March 4, 2004 SuperStock sold to Calif. company San Francisco-based a21 Inc. will move corporate headquarters to Jacksonville. by MARK BASCH The Times-Union A San Francisco-based public company completed its acquisition of Jacksonville-based SuperStock Inc. this week and plans to move its corporate headquarters to Jacksonville. The company, a21 Inc., is hoping to expand by acquiring more companies like SuperStock, which provides imagery from photographers and artists to the advertising, publishing and graphic design industries. SuperStock is the first operating company owned by a21. "We're looking to continue to grow with Jacksonville being our hub," said a21 President Haim Ariav, who has also been named president of SuperStock. SuperStock co-founders Bill Beermann and Jim Ong are leaving the company with the acquisition, but the rest of the operation, which employs 75 people in Jacksonville, will remain. Ariav, who has a photography background, said he started a21 several years ago with the intent of building a stock photography company from the ground up. But he and the rest of his investment group decided it would be better to enter the business by acquiring an existing company. "After a lot of legwork and a lot of due diligence, we found this great company in Jacksonville called SuperStock," he said. The companies announced the acquisition agreement in April 2003. SuperStock was founded in New York in 1973 and moved its headquarters to Jacksonville 20 years later, building a 73,000-square-foot facility in Deerwood Park. Ariav said the company uses about half the space there, so it has plenty of room to grow as the company expands. SuperStock has about $10 million in annual revenue, he said. Ariav said the company has not decided whether it will change the SuperStock name or the a21 name. SuperStock is operating as a subsidiary of a21. According to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, a21 agreed to pay $4.25 million in cash and issue $4.25 million in preferred stock to buy privately owned SuperStock. Although a21 had no operations before acquiring SuperStock, it has been publicly traded for the past two years after it merged with another publicly traded corporation. Its stock trades in the over-the-counter market under the ticker symbol "ATWO." © Copyright The Florida Times-Union