AgriBioTech Inc. Meets With Analysts and Reviews Business and Business Plan, Announces Receipt of Proposals for New, Long-Term Debt Financing and Forecasts Profitability for Fiscal Year 2000.

HENDERSON, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 1999--

The senior executive team at AgriBioTech Inc. ("ABT" or the "company") (Nasdaq:ABTX) met with sell-side analysts that cover ABT this week to review and update them on the company's business and business plan, to announce that it has received proposals for and is working on completing new, long-term debt financing that is expected to provide the company with the working capital it needs to carry out its long-term business plan, and presented data that supports the company's expectations of profitability in fiscal year 2000 (FY2000).

Richard Budd, ABT chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) did not attend the meeting due to a death in his immediate family. All remaining ABT executive officers attended the meeting, however.

In reviewing ABT's business and business plan, company executives outlined the key accomplishments at ABT since the March 1999 management change. The company's management told analysts that it has focused its efforts during the past five months on meeting the financing and integration challenges associated with the company's dramatic growth from 1995 to 1999.

"We have made tremendous progress in these two critical areas," said Randy Ingram, executive vice president, chief financial officer (CFO), "and we believe we now have attractive options for the needed financing tools to support ABT's long-term business plan."

ABT expects to finalize one of these options within 60 days. Combined with profitable operations, new long-term debt financing will solve the company's financing needs because it will allow ABT to replace short-term debt that was used to acquire some companies during the previous acquisition program with long-term debt.

The company's long-term business plan is to use the large, vertically integrated forage and turfgrass seed platform it has built to develop and market value-added, superior-performing, high-margin proprietary seeds in a sector of the seed industry that had, prior to ABT, been highly fragmented and lacked aggressive and sustained investment in research and development (R&D) of new varieties.

Company executives noted and highlighted the following accomplishments since the management change at ABT last winter: -0-

--   A restructuring ("integration") of the company's 34 acquired
     businesses into one organization has created a consolidated,
     single ABT national business organized by and focused on the
     needs of its different classes of customers;
--   The company is on track to achieve $14.0 million in annualized
     expense savings due to the restructuring plan; the large majority
     of these reduced expenses have already been realized;
--   As a result of the restructuring and a large number of R&D and
     biotechnology agreements successfully entered into during 1998
     and 1999, the company now has a leading forage and turfgrass R&D
     program, including its own molecular biology and transformation
     laboratory;
--   ABT will be among the first major national seed brands to sell
     proprietary, high-margin forage seeds on the Internet; this new,
     complementary source of distribution will allow ABT to take
     advantage of the possibilities presented by the evolving
     "e-commerce" channel in agriculture;
--   Converted the entire organization to a new, Oracle(R)-based,
     companywide Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) management
     information system; and
--   ABT has strengthened the company's balance sheet by redeeming
     early subordinated convertible debt sold by previous management,
     and issuing more than $30 million in new equity in the company.

"As a result of all these things, and given current revenue and gross margin expectations, we believe that ABT will be profitable in FY2000," said Ingram. "We still have challenges, including fully implementing and achieving all the benefits of the new Oracle management information system. However, with the expected resolution of our financing needs, we are confident we will achieve our long-term goals."

The other short-term challenge for ABT addressed by company management included short-term liquidity. As regards liquidity, management outlined the reasons for the short-term challenge including the delay in receipts of cash from its customers. ABT's receivables are approximately two and one half times its payables. ABT is addressing the accounts receivable issue in a number of ways and is strengthening its position.

The company is paying vendors and growers daily. Management also noted that during this period of short-term liquidity challenges, ABT has reduced its short-term debt (the amount borrowed on its revolving line of credit) from approximately $100.0 million to roughly $57.0 million since June 1, 1999.

Finally, company management outlined for analysts the reasons ABT believes it will be successful in realizing its long-term business objectives: -0-

--   ABT is the market share leader in the United States in forage and
     turfgrass seed, and has and intends to build a bigger market
     presence internationally; in the United States, ABT leads the
     No. 2 players in forage and turfgrass in market share and
     industry influence by a wide margin, with more than twice their
     market shares;
--   ABT has the largest sales organization and distribution network
     in the forage and turfgrass seed industry;
--   ABT has some of the strongest brand names in the industry, and
     the company is investing in them to further strengthen their
     equity in the marketplace;
--   ABT has the leading, and growing, mass merchant turfgrass seed
     business; ABT's major retailer customers include Home Depot and
     Lowes;
--   ABT has a leading conventional R&D program in forage and
     turfgrass seed, complemented by a leading biotechnology program;
--   ABT has introduced new, industry-leading forage and turfgrass
     seed products in the past year and will continue do so in FY2000
     and beyond, with higher margins than traditionally seen in the
     forage and turfgrass seed industry; and
--   ABT has research and development agreements and/or alliances with
     industry leaders in both conventional breeding and biotechnology:
     --   FFR Cooperative (the leading source of forage grass
          germplasm in the United States and a large distributor of
          forage seed products);
     --   Forage Genetics (a unit of Research Seeds Inc., owned by
          Cenex/Land 'O Lakes) license for access to Roundup
          Ready(R) alfalfa varieties;
     --   Garst Seed Co., for a license to "whiskers" transformation
          technology;
     --   Kimeragen Inc. for an equity stake and a license to
          technology to introduce site-specific genetic modifications
          ("precise genetic surgery"); and
     --   Worldwide, exclusive rights to biotechnology for certain
          forage and turfgrass species and an equity stake in the
          former Global Agro Inc.

In commenting on the company's position, Budd said: "For the past five and a half months, we have focused on the challenges associated with completing the integration and achieving profitability, and we have quietly and without fanfare gone about doing that.

"Now we are entering a new phase at the company where we intend to aggressively defend and build our market share leadership. To do that, we are going to do all we can to make sure that shareholders, prospective shareholders, employees and customers know what ABT is all about and where we are headed."

AgriBioTech is a vertically integrated, full-service seed company specializing in the forage and turfgrass seed sector, complete with research and development of proprietary seed varieties, seed processing plants, and a national and international distribution and sales network. ABT's vision is to lead the turf and forage seed industry in discovering its value potential.

Certain of the statements in this news release, including, for example, expectations of future profitability, the status of the company's integration, ABT's ability to finalize the received proposals for new, long-term financing, brand strength, expense reductions, sales and revenues/gross margin expectations, and Internet sale of forage seed products are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. They are not a guarantee of future performance and actual results could differ materially. The risks and uncertainties associated with these statements include, but are not limited to: management's ability to control costs, customer purchases, deliveries and payments for ABT products, competitive pricing, weather, effective management of the integration process, ability of the company to successfully transition to the new ERP and management information systems throughout its operations, customer response to the integration, overall financial condition and asset status of ABT, relationships with and perceptions of potential lenders and investors, weather, ability to obtain additional capital and debt financing and other factors as detailed from time to time in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Note to Editors: "Roundup Ready" is a trademark of the Monsanto Co.