San Francisco-based search and directory operation WorldPages said it has executed a letter
of intent to be acquired by St. Louis-based Advanced Communications Group Inc.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
World Pages said that Advanced also approved a letter of intent to acquire
YPtel Corp., and its subsidiaries, YPtel Inc. and Pacific Coast Publishing
Ltd. Pacific Coast is a yellow pages publisher located in Tacoma, WA that
distributes approximately 2.8 million directories to consumers in Washington,
Oregon, Utah and Arizona.
Advanced offers long distance, local, Internet access and cellular service
primarily in Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South
Dakota and Texas, and publishes yellow page directories covering portions of
Oklahoma and Texas. On Monday, National Wireless Holdings Inc. announced that
it had abandoned discussions concerning a possible merger with Advanced.
After both acquisitions are complete, Advanced is expected to change its
corporate name to WorldPages.com, WorldPages said. The WorldPages.com name
will be placed on the front covers of more than 5.2 million yellow page
directories that are delivered each year
to homes and businesses throughout a seven-state area.
WorldPages says it already hosts more than 125,000 Web sites for its
customers.
“The combined publishing and e-commerce EBITDA of the merging companies
totaled
approximately $83 million and $15 million, respectively for 1998,” WorldPages
CEO Dick Reid said.
