|
VeriChip Corporation Completes
$8 Million Debt Financing
Company to use proceeds, in
part, to pay down $5.3 million of debt obligation to Digital Angel,
thereby eliminating debt service payments to Digital Angel until
September 2009 and increasing 2008 working capital
DELRAY BEACH, FL – March 4, 2008 –
VeriChip Corporation (“VeriChip” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: CHIP), a
provider of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems for
healthcare and patient-related needs, announced today it has entered
into an $8 million debt financing with Valens Offshore II, Corp
(“Valens”). The financing is a thirteen-month, non-convertible term
loan bearing interest at an annual rate equal to 12%. In
consideration of the financing, VeriChip issued to Valens 120,000
shares of the Company's common stock. The
Company will use $5.3 million of the proceeds from this financing to
prepay debt owed to Digital Angel (NASDAQ: DIGA).
As a result of this prepayment, the Company will not be
obligated to make any further debt service payments to Digital Angel
until September 2009. By eliminating all 2008 debt service payments,
the financing will result in an increase of more than $3.6 million
to working capital for the Company in 2008.
Scott R. Silverman, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of VeriChip, said, “This new financing not only
enables us to eliminate more than $5 million in debt owed to Digital
Angel, but also provides us sufficient working capital to fund our
business plan, which includes a new consumer marketing initiative,
through early 2009.”
About VeriChip
Corporation
VeriChip Corporation, headquartered in
Delray Beach, Florida,
develops, markets and sells RFID systems used to identify, locate
and protect people and assets. VeriChip's goal is to become the
leading provider of RFID systems for people in the healthcare
industry. The Company recently began marketing its VeriMed™ Patient
Identification System for rapidly and accurately identifying people
who arrive in an emergency room and are unable to communicate. This
system uses the first human-implantable passive RFID microchip, the
implantable VeriChip™, cleared for medical use in October 2004 by
the United States Food and Drug Administration.
For more information on VeriChip, please
call 1-800-970-2447, or email
info@verichipcorp.com.
Additional information can be found online at
www.verichipcorp.com.
This press
release contains certain “forward-looking” statements (as such term
is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995).
Forward-looking statements included in this press release include,
without limitation, those concerning expectations for the Company’s
ability to fund its business plan. These forward-looking statements
are based on the Company’s current expectations and beliefs and are
subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Among
the important factors that could actual results to differ materially
from those expressed in, or implied by, the forward-looking
statements are our ability to successfully implement our business
strategy; our expectation that we will incur losses, on a
consolidated basis, for the foreseeable future; the relative
maturity in the United States and limited size of the markets for
our infant protection and wander prevention systems and vibration
monitoring instruments; the degree of success we have in leveraging
our brand reputation, reseller network and end use customer base for
our infant protection and wander prevention systems to gain inroads
in the emerging market for asset/staff location and identification
systems; the rate and extent of the U.S. healthcare industry’s
adoption of RFID asset/staff location and identification systems;
the relative degree of market acceptance of our zonal, or cell ID,
active RFID systems compared to competing technologies, such as
lower power Ultra Wide Band-based location technologies; uncertainty
as to whether we will be able to increase our sales of infant
protection and wander prevention systems outside of North America;
our reliance on third-party dealers to successfully market and sell
our products; uncertainty as to whether a market for our VeriMed
system will develop and whether we will be able to generate more
than a nominal level of revenue from the sale of these systems; and
market acceptance of our VeriMed system, which will depend in large
part on the future availability of insurance reimbursement for the
VeriMed system microchip implant procedure from government and
private insurers, and the timing of such reimbursement, if it, in
fact, occurs. Additional information about these and other factors
that could affect the Company’s business is set forth in the
Company’s various filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including those set forth in the Company’s 10-K filed on
April 2, 2007, under the caption “Risk Factors.” The Company
undertakes no obligation to update or release any revisions to these
forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after
the date of this statement or to reflect the occurrence of
unanticipated events, except as required by law.
Contact:
VeriChip Corporation
Allison Tomek
561-805-8008
atomek@digitalangel.com |
CEOcast
Dan Schustack
212-732-4300
dschustack@ceocast.com |
Back
|