Tuesday February 29, 9:32 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
GETGO Mail.COM elects to spin off unified messaging subsidiary To Its Shareholders and Appoint Independent Subsidiary Board of Directors
HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 29, 2000--GETGO Mail.com Inc. (the ``Company') (Nasdaq:GTGO - news) has announced that in order to maximize shareholder value and to permit a dedicated focus on its Unified Messaging business, it will spin off its GETGO USA subsidiary in the form of a fully independent and separate company with an entirely new and independent board of directors.
The parent Company will retain the manufacturing and marketing rights to sell GETGO products and technology in Asia and fully expects to exploit its China market initially.
The Company anticipates filing a Registration Statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to register the shares of common stock of its wholly owned subsidiary GETGO Mail.com USA Inc. being spun-off to its shareholders during the second calendar quarter of this year. At this time, the Company expects to distribute 90% of the issued and outstanding shares of the subsidiary to shareholders of record at the time of the spin-off with 10% of the shares being retained by GETGO Mail.com, Inc. GETGO Mail.com USA Inc. will retain all assets associated with the Company's development of Unified Messaging products and services including patent license agreement with Visual Access Technologies, Inc., prototype engineering and design work and software development.
An initial Board of Directors of GETGO Mail.com USA, Inc. has been appointed to serve until the next annual general meeting and includes Dr. Derrin R. Smith, Chris G. Mendrop and Paul G. Lewis.
Derrin R. Smith, Ph. D. is chief economist for CeBourn, Ltd., a technology financial consultant based in Colorado. Dr Smith has more than 20 years of experience from the forefront of telecommunications and information systems technology. He is active in software and telecommunications mergers, acquisitions and business development, with formal credentials in software and telecommunications systems engineering, as well as finance and economics. Dr. Smith's experience includes software and data systems research (MIT Lincoln Laboratories, and MITRE national laboratory), architecture design for nationwide telecommunications networks (including market rollout and turn-up), and creation and direction of software ``factories' to converge products for telephony/cable operations. Dr. Smith also currently serves as an adjunct professor of graduate computer science at the University of Denver, as a member of the Computer Information Systems Advisory Board and Colorado Governor's Telecommunications Advisory Board, and as Chairman of the DUET Conference, which is a senior executive summit on the telecommunications industry. On February 14, 2000, Dr. Smith was nominated for the Smithsonian Award: Innovation and Leadership in Science & Technology.
Chris Mendrop is the CEO of Blake Street Group LLC, a holding company located in Denver, Colorado with broker/dealer and registered investment advisor subsidiaries. Mr. Mendrop has twenty-five years of experience in the investment banking and securities industry and has been involved in financing dozens of companies through private placements of equity and debt, as well as initial public offerings and secondary offerings of public companies. Mr. Mendrop is a graduate of Colorado State University in Economics and also received an MBA in Finance from the University of Colorado.
Paul G. Lewis is President and CEO of MC2 Corporation, a provider of Wide-Area-Network solutions to FORTUNE 1000 clients including AT&T, Chubb, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill-Lynch, Merck, Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, and Philip Morris. Mr. Lewis was named the Small Business Administration's Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has authored numerous articles published in various periodicals including Forbes Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Nation's Business, LAN Magazine, Sales & Marketing management, Software Solutions, and Technology Today. Mr. Lewis serves on the Novell Platinum Council Advisory Board and the Cisco Systems Steering Council. He is also a regular lecturer at Universities including the Wharton School of Business and companies including IBM on topics that include ``The Internet and it's Future Role in America.' Mr. Lewis received a BS in Computer Science from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
GETGO Mail.com USA Inc. intends to manufacture a new line of credit card size Unified Messaging products capable of receiving and sending Internet remote Voice mail, E-mail and Fax mail downloads through a cellular phone or landline telephone. The GETGO Mail(TM) card is being designed to plug into a standard cell phone or landline phone for automatic downloading. The proprietary ``Visual Access Platform' is being designed to allow voice data to be stored within an E-mail box and to be formatted with the original caller's identity so that it appears on a GETGO Mail(TM) card's screen and is directly accessible as if it were standard e-mail. Although standard e-mail and fax mail have header formats that identify the original sender, standard voice mail does not. Through this patented technology, a format for establishing original sender headers for voicemail stored in e-mail boxes is being designed, thus allowing for access to voice mail as conveniently as if it were e-mail. GETGO Mail.com has license to make and sell products that provide a visual listing of voice mail and a link to the corresponding voicemail through the Internet. For additional information on the Company's new strategic focus, please log on to www.getgomail.com.
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are ``forward-looking' statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements involve a high degree of risk and uncertainty that exist in the GetGo Mail.com's operations and business environment. Such statements are predictions only and actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to differences include the development the Company's new and uncertain business model, uncertainty regarding acceptance of the Company's products and services and the Company's limited operating history in this business segment.
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Contact:
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