Newport Beach Company Changing Name, Direction

Iris Communications Inc., a small Newport Beach oil company that will change its name Friday to Western Energy Resources Inc., said Tuesday that it plans to acquire Petroleum Land Corp. of Encino in a stock transaction worth about $1.5 million.

Iris, which sells a line of computer software as well as oil and gas, signed a letter of intent to buy Petroleum Land and all of its holdings. Petroleum Land owns oil and gas properties throughout Texas, with about 45 producing wells.

The acquisition is the first of several planned by Iris and is part of an overall redirection of the company instituted by Richard Johnson, Iris president and chief executive. Johnson, who took over last month, said that, although the company will continue selling its business software, the focus will be on increasing its oil and gas holdings.

Johnson said in a telephone interview that the newly named Western Energy is in the process of acquiring several oil and gas properties worth a total of $4.5 million.

All the deals will be stock transactions.

Jevne Haugan, president and chairman of Petroleum Land, said that when the deal closes, he will join Western Energy’s board of directors and be appointed executive vice president.

He said his company has $2.5 million worth of proved, developed oil and gas reserves and annual sales of about $150,000. Petroleum Land, founded in Utah four years ago, moved to Encino in 1983.

After reviewing an independent appraisal of the Petroleum Land holdings, Iris plans to issue one share of stock for every six shares of Petroleum Land stock.

The exact number of shares will be determined later.

“If this deal closes and everything works out, we will have about $1 million in sales this year,” said Johnson.

He said the Petroleum Land acquisition is subject to approval by the board of directors of both companies and to the registration of the new stock to be issued.