MBTI Acquires HorseNet.com; Website Traffic Surges 3.5 Million Hits Per Month
Business Wire - January 19, 1999 12:40
CASTLE ROCK, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 19, 1999--MBT International Inc. (OTC BB:MBTI), parent company of AgriMall.com ( www.agrimall.com ), announced today that the Company has completed its acquisition of HorseNet.com ( www.horsenet.com ), the leading site for the Equine and Equestrian marketplace. Although specific terms of the transaction were not disclosed, the Company stated that payment was a combination of cash and private stock.
"The acquisition of HorseNet.com solidifies our position as one of the fastest growing malls on the Internet," says Andy McKinnon, CEO of MBTI. "We have acquired one of the finest sites on the Internet. HorseNet.com logged over 3.5 million hits in the last thirty days, and traffic is rapidly accelerating. With 40,000 subscribers representing a huge, geographically diversified customer base, HorseNet.com provides tremendous opportunities to cross market agricultural products and significantly increase advertising revenue. These critical elements move MBTI much closer to its goal of building the Internet's preeminent virtual mall."
Unlike companies such as Skymall (Nasdaq:SKYM) or iMall (Nasdaq:IMAL) that primarily target consumer markets, MBTI's AgriMall.com focuses exclusively on the agricultural industry, which represents a $300 billion market in the U.S. alone. "Even though we have a very narrow focus, our market size dwarfs that of Amazon.com, whose worldwide market potential was recently estimated in "Businessweek" at only $136.1 billion," explains McKinnon.
According to HorseNet.com Web Master Richard Lasater, "We have always been a leader and its only natural that MBTI would choose HorseNet.com to bring the Equine and Equestrian based market to their core websites. HorseNet.com's AuctionBarn(TM) technology is an exceptional fit to MBTI. With the unique synergy of MBTI's existing proprietary applications, and now two groups of excellent programmers, we are developing a fully automated system where products added to MBTI's network by their sales staff will be online and selling within seconds."
With the addition of HorseNet.com's inventory of 15,000 horses representing over $50 million, the combined value of present listings in AgriMall.com and its companion www.lifeathome.com portal exceeds $87 million. Their total value of listings since inception is over $110 million, with broker sales exceeding $16 million.
MBTI's strategy is to build very strong web portals such as AgriMall.com and become the leader in the $300 billion agriculture industry. To accelerate this process, MBTI is currently evaluating highly focused acquisitions that will further increase both the traffic and volume of e-commerce at its AgriMall.com site. MBTI 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. 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 MBT International filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
CONTACT: MBT International Inc., Castle Rock
Andy McKinnon, 403/932-1122
or
Merger Communications, Houston
David Drake, 713/267-2328
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