Quepasa.com Liquidating Assets

PHOENIX (AP) â€” Quepasa.com, a bilingual Web site geared toward Hispanics, announced Wednesday it will liquidate its assets. <br><br>The Nasdaq Stock Market halted trading of Quepasa.com Inc. on Wednesday.

Wednesday, December 27th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PHOENIX (AP) â€” Quepasa.com, a bilingual Web site geared toward Hispanics, announced Wednesday it will liquidate its assets.

The Nasdaq Stock Market halted trading of Quepasa.com Inc. on Wednesday. The stock last traded at 9 cents per share, down 3 cents.

Included in the liquidation are the Quepasa.com Web site and three wholly owned subsidiaries: RealEstateEspanol.com, shopping site Etrato.com and Credito.com. All of the sites will remain in operation during the liquidation.

The company was greeted with great fanfare in its home city of Phoenix when it was introduced in 1998. But despite heavy advertising and signing entertainer Gloria Estefan as a spokeswoman, Quepasa struggled in the shadow of more popular broad interest portals such as America Online, Netscape and Yahoo!

The company has been seeking a buyer since May. It fired 38 of its 58 employees Nov. 14, the day before announcing third-quarter losses of $7.9 million.

``After carefully evaluating every option to maximize shareholder value over the past nine months, our board of directors has determined that liquidation following the sale of our assets is the best way to maximize value and provide liquidity to our shareholders,'' Gary L. Trujillo, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a news release.

The plan is subject to shareholder approval, and a meeting is expected in the next few months, the company said. Proceeds from the liquidation, which includes furniture, fixtures and equipment, will be distributed to shareholders.

Glenn Powers, an analyst with Newport Beach, Calif.-based Roth Capital Partners Inc., said the announcement wasn't a big surprise.

``What you're seeing out there in ad-supported Web media properties is companies that are getting sold are essentially getting sold for nothing,'' Powers said.

The Quepasa site includes a search engine, free e-mail, free Web pages, Spanish language news feeds, worldwide weather information, chat rooms, games, maps and message boards.

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On the Net:

Quepasa site: www.quepasa.com