Parago sells creative division to Xpedior
Sep 21, 2000 01:12 PM ET
By Peggie Evans, dbusiness.com
DALLAS, Sept. 21 (LocalBusiness.com) -- Parago Inc., an Internet-based promotional
marketing and customer relationship management company, has sold its creative
services division to Xpedior Inc., an e-commerce services company.
The sale follows Dallas-based Parago's move earlier this year from a consumer
content site to business applications and services. With its transformation, the
company changed its name from How2.com to Parago.
Under the terms of the agreement, Chicago-based Xpedior will issue between 150,000
and 179,540 new shares of its common stock to pay for the acquisition. In trading at
mid day, Xpedior (Nasdaq: XPDR) stock was selling at $4.66.
Officials for the companies could not be reached for comment.
Xpedior provides strategic, technical and creative services to help companies conduct
business over the Internet. It employs 1,700 workers in 25 cities.
In the deal with privately held Parago, Xpedior will get up to 24 new employees skilled
in creative services.
Parago uses proprietary software to help businesses boost sales and customer loyalty,
and capture demographics and other customer data.
Parago recently opened a 32,000-square-foot research and development center in
Coppell.
Parago is a portfolio company of Dallas-based CT Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: CITN), a
business incubator for Internet-based companies.
At mid day, CT Holdings stock was down 3 cents at $1.12. In the past 52 weeks, the
stock has traded between 71 cents and $7.84.
localbusiness.com
Asimba Tones Up Online Offering With Help From
Xpedior
CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 20, 2000--Xpedior Incorporated, (Nasdaq:XPDR -
news) a leading provider of eBusiness solutions to Global 2000 companies and emerging digital
businesses, has developed a robust eCommerce solution for Asimba, the premiere online sports
and fitness lifestyle site. The solution will allow Asimba to grow their business and capitalize on significant market opportunities.
``Our goal is to be the number one sports and fitness lifestyle site on the Web and Xpedior's solution brings us one step closer to
that goal,'' said Scott Hublou, Founder and Chief Asimbian. ``We wanted to leverage technology to help us expand our subscriber
base, as well as offer more services to tap into growing market opportunities. Xpedior helped us do that by delivering an
eCommerce solution that offers our clients a new service.''
In just eight weeks, the Xpedior team built the eCommerce components of Asimba's online ``Personal Nutrition Pro'' service.
Xpedior was able to garner reusable eCommerce components from its Solution Center to reduce the time to market. Using
BroadVision 1:1 Enterprise 5.0, Xpedior integrated the eCommerce components with Asimba's existing nutrition components to
provide clients with a customized diet and exercise program. Asimba and Xpedior are working on other eCommerce projects that
will enable Asimba to sell additional products and services online.
``We are thrilled to be working with an Internet innovator and leader like Asimba,'' said Xpedior Western Region Vice President
Jackie Lefton. ``Our extensive experience developing eCommerce solutions allowed us to deliver a leading edge solution to Asimba
in a short timeframe. This is Asimba's first real entry into online sales and now they can begin to capitalize on the sale of online
services and realize significant revenue.''
Asimba was recently recognized by Forbes.com as ``Best of the Web'' in the fitness category and PC-DATA's weekly report
listed Asimba as one of the Top 10 health and family web sites.
About Asimba
Asimba is the Internet's leading sports and fitness lifestyle site. With more than 700,000 members, Asimba empowers
active-minded people to reach their personal goals in general fitness, participatory sports, recreational outdoors, and personal
nutrition. By integrating expert advice and community support with personalized programs and buying guides, Asimba has become
the most comprehensive online resource for people living a sports and fitness lifestyle. Asimba, voted a Forbes Favorite ``Best of
The Web'', is a CMGI @Ventures portfolio company with headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., and can be found at
asimba.com.
About Xpedior
Xpedior (Nasdaq: XPDR - news), provides innovative, comprehensive eBusiness solutions for Global 2000 companies, government,
and emerging digital businesses. Xpedior helps its clients imagine new eBusiness capabilities, then delivers the reliable, scalable
end-to-end solutions needed to bring them rapidly to market. The company, headquartered in Chicago, has approximately 1,600
employees located in 23 offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Visit Xpedior at
www.xpedior.com or call 1-877-XPEDIOR.
biz.yahoo.com
HICAGO, Sep 19, 2000 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Xpedior Incorporated (Nasdaq: XPDR), a leading provider of eBusiness solutions
to Global 2000 companies and emerging digital businesses, and Parago Inc, a promotional marketing CRM company and subsidiary of
CT Holdings (NASDAQ: CITN), today announced Xpedior will acquire certain assets from Parago, Inc., formerly How2.com, that
will expand Xpedior's creative services capabilities. Under the terms of the agreement, Xpedior has agreed to hire up to 24 of
Parago's creative design employees for addition to Xpedior's creative services team. These strong additions to Xpedior's creative
services will permit Xpedior to offer more robust design, animation, content development, and information architecture capabilities as
well instructional software development skills.
"Building our creative services capability is a critical differentiator in our space," said David Campbell, president and CEO of Xpedior.
"This expansion will further position Xpedior to deliver the most competitive solutions with an innovative approach to eBusiness that
tightly integrates our creative and technology consulting solutions offerings."
The new members of the creative team will also bring a number of skillsets such as streaming media and online illustration, and will
enhance Xpedior's already strong creative services team and their associated products.
Parago has refocused its business model and moved away from producing How2.com content. Today, Parago is exclusively a
business to business eCRM focused on promotional management. Parago helps clients increase sales, reduce costs and enhance
customer loyalty. As a result of the change in its business focus, the creative capabilities in its Los Angeles operation were no longer
essential to its business model.
After concluding the transaction, Ken Johnsen, President and CEO of Parago said, "We are very excited for the people joining
Xpedior and are pleased for Parago's shareholders. We are confident that Xpedior will provide an excellent new home for our
talented web design staff. In addition, in the future we look forward to working with Xpedior to leverage the strengths of each
company. We believe that Parago's Continuous Customer Interaction Model, combined with Xpedior's world class e-commerce
capability, will create a powerful value proposition for their clients."
Under the terms of the agreement with Parago, Xpedior will issue a minimum of 150,000 and a maximum of 179,540 new shares of
Xpedior common stock in exchange for the assets acquired by Xpedior. |
