Out of the ashes of a trademark-infringement settlement and an investors’ lawsuit, Michael Berman is hoping to turn the assets of a former online-auction firm into the next big bidding Web site.    After a year at the helm of AuctionCities.com Inc., Chief Executive Officer Berman has taken the company public and built its staff to eight from four.    Shares of the company traded over the counter for $2.70 on Monday. Since the company went public in July, its shares have traded for between $4.11 and $1.45.    The Valencia-based online-auction firm hosts local auctions, representing more than 40,000 ZIP-code specific sites.    “We are the new breed of Internet company — better defined and managed,” Berman said during an interview at his 3,200-square-foot office on Friday. “We are developing a platform that has the potential for several streams of revenues.”    USA Dial-Up Services Inc., a Nevada corporation formed in 1999, changed its name to AuctionCities.com in 2004 after purchasing the assets of BidWay.com, which was formerly AuctionDiner.com and BidBay.com.    In 2002, BidBay.com was forced to change its name when eBay.com sued it for trademark infringement. BidBay.com, which at the time was based in Tujunga, became AuctionDiner.com and then BidWay.com.    Berman joined BidWay.com after the settlement with eBay.com.    Earlier this year a St. Louis jury found that former BidBay.com executives Wes Cooley and George Tannous lied in 2000 when they said eBay.com was about to buy their online-auction firm. The two were ordered to pay $2.2 million to 11 investors.    “The old company had a lot of problems,” Berman said. “It came to the point where the company could not move forward.”    In August 2004, Berman and his business partners bought BidWay.com’s assets in Glendale and transferred them to AuctionCities.com in the Santa Clarita Valley, where Berman resides. At the time of the purchase, Berman was CEO of BidWay.com.    AuctionCities.com is now pursuing automotive dealerships to boost its content and sales.    “The consumer-to-consumer sales and trading segment … will continue to anchor the long-term performance of the company,” Berman said. “However, management is now moving to establish strategic alliances with volume providers of big ticket items that will act as a commercial draw,” Berman said.    The online-auction firm is also planning similar ventures in the real estate and consumer electronics fields.    “We will be sorting the inventory of national companies and listing by the location of that product in major United States cities,” he said. “We are exploring all platforms.”    As of Friday, AuctionCities.com’s Web site had recorded 13,645 cash transactions during August and more than 3 million hits.    In July, the Web site had 8.4 million hits, compared to 12.9 million in June.    “We aren’t knocking them dead. It is not a thunderbolt right now,” Berman said. “As we grow into automobiles, the transaction will grow. I would like to see us grow to 100,000 transactions a week or more.”    As of May 31, AuctionCities.com had not recognized revenue and had accumulated operating losses of $85,830 since its inception.

Posted: 08|31|05 at 9:18 am. Filed under: US News.