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	MSA in the News (Reprints)

Reprinted from:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

MSA to buy MetalSite, ScrapSite assets
By Len Boselovic, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Management Science Associates Inc. said yesterday that it would purchase the assets of MetalSite, the steelmaker-funded e-commerce venture that suspended operations in June.

MSA said it planned to relaunch the Internet site in the next several weeks, and that it also would buy the assets of ScrapSite, an affiliated MetalSite venture for buying and selling scrap metals.

Terms of the tentative purchase agreements were not disclosed.

MSA's expertise includes electronic data interchange, Internet browsers and large-scale database management � technologies that are the building blocks of electronic commerce. Its products include software for automating steel mill operations and scheduling and helping them purchase scrap.

The Point Breeze-based concern will bundle those services with MetalSite's software for automating the buying and selling of steel and scrap. "We certainly think we'll be able to cut costs a lot," said MSA Chairman Alfred A. Kuehn.

MetalSite had hired other firms to host its software and systems, functions that MSA already does in-house for other clients, Kuehn said. The company has been evaluating MetalSite's software and hardware for the last several weeks and has hired some former employees of the North Fayette venture, he said.

MetalSite was the first of a dozen or more metals-related e-commerce ventures that sprouted in the late 1990s. Launched in August 1998 with the support of Weirton Steel and other major producers, it handled more than 50,000 sales last year, when its revenue doubled and its staff grew to 130.

However, the ventures never turned a profit and their cash-poor steel industry investors lacked the deep pockets to keep MetalSite or ScrapSite going. They closed June 8 after a fruitless search for new backers.

Kuehn said the fact that MetalSite was owned by steelmakers and distributors prevented it from gaining wider acceptance among industry players who didn't have an equity stake.

Kuehn stressed the new MetalSite will be independent of steel manufacturers.

"A viable exchange cannot be owned by an active participant," Kuehn said.