Westar Financial Forecasts $0.76 Per Share in 2Q02 Profits At Annual Meeting; Profits Expected to Once Again Double From Prior Quarter

    OLYMPIA, Wash.--Sept. 24, 2001--Westar Financial Services Incorporated (OTC:WEST), the unique automobile e-finance portal, today forecast record profits for its fiscal second quarter, which will end September 30, 2001. At the annual meeting, shareholders learned the company's financial portal activity was continuing to accelerate and that current second quarter estimates were for revenues to be $137 million and profits to be $1.8 million, or $0.76 per outstanding share.
    In the second quarter a year ago, the company generated revenues of $60 million and a net loss of $1.5 million or $.65 per share as it invested heavily in executing its Private Label marketing program. In the first quarter of fiscal 2002, revenues increased to $146 million and net income increased to $866,000, or $0.37 per outstanding share, twice that reported in the immediately prior quarter.
    In reviewing the company's business strategies during the annual meeting, R. W. Christensen, Jr., CEO, made the following comments:
    "In the past year, we have become a leading financial portal that originates, decisions, commits to and fulfills consumer financings for itself or others using sophisticated decisioning tools and high speed communications to assure transparency to all parties to the transaction. A financial portal is a conduit through which a physical transaction nearly instantaneously is transformed into a financial instrument, which is then placed with the appropriate ultimate investor.
    "Originations continue to accelerate while profitability and credit quality continue to improve each quarter and demand increases for Westar's products and services.
    "On a trailing 12 month basis at the close of the quarter, we expect revenues to exceed $488 million and net income to be more than $3.4 million or $1.48 per share, based on current activity."
    Also at its annual meeting, shareholders elected Michael Kranitz and Robert L. Lovely as board members and ratified the appointment of BDO Seidman, LLP as independent public accountants.
    WEST is the leading publicly traded automobile-oriented e-commerce financial portal and ASP. Westar originates, decisions, commits to and fulfills consumer financings for itself or others. Westar completed the first entirely electronic Internet automobile purchase and lease transaction in October 1999. The company operates in the western states and nationally through alliances with AmSouth Bancorporation, Mellon Bank, USAA FSB, LEASEbanc and others.

    Statement regarding "Forward Looking Statements": Statements concerning future performance, developments or events, including projected profit and loss levels, expansion of operations, growth of loan originations, quality of the company's lease portfolio, the ability to place securitizations, success of the e-commerce model, trends in interest rates, various statements concerning expectations for growth or profits and any other guidance on future periods, constitute forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties which might cause actual results to differ materially from stated expectations.