scang, thanks for pointing this out.
>>Tuesday February 23, 7:38 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Araldica Completes Financing of Italian Winery Acquisition
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 23, 1999--Araldica Wineries Ltd. announced today that it has successfully completed the financing - on which it defaulted in 1998 - required for it to acquire the Italian winery and vineyard known as ''Azienda Agricola Antogianni, S.r.l.'', located in central Tuscany. This transaction was originally contracted and announced in November of 1997.
The revised terms and conditions of the acquisition contract with the sellers now specify a $1,500,000 purchase price, with a $125,000 cash down payment (which has now been remitted in good funds), and $1,375,000 in seven year subordinated convertible notes, bearing interest at the prime rate. Araldica is commencing the implementation of a five year plan for Antogianni, which will now expand its recent 4,000 case annual production to the 100,000 cases per annum level previously produced a decade ago.
Frank J. Landi, Sr., the president of Araldica, stated that ''The unrestricted availability of our own Antogianni brand wines allows the company to generate greater profits from both direct mail and internet sales than has been possible in the past, since the company will no longer have to sell the wines of other Italian producers, which were substantially more expensive to acquire. Further, given the sellers' millions of dollars in capital investments over the past ten years, we anticipate that the production levels of the Antogianni winery will be able to be expanded substantially without additional capital investments being required by Araldica.''
Landi continued: ''Since we have also made a new joint venture agreement, with Lionstone International of Lake Bluff, Ill., to immediately market our wines nationally - on a far larger scale than would otherwise be possible - and since this new joint venture agreement has the potential to account for the sale of 100% of Antogianni's annual wine production, even at greatly expanded levels, we anticipate that our future operating results will include significant new revenues and profits that will be generated by these new arrangements.''
Araldica Wineries Ltd., which trades publicly under the symbol ''AWLT'' on the OTC bulletin board, is in its sixth year of operation; its business activities include the manufacture of its own premium (DOC and DOCG) Italian wines and olive oils, as well as the importation and sale of selected Italian gourmet and specialty foods.
Contact:
Araldica Wineries Ltd., New York
Frank J. Landi, Sr., 212/982-9555 <<
JOE |
