Sagem announced today the buying of shares of Gemplus by purchasing stocks owned by Mr Marc Lassus. With this purchase, Sagem owns about 10% of the capital of Gemplus.

This stake will strengthen the existing industrial partnerships between Sagem, world leader in fingerprint identification and Gemplus, the world’s leading provider of smart card solutions. Both companies offer right management systems matching smart card and fingerprint identification technologies with success in a burgeoning market.

The transaction has been made with a price close to the current listing on Paris Stock Exchange and a limited price complement (from 0 to 15% of the price increase of the stocks currently hold by Sagem) on the assumption that Gemplus’ median stock price would exceed 2 Euro before December 31st, 2004.

Groupe SAGEM is an internationally based high-technology group. The second largest French company in the field of telecommunications, the third European Company in electronics for defence and security and the world leader in fingerprint-based biometrics, SAGEM maintains a presence in more than 20 countries.