American Greetings (NYSE: AM) announced today it will reposition its electronic marketing division, americangreetings.com, as a separate subsidiary in order to increase its efforts to grow and promote that business. American Greetings is exploring various strategic opportunities for americangreetings.com, including the possibility that a portion of the new company be offered to outside investors later this year. Also, American Greetings said it expects to increase its cash investment in americangreetings.com. However, the full extent of the investment will not be determined until business and financial plans for the new company are finalized later this year. "americangreetings.com will focus its efforts to take full advantage of the opportunity to provide online greetings as well as other electronic communication and creativity products," said Morry Weiss, chairman and chief executive officer of American Greetings. He said americangreetings.com will continue to use the Internet and color printer technology to expand the social expression industry." Research indicates 27 million American families are sending or printing electronic greetings from their home or office, an increase of 35 percent from a year ago. American Greetings believes most of this activity is incremental to the existing greeting card market. "Technology may change the way we live, but it doesn't change the basic fact that people need to communicate," Weiss said. "Helping people fulfill their needs with technology is the business and opportunity of americangreetings.com." John M. Klipfell, senior vice president of electronic marketing for American Greetings, will serve as president and chief executive officer of americangreetings.com. "We already have a solid business built upon a strong portfolio of electronic products and services and established key distribution relationships with industry leaders like America Online and The Learning Company," Klipfell said. "Building upon this base, americangreetings.com is positioned to aggressively expand and meet the needs of the electronic marketplace." American Greetings is the world's largest publicly held creator, manufacturer and distributor of greeting cards and social expression products. With headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, American Greetings employs more than 21,000 associates around the world and has one of the largest creative studios in the world. For more information on the Company, visit our site on the World Wide Web at www.americangreetings.com americangreetings.com offers more than 3,000 online greetings for just about any occasion and holiday. These greetings are conveniently available on www.americangreetings.com and on America Online at keyword: American Greetings. americangreetings.com is a pre-eminent supplier of branded content to the digital market providing tens of thousands of quality electronic designs annually. This content is made available to consumers through multiple electronic distribution avenues. These avenues include the award winning americangreetings.com web site; a marketing partnership with America Online as their premier provider of online greetings; key relationships with other Internet service providers; and American Greetings branded consumer software programs with The Learning Company. The statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to, the following risks: unforeseen difficulties in making it impractical or inadvisable to form a separate subsidiary, failure of the public to accept online greetings and other electronic communication and creativity products, inability to attract investors on terms acceptable to American Greetings, and adverse financial events at American Greetings that make it impractical for it to increase its cash investment in americangreetings.com. ots Original Text Service: American Greetings Corporation Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Dale A. Cable, Vice President, Treasurer, (USA) 216-252-7300, or Jim King, Manager, Investor & Media Relations, (USA) 216-252-4864 both of American Greetings Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/044150.html or Fax, (USA) 800- 758-5804, ext. 044150 Web site: http://www.americangreetings.com