America Online, Inc. to Acquire NetscapeCommunications Corporation in
Stock Transaction Valued At $4.2 Billion
November 24, 1998 08:30 AM
DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 24, 1998--
Acquisition To Significantly Advance AOL's Multiple Brand Strategy, Broaden
Audience, and Take E-Commerce to New Level
AOL To Operate Most Popular and Diverse Family of Brands in Cyberspace
AOL and Sun Microsystems, Inc. to Develop Next Generation of E-Commerce
Solutions and Internet Devices
America Online, Inc. AOL Tuesday announced that it will acquire Netscape
Communications Corporation NSCP in a transaction that will extend America
Online's leadership in interactive services. The stock-for-stock,
pooling-of-interests transaction, in which stockholders of Netscape will receive
0.45 shares of AOL common stock for each share of Netscape common stock, is
valued at $4.2 billion. It is expected to close in the spring of 1999, subject to
various conditions including customary regulatory approvals and approval by
Netscape's shareholders. The Company said it expects the transaction will be
slightly accretive to operating results. Netscape's operations will remain based in
Mountain View, CA. Key benefits of the acquisition will be to:
-- Advance America Online's multiple-brand strategy with one of the Internet's best
known brands;
-- Substantially broaden America Online's global audience at home and at work,
by adding the fast-growing Netscape Netcenter portal that is integrated with the
Netscape browser used by millions of people;
-- Accelerate the growth of e-commerce across the America Online and Netscape
brands and provide added value to their business partners;
-- Provide significant new opportunities to make America Online's brands
available anywhere to interactive consumers, as well as to maximize the value of
these brands, by taking advantage of AOL's existing shared infrastructure; and
-- Expand the range of America Online products and services by adding world-
class technology and an experienced development team that has demonstrated
its ability to innovate rapidly.
Separately, America Online announced that it has entered into a strategic
development and marketing alliance with Sun Microsystems, Inc. to enhance its
delivery of e-commerce solutions that will help build revenues across America
Online and Netscape brands, and offer added value to both America Online and
Netscape business partners, as well as the growing number of major corporations
planning to put their business on the Internet. The companies will develop
easy-to-deploy, end-to-end solutions for e-commerce based on the best available
technologies and expand their sales channels to include each other's products
and services. The three-year America Online-Sun agreements also will increase
distribution and development of Netscape's enterprise software for corporate
customers. The companies also will use Sun's Java technology to offer AOL
services on selected next-generation Internet devices, consistent with AOL's
"AOL Anywhere" strategy to extend its brand to all emerging mass market
platforms. (See separate America Online-Sun Microsystems release.)
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