QXL ricardo plc is a pan-European online auction community, offering its service in 12 countries. The QXL online auction community facilitates trading 24 hours a day, seven days a week in an efficient, convenient and entertaining environment. QXL enables buyers to bid on merchandise and services, ranging from computer software and hardware, consumer electronics and collectables to travel-related items and sports equipment, which are sold by QXL members and merchants. QXL also enables sellers to locate and trade with buyers in new geographic markets.

QXL ricardo plc is a publicly traded company with its shares listed on the Official List of the United Kingdom Listing Authority (QXL.L) and the Nasdaq National Market (QXLC).

Company History
1997
Quixell (our original company name) was founded in September by Tim Jackson, a columnist for The Financial Times. A graduate of Oxford University, Tim joined The Economist as a business reporter before moving to Japan, where he served as the magazine's Tokyo and East Asia correspondent. He then opened a new Tokyo bureau for The Independent newspaper, before moving to Brussels where he was bureau chief of the newspaper's European office. Tim became infected with the Internet in 1996, whilst living in California and writing Inside Intel, one of his three books. He returned to the UK with a mission - to be the first to introduce Europe to online auctions.

1998
Quixell hosted Europe's first online auction in January 1998. Initially, we offered computing equipment, and rapidly expanded our range to include electrical and household goods. We added gifts and accessories later that year, and opened our travel department in October. In the autumn, we changed our name to QXL, to reflect our European-wide focus, and opened our German site. In December 1998, we opened our auction service to all to buy and sell, by introducing Europe's first person-to-person online auction.

1999
In the first six months, we introduced sites in French and Italian and opened new offices throughout the capitals of Europe. In February, we secured our first significant financing round of $12 million from Apax Partners and, in May, Jim Rose joined as Chief Executive Officer from United News and Information Group. In August, we initiated merger and acquisition activity with the acquisition of eSwap and Humpty Dumpty, two UK auction sites. Throughout the summer months, we prepared for our Initial Public Offering and in October 1999 we floated on the London Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq National Market. We concluded the year with the launch of our Dutch site.

2000
In early 2000, we acquired Jubii, a Danish auction site and, in March, we announced the acquisitions of Allegro.pl, the largest auction service in Poland and of Bidlet AB, the largest auction service in Scandinavia, with sites in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. In April, we introduced our service in Spain and, in May, we announced a merger with ricardo.de AG adding Switzerland to our portfolio of sites. In October, Mark Zaleski, a former executive with Webvan, joined us as Chief Operating Officer. Also, in that month, we completed the Bidlet acquisition followed in November, with the conclusion of the ricardo merger, which resulted in a change in the company name from QXL.com plc to QXL ricardo plc.

2001
In January, Adam Singer, Group Chief Executive of Telewest Communications, was appointed a senior non-executive director. Later in the year, in a pioneering move, we were the first auction service to offer our sellers the ability to host their own Live auctions on the QXL platform via our real-time auction technology. Furthermore, we announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to offer enhanced auction services through the Microsoft .NET program and participation in the Windows XP launch. In November Jim Rose was appointed Deputy Chairman and Mark Zaleski become Chief Executive Officer and joined the Board of Directors. Also, Stan Laurent and Adam Singer resigned from the board at the end of the year.

2002
In January we announced a pan-European agreement with MSN, including services in Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Spain, Finland and the United Kingdom. In early February, we launched our co-branding programme, which provides partners with a simple solution to create very quickly an auction channel within their sites, which is operated by QXL, but which maintains their branding throughout the auction experience. We have signed up many partners in every country including over 80 English football clubs including Manchester United, bild.de in Germany and Scandinavia Online across our Scandinavia sites. We also shifted our agreement with MSN to the co-branding programme. An up-to-date list of partners can be found here.

During the first half of the year, we have appointed two non-executive directors to the Board: in February, Thomas Power, the founder of the Ecademy network joined and in May, Jan Gesmar-Larsen, who previously was the head of the European operations of Dell Computer Corporation and prior to that Apple Computer, Inc. and has held several other senior positions in major global companies. Furthermore, Peter Englander and Peter Sederowsky resigned from the board.

In July, we announced the acquisition of Aucland.fr, the number two online auction site in France. Going forward, we will operate our French business under the Aucland brand.