, automation, communications experts, and industry best practices,
Avotus solutions make it possible to not only realize significant spend
reduction but to continuously verify and permanently implement all cost and
process improvements. Avotus offers the widest, deepest and most flexible
solution set available including an onsite enterprise implementation, a hosted
Application Service Provider (ASP) model, and a completely outsourced
value-added managed solution.