From TheStreet.com..Lycos-USA Merger, Part 3,567
Like Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton, Lycos (LCOS:Nasdaq) CEO Robert Davis and CMGI (CMGI:Nasdaq) Chairman David Wetherell are doomed to be asked questions about one another -- at least until this deal plays out.
There weren't any questions from the audience at a Monday morning panel discussion at which the two sat next to one another, but at the CMGI presentation immediately afterward, one audience member couldn't help asking what was up with the Lycos-USA Networks (USAI:Nasdaq)-Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch (TMCS:Nasdaq) deal. "I can't imagine why that question came up," Wetherell said with a sigh.
Wetherell advised the audience to look at what the company would look like down the road, not just on day one of the transaction, and he seconded Davis' statements that the deal allowed for "significant and substantive" synergies.
Nonetheless, he said, "We did think the deal would be viewed as accretive" -- something that the rest of the investing public, it went without Wetherell's saying, didn't come through on.
One thing that Davis and Wetherell don't have in common with Clinton and Lewinsky: They're still talking to each other. Immediately after Wetherell made his presentation to investors, he and Davis retired to a corner of one of the lodge's lobbies for a heart-to-heart exchange that was still going strong a half-hour after they sat down. If lounge chairs could talk, what a story they'd tell.
Even after Wetherell and Davis had issued cryptic comments, many felt there still wasn't nearly enough said. "Companies rarely talk about [a deal] unless it's good," said Fritz Jordan, president and COO of Venture Capital Online. "And they definitely don't talk about them until they are good. It's an unwritten rule."
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