Lycos Up For Sale?

Worth $200M?

[sem4u]

[news.zdnet.co.uk...]

Terra Lycos is hoping to sell Lycos for cash or liquid shares. Although no purchase price was listed, one source familiar with the deal said Terra Lycos is looking to sell Lycos for $200m (£112m), based on $98m in pro-forma revenue that the site generated in 2003.

Lycos lost $24m in 2003, but broke even in the fourth quarter of that year, according to the Lehman document. The company expects to make a profit in 2004.

[jeremy goodrich]

Seems much to high for my taste. After discussing (recently) business valuation, the question always comes up - what's the expected time frame for recouping the $ laid out for the investment?

In internet terms, if the website / company can't make the $$$ laid out for purchase back in less than 18 months (max) you're asking far too much.

[jmccormac]

Terra Lycos is hoping to sell Lycos for cash or liquid shares.

Not even worth a half pint of bad beer. :)

Regards...jmcc

[ByronM]

For 200 million i could do my own branding and not have the stigma that lycos gave everyone as they terminated services left and right.

Not worth it at ALL.

[Muscle13]

Wouldn't Lycos be a perfect match with Ask Jeeves? Lycos, Excite, iWon, and AskJ. The whole 2nd tier consolidated. They would be able to compete with the big boys.

[ByronM]

I don't think Ask would benifit anything from lycos as they would have to assume yet another Inktomi index and we all know that wouldn't make them more competitive

[seo2004wow]

Hi

If I was a start up engine I would buy, #4 on google for KW=search+engines and as 40,800 backlinks.

But not for $200 million, more like $20,000

[eWhisper]

Ask Jeeves filed a registration with federal regulatory authorities today to sell up to $400 million of shares and other securities.

One possible target is Web portal Lycos, which has been put up for sale by its parent company, Terra Lycos, for a reported price of around $200 million. Lycos overhauled its portal in February, emphasizing online dating, gaming and Web log services. As part of the restructuring, it cut 20 percent of its staff and outsourced its ad sales to 24/7 Real Media.

[dmnews.com...]

[sem4u]

They could be closing in for a deal then.

[DaveN]

if lycos just let the other SE's spider their index and let the PR pass I would pay to get listed,

DaveN
Hmmmm just noticed something, is lycos selling home page links now!

[ogletree]

In internet terms, if the website / company can't make the $$$ laid out for purchase back in less than 18 months (max) you're asking far too much.

If this were the case then Lycos would not need to sell. Where did you come up with that 18 month thing? Lycos has assets and value. The question is could you use that. Acording to Alexa 40% of their traffic comes from their mail service and 14% from their forums. I remember a while back lycos advertised a bunch on TV and Radio. Back when I first started the internet years ago (7 or so I don't remember) I read some article that said lycos was the best se and I used it for a while. They have a name and they have lots of visitors. They have a PR9. I think a smart person could do something with lycos.

[sidyadav]

lol..they've tried everything haven't they..I remember a few months ago, Lycos made a press release saying that they are done with the search industry, they're switching to social networking.

So now that they want to sell it off, I'm guessing Social Networking didn't work for them either. Too bad. Didn't get any traffic from Lycos anyways.

Sid