Lycos to Buy Quote.com for $78.3 Mln in Stock to Improve Data Offerings
By Greg Chang
Lycos to Buy Quote.com for $78.3 Mln to Improve Data Offerings
Waltham, Massachusetts, Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Lycos Inc.,
the No. 3 Internet directory, agreed to buy online stock-data
provider Quote.com for $78.3 million in stock to beef up its
financial information and attract more users.
Lycos has been buying small Web companies like closely held
Quote.com to build a network of sites and challenge No. 1 Yahoo!
Inc. A month ago, it paid $38.8 million for MediaScience Inc.,
which makes software used to play music downloaded from the
Internet.
Waltham, Massachusetts-based Lycos hopes to use free
Quote.com functions such as stock charting and portfolio
monitoring to improve its information offerings. One of the top
reasons that people search the Web, Lycos said, is to find
financial data.
''It gives us one of the most robust services on the
Internet and it fills a product void with a tremendously
successful offering,'' Lycos Chief Executive Robert Davis said in
a statement.
Mountain View, California-based Quote.com's client mix
caught Lycos' attention and talks began about three months ago,
Davis said. In addition to its free services, Quote.com also
sells monthly subscriptions for advanced analysis tools and
licenses its charts and other information to companies such as
online broker Charles Schwab Corp. and InfoSpace.com Inc.
Quote.com is the latest in a string of online financial
information companies to be acquired. Multex.com Inc. agreed to
buy Market Guide Inc. in June and MarketWatch.com Inc. said in
April it would buy BigCharts Inc.
The acquisition is expected to close by year end, subject to
Quote.com shareholder approval, Lycos said |
