Rumour: Ask Jeeves close to sale

According to NYT via Danish ComputerWorld

[claus]

Don't have time for a long post, but according to the Danish edition of ComputerWorld, NYT should have stated that Ask is close to a sale. Official confirmation should come out today.

The Buyer is supposed to be AC/Interactivecorp who owns Ticketmaster, Expedia, Home Shopping Network, Match com and Citysearch.

[sem4u]

AC/InterActiveCorp, the Internet company headed by Barry Diller, is close to an agreement to acquire Ask Jeeves, the nation's fourth-largest search engine company, for about $1.9 billion, according to an executive involved in the negotiations.

[news.zdnet.com...]

[larryhatch]

If I had 1.9 Billion (with a B) dollars, I would not
buy Ask Jeeves with it. But hey, that's just me. -Larry

[claus]

sem4u i got a 404 on that link, but found another: [news.zdnet.com...]

Here's the NYT article in printer friendly format [nytimes.com] (login may be required)

IAC/InterActive has 44 million visitors a month to its various sites. CitySearch, one of its holdings, is a network of city guides that provide information on restaurants, bars and events in different cities. By marrying a local-search business with a global search engine, Interactive hopes to benefit from further growth in targeted keyword advertising, the executive involved in the deal said.
(...)
IAC/InterActive is expected to acquire Ask Jeeves in a stock transaction, exchanging shares in IAC/InterActive for shares in Ask Jeeves, then buying 60 percent of the just-issued IAC/InterActive shares back for about $1.2 billion.

[engine]

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