Parens are used to capture pieces for backreferences, with the contents of the first set going into $1, the second into $2 and so. In this case:
$variable =~ m/-----;=(99);helloworld/;

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Most likely you want something more general, but this shows you to how capture "99" for use in the $1 backreference.

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In reply to Re: Reg ex question by markjugg
in thread Reg ex question by costas

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