About a month ago I published a post which discussed ValueClick’s intention to divest itself of all their sites in their ‘owned & operated’ segments. You can read that post HERE. At the time, there wasn’t a specific buyer that they had in mind, but that seems to have changed. In a recent announcement, IAC has agreed to buy all of the O&O sites from ValueClick. IAC is a major media and investment company which owns more than 150 different brands and products. They run ask.com, about.com, match.com, homeadvisor.com, vimeo.com and many other popular sites. They will be adding smarter.com, investopedia, pricerunner, symptomfind, couponmountain and many others to their portfolio with this purchase.
The deal is an all cash agreement which will be completed in January 2014 if all goes well. As of this writing, there has been no announcement on the total price that IAC will be paying for these sites. Of course, they will still need to get approval from regulatory agencies and other normal closing conditions, but there is no reason to think that there will be any problems.
IAC has not commented on what they will be doing with the sites, so for the time being it can be assumed that they will continue to run them with a ‘business as usual’ style. Many of the sites they are getting in the deal are already very popular and even making money, so there is no urgency to make any major changes. The sites will be a part of IAC’s existing search & applications reporting segment.
ValueClick will be focusing on their core media and affiliate marketing business going forward.
You can see the announcement HERE.
