Berry Launches New Go-to-Market Approach

DENVER, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The Berry Company LLC ("Berry"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Local Insight Regatta Holdings, Inc., today announced the launch of an innovative new business model developed to help its small business clients generate local leads from multiple sources and platforms.  To deliver on its mission to be a local leads expert, the new go-to-market approach is designed to provide the company's small and medium-sized business clients with year-round sales, service and measurement of print and online leads.

"The launch is the culmination of the strategy and plans we have been working on for the past two years," said Scott Pomeroy, president and CEO of Berry.  "We are expanding our legacy role as a print yellow pages publisher to become a local search services provider in order to meet our clients' need for leads from the many sources consumers use today as they search for local businesses.  We have spent the last year re-engineering every aspect of our business, which we believe will fundamentally transform how we operate and serve our clients."

Berry's new business model includes an expanded, integrated solution set consisting of print directories, Internet Yellow Pages, web sites, search engine marketing and optimization and video, delivered in conjunction with best-in-class partners.

To support the new strategy and enhance efficiency and effectiveness, Berry also announced an organizational restructuring.  Consistent with its client focus, the company will continue to locate its client service teams in regional offices close to its customers.

Operations and staff functions will be provided through three centers of excellence:

• Corporate headquarters in Denver, Colorado, which will provide executive leadership and corporate staff functions.
• Dayton, Ohio, the center for  Enterprise Marketing and two of the company's specialized sales units, including a new unit which will be hiring new positions in 2010.
• Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where an ISO 9000-certified affiliated operating company of Berry will focus on production and IT infrastructure.  

The restructuring plan will affect approximately 320 existing positions across the United States. Approximately 90 production positions will be relocated in the near future to Berry's operating affiliate in the Dominican Republic.  The company also plans to add up to 100 employees in client-facing roles over the course of the next year.  Up to 50 percent of those new positions will be located at Berry's Dayton campus.

As part of the restructuring, Berry will close its offices in Hudson, Ohio, and Erie, Pennsylvania. In addition, Berry's office in Matthews, North Carolina will be consolidated into the company's office in High Point, North Carolina.

"Our objective is to align our resources with the growth areas of the business," said Pomeroy.  "We will continue to rely on our partners to deliver what they do best while we focus on our core sales and marketing competency."

Berry plans to introduce the new go-to-market approach on a market-by-market basis over the course of 2010.  The launch includes a conversion to a new, integrated technology platform that will support the new business model.  

About Local Insight Regatta Holdings, Inc.

Local Insight Regatta Holdings, through its subsidiary The Berry Company LLC, is a leading provider of local search solutions, generating leads for its advertising clients and enabling consumers to efficiently find the products and services they need.  The Berry Company serves advertising clients in 42 states, publishing nearly 900 print Yellow Pages directories on behalf of approximately 130 telco and other customers.  As an authorized reseller of YELLOWPAGES.com™ in all of its markets, The Berry Company provides its clients with online listings and video advertising through this leading national Internet Yellow Pages site.  The company also provides small and medium-sized businesses with search engine marketing and optimization, and is a Google™ AdWords Authorized Reseller.  

For more information, please see www.localinsightregattaholdings.com. Regatta is a wholly-owned, indirect subsidiary of Local Insight Media Holdings, Inc.  

Local Insight Media Holdings, Inc. is a portfolio company of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, or WCAS. Since its founding in 1979, WCAS has organized 15 limited partnerships with total capital of over $20 billion.  Since its inception, WCAS has invested in more than 150 companies in its target industries and has funded over 650 follow-on acquisitions.

Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue," "assumption" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Regardless of any identifying phrases, these statements relate to future events or our future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

The following important factors, among others, could cause such a difference: (i) declines in our revenue; (ii) the loss of any of our key customer agreements or our inability to enforce or fully realize our rights under those agreements; (iii) impairment of our rights, or a decrease or cessation of payments to us, under existing agreements if bankruptcy proceedings were brought by or against the parties to such agreements or certain third parties and any of those agreements are rejected or payments to us are challenged as part of those proceedings; (iv) a declining usage of printed Yellow Pages directories or a decrease in the number of businesses that advertise with us; (v) the effects of the economic recession, which is causing us to experience declining revenue and to incur increased bad debt expense, and of war, terrorism or other catastrophic events; (vi) increased competition from incumbent and independent Yellow Pages directory publishers, Internet-based advertisers and search engines, as well as other types of media; (vii) rapid technological developments and changing preferences in the Yellow Pages publishing and advertising industries; (viii) the effect of competition in local telephone service on the incumbent local exchange carriers', or LECs', current leading positions in the markets we serve; (ix) the impact of union organizing activity; (x) disruptions to our operations caused by our conversion to a new process management and production platform and integrating our information technology systems and processes; (xi) our dependence on ability to maintain satisfactory relationships with third party service providers; (xii) the effect of extending credit to small and mediumsized businesses; (xiii) a decline in the performance of third party certified marketing representatives, which coordinate sales of advertising to national accounts or a decision by these representatives to reduce or end their business with us; (xiv) the loss or impairment of our intellectual property rights; (xv) changes in, or the failure to comply with, government regulations, including franchising laws, accounting standards, zoning laws, environmental laws and taxation requirements; (xvi) future changes in directory publishing obligations, and additional regulation regarding use of the Internet, data and data security; (xvii) the possibility that material weaknesses may exist when we report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting; (xviii) the loss of key personnel or turnover among our sales representatives; (xix) fluctuations in the price or availability of paper; (xx) national or local economic or business conditions that affect advertising expenditures by businesses and individuals or consumer trends in the usage of our products; (xxi) risks related to our substantial indebtedness, the substantial indebtedness of our affiliates and our senior subordinated notes; (xxii) the increased risk regarding our ability to maintain compliance with our debt covenants due to the current economic downturn and expected print revenue declines; and (xxiii) continued or increased disruption in the credit and equity markets.  

These and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, as well as our other periodic filings with the SEC, which are available on the SEC's internet site (http://www.sec.gov). Investors, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made herein are only made as of the date of this press release, and we undertake no obligation to publicly revise or update such forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of any unanticipated event.

SOURCE The Berry Company LLC