Got pkg yesterday...10m shares outstanding as of 9/24/98...looks very interesting. Number of different revenue streams. This from today...stock at 1.25/1.37...do your own dd:
December 22, 1998 10:07
MBT International Reaches Agreement in Principal to Acquire
HorseNet.com and Becomes the Yahoo! of $300 Billion Agricultural
Industry
CASTLE ROCK, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 22, 1998--MBT International Inc. (OTC BB:MBTI) --
parent corporation of AgriMall.com announced today that it has reached an agreement in principal to
acquire HorseNet.com -- the oldest and most successful equestrian web portal in the U.S. This
acquisition will make AgriMall.com ( www.agrimall.com ) the "combination of the e-Bay (Nasdaq:EBAY)
and Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) of the $300 billion agricultural industry." With the additional Internet traffic
from HorseNet.com, the AgriMall.com site will experience more than 3 million hits per month, with a
subscription base of over 200,000 detailed profile users that is growing at a rate of approximately 6,000
new subscribers per month.
"The acquisition of HorseNet.com will strengthen MBT's position tremendously in the agricultural
marketplace," says Andy McKinnon, CEO of MBT International. "An already strong AgriMall.com will now
become the agricultural Internet powerhouse almost overnight. We expect the volume of our E-commerce
transactions to increase several million dollars. Our Internet traffic will surge up to 500 percent
immediately. Having 200,000 people with detailed member and transaction profiles in our subscriber data
base will allow us to effectively database-market all types of additional services to our subscribers,
increasing our online revenues even further," McKinnon estimates.
HorseNet.com was launched in 1994 and is considered by many to be the pioneer of equestrian Web
sites. It serves the needs of novice and professional riders, breeders and horse enthusiasts throughout the
world. HorseNet.com has a variety of services and use areas, including: horses for sale, free classified
ads, a job search service, event and show calendars, over 100 discussion forums, chat rooms, listings for
related products, useful links and the specialized PitchFork(TM) search engine. Future plans include the
launch of HorseNetTV.
HorseNet.com currently receives over 2.2 million hits per month. It was recently recognized as one of "23
incredibly successful web sites you've probably never heard of," in the McGraw-Hill book, "Striking It
Rich," by Los Angeles Times' high-tech columnist, Jacqueline Easton ( www.strikeitrich.com ).
"HorseNet has a database of 15,000 horses for sale in its HorseNet SaleBarn. The acquisition
immediately increases our inventory, giving our brokers and agents a much larger base of animals to offer
their clients," explains McKinnon. "This acquisition is a classic example of an Internet business model
where every single user of our network increases the value of the network exponentially," explains
McKinnon.
AgriMall.com, which was launched in August, 1998, is a leading agricultural Web portal, brokering farm
equipment and machinery, cattle and horses over the Internet. AgriMall.com has gained success by
allowing interested parties to buy and sell these items efficiently over the Internet by applying the Internet
business model with a "personal touch." The AgriMall has 200 brokers and agents throughout North
America who are on hand whenever necessary to facilitate the sale of high dollar items listed on its site,
such as industrial equipment or herds of cattle.
As previously announced, the total value of present listings in AgriMall.com and its companion
lifeathome.com portals now exceeds $37 million. The value of listings since the services inception now
exceeds $60 million, with broker sales totaling over $16 million.
MBT's strategy is to build very strong, target market-specific web portals such as AgriMall.com. To speed
up the process, MBT is in the process of evaluating additional highly-focused acquisitions that will further
increase both the traffic and the volume of E-commerce at AgriMall.com. MBT's plans to utilize
state-of-the-art graphic technology to facilitate the rapid influx of additional traffic and inventory on their
site. MBT applies technologies currently in use by online auction and marketing houses such as eBay
(Nasdaq:EBAY), Amazon.com (Nasdaq:AMZN) and uBid (Nasdaq:UBID).
Certain statements in this release are forward looking. Although MBT International Inc. (the Company)
believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions within the bounds of its knowledge of its
business and operations, there can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from its
expectations. For factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and
underlying assumptions, see reports by the Company filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. The comparison used in this release between eBay and AgriMall.com implies that
AgriMall.com sees itself becoming as significant a web portal in its specific market as Yahoo! already is
in a more broad consumer market.
CONTACT: Merger Communications Inc., Houston
David Drake, 713/267-2328
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