FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 5, 2005

Contact
Ian Larkin, Managing Director (312) 681-7400
Greg Long, Vice President (312) 681-7400
Brian Maney, Director, Corporate Communications (301) 951-6122

PRESCRIBING KIRBY LESTER

By Linda Corman

Rod Lester began developing counting technologies in London and in 1971 crossed the Atlantic to found Kirby Lester, LLC, which has grown to have the largest market share in automated, table top, tablet counter sales in the U.S. and Canada. Since the company's inception in Stamford, Ct., it has developed the number one brand and technology in the industry.

In a September 19, 2005 transaction, Kirby Lester was acquired by private investors, in conjunction with Kirby Lester management and Garry Zage, a leading pharmacy automation supplier and the newly appointed Kirby Lester President and CEO. American Capital Strategies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:ACAS) provided a one stop financing package, which took the form of a revolving credit facility, senior term loan, senior subordinated debt and equity.

Kirby Lester develops and manufactures pill counting machines for the approximately 55,000 retail and chain pharmacies in the United States and has an installed base of 18,000 pill counting machines. The company has two main lines of tablet counters, the KL15 and the KL16, and has several new products in the pipeline.

"Kirby Lester assembles and sells a variety of tablet counters to serve every prescription-filling need, from medium scale repacking to complete dispensing solutions," said Garry Zage, the company's newly appointed President and CEO.

Kirby Lester has joined American Capital's portfolio of more than 130 middle market companies in a wide range of industries. Since 1997, American Capital has invested approximately $6 billion in these companies. For more information about American Capital's portfolio, click here.

Inaccurately filled prescriptions reduce profits and can result in substantial liabilities. Growth in the automated tablet counter industry is expected to be propelled by the aging baby boom population's escalating need for prescription drugs. In addition, robust industry growth is anticipated because of the continued trend of ever more prescriptions being written per person, even absent demographic trends. Drug spending is expected to grow 9% annually after 2004 and reach over $400 billion in 2012. While the unit volume of prescriptions filled is projected to grow 25% overall between 2004 and 2010, the number of pharmacists is expected to grow by only 8%. With the shortfall in labor, the demand for automated tablet counting and other efficiencies is expected to escalate.

The market for automated counters is divided into two segments-"table top" counters that normally cost less than $15,000 and larger automation machines costing over $50,000.

Consumers are increasingly relying on large pharmacies and chains to obtain prescriptions and those outlets tend to use larger machines than KL produces. Nevertheless, there will long be a demand for its equipment since its smaller machines are needed to count smaller quantities. Chains tend to use robotic counting/dispensing machines for the top 100 drugs they sell and manually count the other 2,000-odd drugs they stock. In addition, the smaller machines that Kirby Lester sells are frequently used to double-check the counts of larger machines. Further, there is a stable base of small independent pharmacies whose sales volumes are expected to grow as overall prescription volumes grow.

With Kirby Lester's dominance in the counter-top segment already well established, and strong leadership to carry out plans to strengthen its already leading position, the company has a prescription for ongoing success.