ARV Agrees to Merge With Prometheus

ARV Assisted Living Inc., Costa Mesa, Calif., has agreed to merge with Prometheus Assisted Living LLC, an affiliate of Lazard Freres & Co. LLC.Under the agreement, Prometheus will acquire all the outstanding shares of ARV common stock not already owned by Prometheus or its affiliates at a cash price of $3.90 per share. Prometheus has said it intends to combine ARV with Atria Inc. and Kapson Senior Quarters Corp., two other assisted-living companies. Prometheus now owns approximately 43.5% of ARV's common stock as well as warrants that, if exercised, would bring the total to about 45.8%, ARV said. The two companies also announced that they have reached agreements regarding settlements of stockholder class action lawsuits that were filed after the announcement of a preliminary merger proposal by Prometheus. ARV can be found on the Web at http://www.arvi.com.