Internet Brands Continues Bulk Buying: Acquires Four Sites; Slower M&A Pace This Year
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Internet Brands' habits of buying sites in bulk continues, though the volume has come down considerably. The Los Angeles-based online media and e-commerce holding company announced its Q4 results today, and has defied the recession to some extent. Its revenues increased 8 percent in Q408 to $27.0 million, compared to $24.9 million in the year ago quarter; meanwhile its net income was $3.1 million, or $0.07 per diluted common share compared to net income of $2.8 million, or $0.06 per diluted common share in the prior year period. IB has a network of more than 200 website in the automotive, careers, home, shopping and travel and leisure categories.
Meanwhile, on the M&A side, from a high of buying 12 sites in Q308 last year, it has now come down to four in Q408: it paid a total of $2.8 million for the four sites: two acquisitions in careers vertical include CVTips.com and GrooveJob.com, one website in the shopping vertical is Steves-Digicams.com and one website in the automotive vertical is SellMyCar.com. For the full year 2008, the company completed 29 online acquisitions for a total of about $62.6 million.
From January 1 through February 24, 2009, the company has completed two small acquisitions, it said. As is to be expected, it will slowen the pace of buying more sites in 2009, it said. Release | Conference call transcript
By Rafat Ali