LAS VEGAS, Sept. 20, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- PurchasePro (Nasdaq:PPRO) announced today that Arch Coal, Inc. (NYSE:ACI), the nation's second largest coal producer, has renewed its software license agreement for PurchasePro e-Source, the company's reverse auction software. The renewal of Arch Coal's e-Source license caps a highly successful three-month period, ending August 31, 2001, where the Fortune 500 corporation held eight auctions, driving $14 million in volume through e-Source. Arch Coal expects to receive a complete return on its software investment in less than 30 days.
"e-Source has given us significant savings over conventional bidding processes and is the premiere sourcing tool in our procurement tool box," said Darrel May, director of material management for Arch Coal. "Our extended agreement with PurchasePro gives us long-term vision on how we will improve our procurement processes and lowers our overall costs at our mining operation. e-Source delivers value to our corporation and ultimately, our constituencies."
Since being introduced by PurchasePro in June 2001, e-Source, one of the most comprehensive and fastest growing strategic-sourcing tools in the country, has been used in 374 reverse auctions conducted by 16 buyers, including 11 Fortune 500 companies, one Global 500 company and three S&P 500 companies. These auctions attracted more than 7,100 bids from more than 2,500 suppliers. Low bids totaled nearly $158 million, compared to opening or high bids totaling more than $192 million. Thus the market spread, or implied savings, between total low and high bids was approximately $34 million.
PurchasePro e-Source enables qualified suppliers to bid for a buyer's business in real time over the Internet. With e-Source, buyers can create and send electronic requests for information (RFI) and requests for quotes (RFQ), enhance supplier collaboration, determine auction times, resolve logistics, source from their existing suppliers as well as the PurchasePro commerce network of more than 250,000 businesses, and conduct real-time auctions from their desktops.
About Arch Coal
Arch Coal is the nation's second largest coal producer with subsidiary operations in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Through these operations, Arch Coal provides the fuel for approximately six percent of the electricity generated in the United States.
About PurchasePro
PurchasePro(r), www.purchasepro.com, is a B2B e-commerce leader with the stated goal of providing software to enable enterprises of all sizes to gain universal access to the world's largest commerce network. The PurchasePro commerce network comprises more than 250,000 businesses, authorized to buy and sell, and powers hundreds of private-label marketplaces. PurchasePro provides the following B2B e-commerce solutions: e-Procurement for enterprise-wide procurement; e-Source for strategic sourcing; v-Distributor for online distributors; and e-MarketMaker for Internet market makers.
This news release may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to the "Safe Harbor" created by Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent only the views of certain members of management and are based on limited information available to us now, which is subject to change. We have no current plan to update these statements. Actual results may differ substantially from what we say today and no one should assume at a later date that the forward-looking statements provided herein are still valid. They speak only as of today.
For more information about these risks and uncertainties, see the SEC filings of PurchasePro.com, Inc., including the section titled "Factors That May Affect Results" in its 10-K filing for the period ended December 31, 2000, and its 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2001, which are available from the company on request and on the Internet at the SEC's Website, www.sec.gov. Note: PurchasePro is a service mark of PurchasePro.com Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.