Advanced Communications to Acquire WorldPages

San Francisco-based search and directory operation WorldPages said it has executed a letter of intent to be acquired by St. Louis-based Advanced Communications Group Inc.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

World Pages said that Advanced also approved a letter of intent to acquire YPtel Corp., and its subsidiaries, YPtel Inc. and Pacific Coast Publishing Ltd. Pacific Coast is a yellow pages publisher located in Tacoma, WA that distributes approximately 2.8 million directories to consumers in Washington, Oregon, Utah and Arizona.

Advanced offers long distance, local, Internet access and cellular service primarily in Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas, and publishes yellow page directories covering portions of Oklahoma and Texas. On Monday, National Wireless Holdings Inc. announced that it had abandoned discussions concerning a possible merger with Advanced.

After both acquisitions are complete, Advanced is expected to change its corporate name to WorldPages.com, WorldPages said. The WorldPages.com name will be placed on the front covers of more than 5.2 million yellow page directories that are delivered each year to homes and businesses throughout a seven-state area.

WorldPages says it already hosts more than 125,000 Web sites for its customers.

“The combined publishing and e-commerce EBITDA of the merging companies totaled approximately $83 million and $15 million, respectively for 1998,” WorldPages CEO Dick Reid said.