LAS VEGAS January 18, 2001 Score one for the underdog. Or in this case, yet another one. PurchasePro, a seemingly unlikely success story in e-business, has proven its B2B staying power one more time. Junior Johnson, the off-beat Las Vegas high roller and PurchasePro CEO, and his hometown buddies from Kentucky are playing with the big boys now, and kicking butt.
The global marketplace company announced two rather large pieces of news recently. First, PAGE Co-op, a purchasing cooperative that buys products and services for a combined 750 newspapers and printing facilities across the U.S., has established an e-commerce initiative which will begin with the purchase of PurchasePro's e-procurement solution. Specifically, PAGE Co-op will aggregate its membership's daily newspapers, non-daily publishing facilities, and a potential $175 million annual procurement spend into a single e-procurement marketplace powered by PurchasePro.
The realignment of our organization's procurement process is a monumental task, said H. Charles Berky, CEO of PAGE Co-op. After researching several B2B companies, we believe that PurchasePro can reduce our transaction processing costs and improve our overall purchasing power, bringing greater value to our member newspapers and suppiers.
PurchasePro wooed PAGE Co-op with its benefits, including PurchasePro's browser-based technology that will link the organization's entities together in an easy-to-use, browser-based application, enabling its member businesses to log into the Co-op marketplace from virtually any Internet service provider.
PurchasePro's second big win of late involves their acquisition (now complete) of Stratton Warren, an inventory management and purchasing solutions provider. The total consideration paid was $14.5 million comprised of $5.5 million in cash and $9 million in PurchasePro common stock.
The acquisition provides PurchasePro with access to Stratton Warren's customer base that purchases more than $5 billion each year from an estimated 50,000 suppliers. Stratton Warren's solution will enable PurchasePro to increase transactions and revenue in the company's public and private marketplaces.
PurchasePro will make Stratton Warren's solution available to its business members and private label marketplaces in the company's global marketplace.
