News: biz.yahoo.com
Thursday April 15, 7:31 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
MBT International's Farm Equipment Auction Now Online With $15 Million of Product
$15 Million Of Product To Be Added Within Next 30 Days
CASTLE ROCK, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 15, 1999-- Over $4 Million Worth Of Horses Now
Available Via Horse Exchange Auction
MBT International Inc. (OTC:MBTI - news) today announced that its second online auction went live with $15 million worth of agricultural machinery and related products.
This new auction is reachable from MBTI's www.horsenet.com and www.agrimall.com, and the direct URLs ''www.auctions.agrimall.com/farm_equipment'' and ''www.horsenet.com/mbti/farm_equipment.'' The Company expects to add another $15 million worth of agricultural products to this and other auctions based from its new auctions.agrimall.com website within the next 30 days. The new ''auctions.agrimall.com Auction SuperSite,'' when fully completed, will offer a wide agricultural product range including livestock, equipment, feed products, feed grains, hay, fertilizer, and vehicles though a new style of interconnected specialty auctions. The Company also intends to add the full product line, as appropriate, from its other sites, www.bookstable.com and www.lifeathome.com, to the website. This will expand its offerings to include books, videos, home improvements and other products targeted at the agricultural buyer.
It is important to note that MBTI online auctions are different from almost every other online auction in that an MBTI broker represents every lot for sale. The potential buyer can contact the broker to ask specific questions about the agricultural product to get a more detailed description of the lot or to arrange for a veterinarian or mechanical inspection. MBTI also provides escrow services to the buyer-seller customers. Another unique aspect of the MBTI auction is all of the products sold are broker approved and serviced -- protecting the buyer and the seller in a much more effective manner than amazon.com's $250 fraud guarantee, for example.
Additionally Triplus, a Trimac Company (TSE/MSE:TMA), is developing a large storefront web presence on the AgriMall.com site and will help facilitate the transportation and delivery of lots bought through the auctions. In addition to being a full service transportation broker, Triplus is training all of MBTI's agricultural agents on procedures to handle the freight component of the sales transactions that are conducted on the new AgriMall/HorseNet based websites.
As previously noted, the AuctionBarn(TM) software developed by MBTI has no preset limit to the number of lots that can be online at any given time. Additionally, in order to curtail the problem of false bidding, the Company requires a buyer's premium and pre-validates the bidder's credit card. Since an MBTI broker represents all lots for sale in an MBTI auction, MBTI buyers are protected from the false-product problems as seen by other online auction sites.
Commenting on the announcement, Andy McKinnon, Chairman and CEO of MBTI, stated, ''The Company's first auction, the Horse Exchange, which went live only a few weeks ago, has received an overwhelmingly positive response from buyers and sellers alike. We believe we have created one of the most visually helpful and easy to use auction sites available today. As a result of the need and demand for such a service, we have now added an additional $15 million worth of product to the auction and expect to add another $15 million within the next 30 days. However, this is just a fraction of the market for horses, livestock and farm equipment in today's world.''
MBTI has also moved its Horse Exchange Online Auction to full operational status with the addition of $4 million worth of new horses for sale. This completes the ''shake-out'' period of the first of MBTI's AuctionBarn modules to go online. Other auction modules for cattle, heavy industrial equipment, commodities and chemicals, home and ranch, and miscellaneous, will be brought online and made reachable both through the appropriate specialty website and the new auctions.agrimall.com Auction SuperSite.
MBTI is the parent company of AgriMall.com (www.agrimall.com), Horsenet.com (www.horsenet.com), LifeAtHome.com (www.lifeathome.com) and Bookstable.com (www.bookstable.com). For more information on MBTI visit www.mbtinet.com/investors.
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.
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Contact:
MBT International, Inc.
Andy McKinnon, CEO, 303/688-0244
Fax: 303/814-2382
or
Wolfe Axelrod Associates
Jeffrey Volk
Donald C. Weinberger
Susan Bolen (media)
212/370-4500; fax: 212/370-4505
jeff@wolfeaxelrod.com |
