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	MSA in the News (Reprints)

Reprinted from:
SteelWEEK Online

MSA to relaunch Metalsite and Scrapsite by September
29 August 2001

Management Science Associates (MSA), which signed a letter of intent to acquire MetalSite and ScrapSite last week, told SteelWEEK that it plans to relaunch the e-commerce sites in September.

MetalSite was idled on 8 June due to weak conditions in the industry. MetalSite is the online e-business pioneer that brought internet buying and selling to the steel industry.

Founded in 1998 by Weirton Steel, it grew to be the largest e-commerce operation in the steel industry and last year handled over 50,000 sales, effectively doubling its revenue.

LTV Steel and Bethlehem Steel, among several other US steel producers, later became stakeholders in MetalSite.

In 2000, MetalSite launched ScrapSite, an e-commerce auction site for scrap metals.

However, industry concern over the ownership of an e-commerce site by active participants in the same market, raised questions about the neutrality of such exchanges and profits accruing to competitors from the use of such sites.

Pittsburgh based, MSA hopes that its ownership of the exchange will put such concerns to rest.

MSA provides technologies underlying e-commerce, like electronic data interchange, internet browsers, data mining, on-line analytic processing and security and privacy practices.

The acquisition will take place through Metal Supply Alliances, an MSA subsidiary, which will purchase the assets, including software and the MetalSite and ScrapSite names.

Following the take-over, MSA Process Automation Solutions and Services (MSA PASS), an MSA spin-off, will integrate its real-time scheduling and process control systems with MetalSite and ScrapSite software to reduce operating costs.