Mergers & Acquisitions

Deal Done: Weather Channel Sold To NBCU and Bain/Blackstone Combo - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Sun 06 Jul 2008 12:53 PM PST

The Weather Channel deal is finally done, and announced on a lazy, bright and clear July 4th weekend Sunday: Landmark Communications has agreed to sell The Weather Channel to a…

Semel’s Route To IMG Passes Through Dubai - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Sun 06 Jul 2008 12:31 PM PST

Terry Semel, the former Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) CEO, is involved in a bid to return to his Hollywood roots: his media/investment firm Windsor Media is in talks with sports marketing…

Ask.com Completes Lexico Acquisition, Bags Dictionary.com Et Al - 3 Comments
Posted By Robert Andrews - Fri 04 Jul 2008 07:56 AM PST

Losing its independence on Independence Day, Lexico is now part of the Ask.com family, as IAC’s (NSDQ: IACI) portal completes its purported $100 million cash acquisition of the Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com…

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Gannett Buying Out Rest Of ShopLocal From Tribune and McClatchy - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Thu 03 Jul 2008 05:32 PM PST

Gannett (NYSE: GCI), which has a big budget to do digital M&As, is buying out the rest of local sales info site ShopLocal, from the other partners Tribune and McClatchy…

Weather Channel Sale Could Be Announced Soon - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Thu 03 Jul 2008 10:50 AM PST

The Weather Channel sale announcement could come in the next couple of days, as the consortium of NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital close the deal…

Hearst Business Media And IDG Buy Chinese Tech Site EE365 - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Wed 02 Jul 2008 04:29 PM PST

Hearst Business Media, the B2B media arm of Hearst, has jointly bought out a Chinese electronics infomation site EE365.cn, along with its local publishing partner Publishing House of Electronic Industry…

Microsoft-Yahoo: No Real End In Sight—To The Scheming, That Is; Latest Has MSFT Seeking Help - 0 Comments
Posted By Staci D. Kramer - Tue 01 Jul 2008 09:21 PM PST

The latest variation on the Microsoft-Yahoo theme comes courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, which is reporting that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is looking for lab partners in some kind of…

Informa Confirms Tentative Bid From 3 PE Players; Values Company At $6.8 Billion - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Tue 01 Jul 2008 06:55 PM PST

Informa, the UK-based B2B giant which recently broke merger talked with United Business Media (LSE: UBM), has confirmed that it received a tentative big approach from a private equity consortium…

Blockbuster Abandons Its Circuit City Quest - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Tue 01 Jul 2008 05:09 PM PST

In this year of non-deals and terminated deals, this is not a surprise, considering how foolish the bid was in the first place: Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) has abandoned its offer…

Ottaway Papers Say News Corp Has Taken Chain Off The Market - 0 Comments
Posted By Staci D. Kramer - Tue 01 Jul 2008 04:41 PM PST

News Corp is no longer trying to sell Ottaway Newspapers ... E&P reports that Marianne Stanton, editor and publisher of Ottaway’s Nantucket newspapers, told her staff Tuesday afternoon that “we’re…

Microsoft Confirms Powerset Acquisition - 0 Comments
Posted By Joseph Weisenthal - Tue 01 Jul 2008 11:43 AM PST

As was first tipped last week, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has confirmed the acquisition of semantic search engine Powerset. The announcement was made this afternoon in posts on Microsoft’s Live Search…

Media/Marketing M&A Activity For First Half Cloudy; Online As Bright Spot - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Tue 01 Jul 2008 08:23 AM PST

The M&A activity for the media/marketing/information sector was cloudy for the first half of this year, but online and interactive services remain a bright spot, according to data compiled by…

TripAdvisor Acquires VirtualTourist And Online Booker OneTime - 0 Comments
Posted By Joseph Weisenthal - Tue 01 Jul 2008 07:32 AM PST

TripAdvisor, the travel review site owned by Expedia, has made two acquisitions: VirtualTourist, a user-gen travel site, and OneTime, a travel comparison site. Both were founded by J.R. Johnson and…

Interview: Leslie Moonves, CEO, CBS: Choice Between CNET, Weather Channel Wasn’t ‘That Blatant’ - 0 Comments
Posted By Staci D. Kramer - Mon 30 Jun 2008 12:26 PM PST

While others deal with the integration of CNET (NSDQ: CNET) Networks into CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS), CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has to keep selling the strategy and the acquisition to…

Social Network hi5 Buys Live Chat Firm PixVerse; Gets Sued By EMI - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Mon 30 Jun 2008 11:38 AM PST

hi5 Networks, not-big-in-U.S.-but-big-elsewhere social network, has made a small acquisition: it has bought out PixVerse, a social chat tool used by users of hi5 and other social networks. Founded in…

Interview: CEO Quincy Smith, President Neil Ashe, CBS Interactive; Filling In Gaps, Cross Promotion - 0 Comments
Posted By Joseph Weisenthal - Mon 30 Jun 2008 10:38 AM PST

Now that the merger is complete, it’s time for CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS) to get onto the business of “changing the world,” in the words of newly named division President…

Expedia Buys Majority Of India’s TravelGuru For $17 Million - 0 Comments
Posted By Robert Andrews - Mon 30 Jun 2008 02:12 AM PST

This story was written in conjunction with our content partner VCCircle... Expedia has acquired a majority stake in India’s top online hotels aggregator TravelGuru for $17 million. The deal values…

News Corp Taking DRM Firm NDS Private In $3.6 Billion Deal - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Sat 28 Jun 2008 09:45 AM PST

NDS, the UK-based DRM and conditional access firm which is majority owned by News Corp, is now being taken private: News Corp (NYSE: NWS). is teaming up with Permira Advisers,…

Virgin-Helio: Interview: VMUSA’s CEO Dan Schulman: Merger A “Transformative Deal For The Company.” - 0 Comments
Posted By Tricia Duryee - Fri 27 Jun 2008 01:28 PM PST

Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM) today announced that they will be acquiring Los Angeles-based Helio, a competitor backed by SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) and EarthLink, for $39 million. The deal…

Online Video Firm JumpTV Rejects Rival Offer From Brad Greenspan; Goes Ahead With NeuLion Merger - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Fri 27 Jun 2008 07:57 AM PST

Canada-headquartered online video firm JumpTV (TSE: JTV) has received an unsolicited competing bid to buy the company from the professional troublemaker and MySpace co-founder Brad Greenspan, but the company has…

Virgin Mobile Acquiring MVNO Helio For A Paltry $39M In Equity; Gets $50M Cash Investment - 0 Comments
Posted By Joseph Weisenthal - Fri 27 Jun 2008 06:37 AM PST

As we have been reporting since the start of these talks, Virgin Mobile (NYSE: VM) has announced the acquisition of troubled MVNO Helio. The acquisition will cost Virgin Mobile a…

Updated: Telstra Buys Majority in Two Chinese Online Media Sites For Total $73 Million - 0 Comments
Posted By Rafat Ali - Thu 26 Jun 2008 11:00 PM PST

Updated below: This is an interesting expansion move by the Australian telco giant Telstra: it has taken 55 percent stakes in Norstar Media and in Autohome/PCPop. Norstar operates IT information…

Microsoft Acquiring Semantic Searcher Powerset For $100 Million: Report - 0 Comments
Posted By Joseph Weisenthal - Thu 26 Jun 2008 03:04 PM PST

Well if it can’t get Yahoo’s (NSDQ: YHOO) search business… Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) will acquire semantic search engine Powerset for more than $100 million, according to Matt Marshall at VentureBeat.…

Liberty Media Acquires Party Site Celebrate Express For $31 Million - 0 Comments
Posted By Joseph Weisenthal - Thu 26 Jun 2008 02:03 PM PST

Another e-commerce buy for Liberty Media… this time it is buying out small, publicly traded Celebrate Express, a party supply retailer, for $31 million. At $3.90 per share, the deal…

Amazon Acquires Fabric.com For, Well, Fabric - 0 Comments
Posted By Joseph Weisenthal - Wed 25 Jun 2008 08:15 AM PST

A reminder of the many items on Amazon’s (NSDQ: AMZN) plate… The retailer is acquiring Fabric.com, expanding into an area where its currently pretty limited. Through the acquisition, Amazon will…