Earful of Books — AANP Complete Merger; Audiobooks Chain Goes Public in Merger to Accelerate Growth Plans

Business Wire,  July 13, 2001  

Tags: Books, merger

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Business Editors

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12, 2001

Earful of Books, the nation's first and largest audiobooks-only chain, has gone public by absorbing American Absorbents Natural Products, Inc. (Nasdaq-BB:AMAB), both based in Austin, Texas. Merger plans by the Austin-based firms, initially disclosed July 5, were completed today.

"Earful of Books (www.earful.com) will shortly file a proxy asking shareholder approval to change the name of the company to Earful of Books, Inc.," said Paul A. Rush, CEO and Chairman of Earful. "Earful will maintain offices in Austin and seek 'EARS' as its new trading symbol," Rush said.

American Absorbents common stock -- traded on the Over The Counter Bulletin Board (OTC-BB) under the symbol of AMAB -- closed at 13 cents a share before the merger announcement last week. At close of market today/Thursday, the issue, was trading at 68 cents a share and hit a high of 95 cents that day.

Total shares of common stock outstanding post-merger are 17,804,579. Earful shareholders of record as of June 22, 2001, received 13,531,480 common shares, and AANP shareholders of record on that date received 4,273,099 common shares.

Barso Global Management, Ltd. of Toronto, Canada, has been retained to sell AANP's primary assets, the nation's largest zeolite mine and its plant in south central Oregon. AANP markets products containing the volcanic mineral, which is used primarily for odor control, gas or liquid absorption, the slow release of nutrients into the soil and in animal feed supplements.

"Proceeds generated from the sale of AANP assets will be used to accelerate the national expansion of our nine-year-old, 15-store chain, as well as to reduce outstanding debt," Rush stated. "Current units are located in Texas, California, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Washington, with 32 new stores under contract in those areas as well as Florida.

"Our new capital structure also will allow us to achieve our three-year goal with Blockbuster Video (NYSE:BBI) to co-locate up to 150 Earful stores at existing premier Blockbuster sites by mid-2003," he emphasized. "Four Earful units are already co-located at Blockbuster locations."

Each Earful of Books carries approximately 7,000 titles, abridged and unabridged, on cassettes and compact discs, which can be purchased or rented.

According to the Audio Publishers Association (www.audiopub.org), a 700-member trade organization over which Rush presided the past two years, the audiobooks industry grew to $2.4 billion in sales in 2000. Only about 70 audiobooks-only stores now exist in the nation, most concentrated in high-traffic metropolitan corridors.

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