Lycos Europe buys Spray Network

Lycos becomes major player in Europe.

[rencke]

The German company Lycos Europe has bought Spray Network and their eight portals for 5,6 billion Swedish kroner, equal to about USD 590 million paid for in Lycos Europe stock. According to a joint statement to the press, this will give Lycos Europe a total of 8.5 million registered users, 19 million unique visitors and 1 billion pageviews per month.

Spray has portals in Denmark (www.spray.dk), Finland (www.spray.fi), France (www.spray.fr), Italy (www.spray.it), Norway (www.spray.no), Sweden (www.spray.se), Czech Republic (www.spray.cz) and Germany (www.spray.net). Spray will be a separate division managed by its current General Manager, Johan Ihrefeldt as executive vice president of Lycos Europe.

The former owners of Spray Network, Spray Ventures and Investor (a major Swedish investment company) have also invested 100 million Euros in Lycos Europe, so Swedish interests now own 29,3 percent of Lycos Europe, which has cash at hand for further expansion. The principal owners are Lycos Inc, German media company Bertelsman/Gruner, Spray Ventures, Investor and Christopher Mohn, president of Lycos Europe.

Not much doubt that this will make Lycos a major player in Europe.