ePals Appoints J. Michael Kelly as Chief Operating Officer and Grants Stock Options and Restricted Share Units
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan 30, 2013 (Menafn - Marketwire via COMTEX) --ePals Corporation ("ePals" or "the Corporation") , an education media company and world's leading global learning network, is pleased to announce the appointment of J. Michael Kelly into the role as Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Kelly will report directly to Miles Gilburne, CEO, and will oversee ePals' media and publishing operations, content and programming for the ePals Global Community, enterprise services and sales to schools and districts, and global marketing.
"ePals is rapidly becoming a global media business with products and operations on three continents and a diverse set of products and services delivered in multiple languages," said Miles Gilburne, ePals Chairman and CEO. "Mike brings to ePals the experience and discipline required for ePals to meet the operating challenges it faces at this important stage in its growth."
Prior to joining ePals, Mr. Kelly was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, AOL International and Web Services where he was responsible for AOL's international operations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, including the management of leading AOL brands including Netscape, CompuServe, MapQuest, Moviefone, ICQ, and AIM. Since he left AOL in late 2005, Mr. Kelly has been a financial advisor and investor.
Mr. Kelly previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Time Warner, following Time Warner's merger with AOL in February 2000. During his tenure as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Kelly oversaw the completion of the merger and helped spearhead the integration of the two companies while managing the combined company's corporate finance functions including tax and accounting issues, financial planning, investor relations, and treasury.
Mr. Kelly is a Certified Public Accountant and a graduate of Gettysburg College with a bachelor of arts in business administration.
Grant of Options and Restricted Share Units
Mr. Kelly's appointment was formally approved at ePals' recent Board Meeting where the Board also approved the granting of stock options for certain key employees to acquire a total of 1,980,000 of the Corporation's restricted voting common shares and the granting of a total of 2,424,660 restricted share units to Mr. Kelly and certain of the Corporation's employees and consultants. The stock options and restricted share units were awarded primarily to the Corporation's senior management and new employees, and were awarded with various vesting terms. The stock options are exercisable, once vested, at a price of C0.22 per share for a period of 10 years and were granted pursuant to the Corporation's incentive stock option plan. The restricted share units are redeemable, once vested, for an equal number of the Corporation's restricted voting common shares and were awarded pursuant to the Corporation's restricted share unit plan. The shares issuable upon exercise of the stock options or redemption of the restricted share units are subject to a hold period of four months and one day commencing on the date of the grant or award.
The Corporation also noted that on January 28, 2013, the remaining 50% of the Corporation's common shares (restricted voting and voting) that were held in the escrow established upon the completion of the Corporation's qualifying transaction in July 2011 were released. Together with the initial 50% of the Corporation's common shares which were released on November 30, 2012, approximately 64.5 million common shares of the Corporation have been released from escrow during the last 60 days. ePals currently has approximately 161 million common shares outstanding, comprised of approximately 97 million voting common shares and approximately 64 million restricted voting common shares.
About ePals CorporationePals Corporation is an education media company and the leading Global Learning Network. Focused on the K-12 market, ePals offers elementary and secondary school administrators, teachers, students and parents worldwide a safe and secure platform for building educational communities, providing quality digital content and facilitating collaboration for effective 21st century learning. ePals' award-winning products include: the ePals Global Community(R); Learn365(TM); In2Books(R), a common core eMentoring program that builds reading, writing and critical thinking skills; and popular children's educational publishing brands including Cricket(R) and Cobblestone(R). ePals customers and partners include the International Baccalaureate, Microsoft Corporation, Dell Inc., IBM Corp., National Geographic and leading school districts across the United States and globally. ePals serves approximately 1 million classrooms and reaches millions of teachers, students and parents in approximately 200 countries and territories. Visit www.epals.com. For Corporate information, visit www.corp.epals.com.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Aric HolsingerChief Financial OfficerePals CorporationPhone: (703) 885-3400aholsinger@corp.epals.com
Cory Pala Investor Relations E.vestor Phone: (416) 657-2400 cpala@corp.epals.com
SOURCE: ePals
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