AmericanGreetings.Com Completes Tender Offer for
Egreetings, Closes Acquisition
CLEVELAND, March 19 /PRNewswire/ -- AmericanGreetings.com today
announced that it has completed its cash tender offer for all of
the outstanding shares of common stock of Egreetings Network, Inc.
(Nasdaq: EGRT)
at 85 cents net per share, and that the acquisition of Egreetings
by AmericanGreetings.com has closed.
Josef Mandelbaum, chairman and chief executive officer of AmericanGreetings.com,
said the conclusion of the acquisition is a watershed event for
the company. "The addition of Egreetings will allow us to increase
and diversify our audience with popular and established brands,"
Mandelbaum said. "We are also very excited to continue and hope
to expand the exclusive relationship Egreetings has established
with the Microsoft Network. This acquisition adds to the momentum
we've been building since last year with both consumers and advertisers,
and should contribute to our goal of becoming profitable by the
fourth quarter of this calendar year."
In the offer, which commenced Feb. 12, 2001 and expired at 3 p.m.
EST on March 19, 2001, a total of 31,747,524 shares of Egreetings
common stock, or 94.89 percent of the outstanding shares, were validly
tendered and not withdrawn, all of which were accepted for payment.
Each share of Egreetings common stock not tendered was converted
into the right to receive 85 cents in cash, without interest, pursuant
to a merger of Egreetings with a wholly owned subsidiary of AmericanGreetings.com.
The total value of the transaction was approximately $28.4 million.
Mandelbaum said that both Egreetings and Beat Greets, its spin-off
site, will continue to operate as separate brands. According to
February's Nielsen//NetRatings for home and work Internet users,
AmericanGreetings.com was the 17th most visited site on the web
with 13.2 million unique visitors, while Egreetings was 71st with
4.6 million unique visitors. Accounting for the 6.4 percent overlap
in the two audiences, the combined company would have been the 12th
most visited site on the web in February with 16.8 million unique
visitors.
About AmericanGreetings.com
AmericanGreetings.com is the online greetings and personal expression
subsidiary of American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM),
the world's largest publicly held creator, manufacturer and distributor
of greeting cards and social expression products. AmericanGreetings.com
consistently ranks as one of the top 20 Web sites in terms of monthly
unique visitors, according to
Nielsen//NetRatings. Through partnerships with AOL, AIM, ICQ and
Netscape, AmericanGreetings.com (AOL Keyword: AG) reaches 80 percent
of all Web users. It offers more than 15,000 total greetings, the
largest selection available on the Web. Branded content available
from AmericanGreetings.com includes online cards and entertainment
from Egreetings Network, and the eAgents newsletter,
which consolidates and delivers personalized content from the top
sites on the Internet to subscribers.
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