VOCALIS GROUP plc

Proposed placing and open offer

Vocalis Group plc ("Vocalis"), the Cambridge based speech recognition telephony company, announces a proposed placing and open offer to raise £8.7 million (net of expenses) through the issue of 10,920,202 new ordinary shares of 5p each at a price of 85p per share. The placing and open offer has been fully underwritten by Credit Lyonnais Securities.

The funds raised will primarily be used to market and further develop enhanced versions of SpeecHTML and secondly to finance the future development and marketing of Vocalis's other speech recognition products: Vocalis SpeechWare, SPEECHtel and EntelAgent.

- SpeecHTML is Vocalis's new Internet product which enables interactions with web-sites and email boxes via a telephone.

- The placing and open offer will raise £8.7 million (net of expenses) for Vocalis.

- Issue price of 85p per new ordinary share.

- Dealings in the new ordinary shares are expected to commence on 25 May 1999.

- Extraordinary general meeting to be held at the offices of Credit Lyonnais Securities, Broadwalk House, 5 Appold Street, London EC2A 2DA at 11.00 a.m. on 21 May 1999.

Commenting on the fundraising, Roy Cotterill, Chairman of Vocalis, said:

"We believe that in SpeecHTML we have the right technology at the right time. It is essential now that we have sufficient resources to develop fully and exploit the leading position our developers have given us. This fundraising enables us to do this."

Charles Halle, Chief Executive of Vocalis, commented:

"We are very pleased with the enthusiastic response we have had from institutional investors for the placing and open offer. The funds raised will enable us to take full advantage of the opportunities presented to us in the rapidly expanding speech recognition market and capitalise on the expected growth in information and commercial transactions conducted over the Internet."