Adultshop shares back, then off again
By Fran Spencer
ADULTSHOP.COM shares made a brief reappearance on the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday morning but were pulled from the boards again soon afterwards because the company failed to provide enough information on a proposed acquisition.
The adult e-tailer announced yesterday morning it had agreed to acquire "a company operating in the online adult entertainment business" for a total of $12 million in cash and scrip.
Adultshop.com said the target company had been in online adult entertainment for more than two years and had about 27,000 members on its active subscriber list, with turnover and earnings expected to increase steadily.
The target company was not named, and no further information on it was provided. Just over two hours later, Adultshop.com issued a second announcement.
"In relation to the proposed acquisition that Adultshop.com announced this morning, circumstances beyond the control of the company prevent the company from immediately providing further information required by the ASX," it said.
The company said it expected to be able to provide the information "very shortly", but asked that its shares be suspended until then.
During their brief return to the boards, Adultshop.com shares dropped 2.5¢ to 20¢.
Adultshop.com chief executive
Malcolm Day said yesterday he expected to be able to reveal the details of the company involved by the end of the week.
"The reason we haven't given more information is because we can't at this point in time," he said. "On Friday (when Adultshop.com called for a trading halt) we decided to make the announcement to be proactive for the market, because we saw the share price moving up on higher volume and thought there was the potential for a leak.
"We have come to a deal in principle . . . we're in the middle of negotiating final terms and we anticipate signing a heads of agreement in the next two or three days."
Mr Day said he could not comment on where the company involved was based.
"It's one of the biggest companies in the world (in that area), they certainly have a lot of experience and certainly for Adultshop the acquisition would result in being immediately cash-flow positive," he said.
Adultshop.com said it planned to pay for the acquisition through the issue of 61.1 million Adultshop.com shares at 18¢ each, worth $11 million, and $1 million in cash payable in four consecutive monthly instalments of $250,000.
© 2000 West Australian Newspapers Limited