A good example of , hype over substance, timing of creative press releases and the use of big numbers that have no relation to companies values. If internet companies are valued on the inventory they are listing for third parties then what next, AMZN. based on the values of all the books for sale in the world or BII on all the computers they can list. Note basically the same news released 7 days apart and the use of
the words pending. Internet hysteria or what! Stock hit mid $13.00 and dumped fast.
Tuesday December 29, 12:26 pm Eastern Time
MBT Intnl to enter online auction market
CASTLE ROCK, Colo., Dec 29 (Reuters) - Agricultural firm MBT International Inc. said Tuesday it is poised to enter the burgeoning online auction services market as a result of its pending acquisition of HorseNet.com with about $100 million of content for sale.
The company said in a statement that it will launch the service for agricultural products within the next two weeks, creating one of the largest agricultural Web sites.
Within the first quarter of 1999, the company will launch a live monitored auction environment offering goods and services for the agricultural industry.
Horsenet.com has an existing database of 15,000 horses for sale, representing about $50 million of inventory.
MBT's stock was last at 2-1/16, up 1/8 on the day.
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Company Press Release
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 - news) -- 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 and Yahoo! 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™ 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 , Amazon.com and 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.
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