03/09 09:14 ERA West Completes Acquisition of City Online, Inc. <ERAW.OB>
ERA West Completes Acquisition of City Online, Inc.
OCALA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 8, 1999--ERA West (OTC BB:ERAW) is pleased to announce the acquisition of an 80% controlling stock interest of City Online, Inc., an Internet Service Provider, which offers service in over 1,800 cities in the US and Canada.
The acquisition closed effective March 5th 1999. The consideration for the acquisition was a combination of cash and ERA West stock.
City Online (www.city-online.com) offers several product lines in connection with its core Internet access business: web hosting, web design, and Internet consulting. City Online offers turnkey, private-label Internet services for Multi Level Marketing Organizations and other marketing groups. City Online also boasts being the exclusive Internet Service Provider for the National Computer Association. The National Computer Association has a member base of over 4,000 individual computer and software retail outlets which are authorized to resell City Online internet services to its retail customer base of more than 500,000.
Management for ERA West expects to grow City Online's "City Directory" product, which provides detailed, localized information on over 150 cities and has been adding an average of 10 new cities per week to the directory during the last 6 weeks. ERA West and City Online have engaged CCISI Solutions, a nationwide marketing company specializing in Internet advertising and services, to market the "City Directories". Based on CCISI's projections, management for ERA West predicts that advertising revenues from the City Directory in 1999 will increase the overall company sales materially.
According to ERA West's CEO, Mr. Frank Speight, "Recently the management of ERA West has begun to turn its focus away from the highly competitive, small profit margin telecommunications industry and focus on the more profitable and less capital intensive Internet sector, and we are pleased that this acquisition will continue implementing this strategy."
ERA West, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Dynamic Bell, an Australian company, offers telecommunications services and software, internet access, web publishing and web hosting in Australia. The acquisition of DigiCon in December 1998 and the new addition of City Online will continue to refocus the company as a global Internet company.
Safe Harbor Statement: Certain information included in this communication contains statements that are forward-looking, such as statements relating to the future anticipated direction of the industry, plans for future expansion, various business development activities, planned capital expenditures, future funding sources, anticipated sales growth and potential contracts. These forward statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual operations or results to differ materially from those anticipated. --30--lhs/mi*
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