New York Times announced Sunday evening that they are going to sell About.com for $300 Million. Previously everyone thought that it will sell to Answers.com but later property is going to Barry Diller’s Internet media conglomerate InterActiveCorp (IAC) for $300 million in cash.
All Things D was first to reported on this report and they confirmed that “The New York Times Company confirmed today that it is engaged in discussions regarding the potential sale of its About Group. No definitive agreement has been reached. The negotiations are ongoing and there can be no assurances that an agreement will be reached or that a transaction will be completed.”
On this, “The About.com acquisition is completely in line with IAC’s M&A strategy of acquiring, at disciplined valuations, companies that are complementary and synergistic with both our existing businesses and our areas of expertise,” said Greg Blatt, CEO of IAC.
“We are extremely excited to bring these two businesses together; About.com’s content will differentiate and greatly increase the authority of Ask.com’s offerings, while Ask’s expertise in search technology and user experience will improve the discoverability of existing content on About.com. The complementary nature of these two businesses will provide significant synergies going forward, and thus we expect that About.com will generate more profit as a part of Ask.com and IAC than it has been able to over the last few years.”
