Information website About.com, belonging to the The
New York Times Company(NYSE:NYT), has been acquired by Barry Diller-owned IAC/InterActiveCorp(NASDAQ:IACI
)’s unit Ask.com for $300 million, IAC said on Monday.
The other bidder for the company, which had been
preliminarily accepted by the NYT group, had been Answers.com, whose bid had
come in at $270 million.
"The About.com acquisition is completely in line
with IAC's M&A strategy of acquiring, at disciplined valuations, companies
that are complementary and synergistic with both our existing businesses and
our areas of expertise," IAC CEO Greg Blatt said in a press release.
Newspapers have been facing difficult times of late
with slack revenues as more advertisers are moving to visual mediums.
The NYT group has been divesting itself of its
non-core businesses in recent years to focus more on its resources around its
flagship newspaper and accompanying website.
It bought About.com, which provides a wealth of
information in the form of articles on speciality topics ranging from personal
finance to pets, in 2005 for $410 million. About.com makes its money by selling
advertising against its content.
But About.com took a big hit after Google Inc. (GOOG)
overhauled its search algorithm in an effort to return high-quality results.
New York Times Group wrote down the value of About.com
by $195 million last month. In December, it also agreed to sell 16 regional
newspapers in a deal valued at roughly $145 million.
Shares of NYT which closed at $9.22 on Friday have
gained more than 16 percent in the last one month.
No comments:
Post a Comment