Netscape negotiations/Voting rights slashed
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>>Netscape negotiations
As part of the proposed $6.7 billion merger, Excite notified Netscape Communications of its intention to end their $70 million search engine agreement with the company's Netcenter portal site unless a new arrangement is reached.
If the agreement is not renegotiated, the deal will be terminated "during the second quarter of 1999," according to the SEC filing.
As previously reported, Excite is in negotiations with America Online, which recently acquired Netscape, over the fate of the search and content channel agreement.
Netcenter now has access to AOL's content and although negotiations continue, @Home may prefer to have Excite power its own search engine rather than license technology to a competitor.
Voting rights slashed
After the merger goes through, a number of shareholders will see their stake and voting rights in @Home drop. For example, AT&T, the largest shareholder via its acquisition of TCI Internet Holdings, will see its holdings fall to a 25.9 percent stake from 37.7 percent. And, the long distance giant's voting shares will decline to 57.9 percent from 70.4 percent.
Meanwhile, other cable investors, such as Comcast and Cox Communications, will both see their stakes fall to 8 percent from 11.6 percent and their voting rights decline to 4.5 percent from 5.5 percent.
Cablevision Systems will find its stake drop to 5.7 percent from 8 percent and its voting rights decline to 3.3 percent from 4 percent.<< |
