Lexico, Dictionary.com Being Acquired By Ask.com; Price In $100 Million Range
This story was written by Staci D. Kramer.
Turns out Ask.com has the answers for Lexico Publishing, the owner of Dictionary.com which earlier agreed to be acquired by Answers.com (NSDQ: ANSW) in a doomed effort. The IAC (NSDQ: IACI) subsidiary isn't disclosing the price of the all-cash transaction but, according to a source familiar with the situation, it's in the same range as the $100 million that Answers.com was supposed to pay. Ask spokesman Nicholas Graham declined to confirm the amount or to comment on the price.
The deal is expected to close in Q3. The Long Beach, Calif. company was founded in 1995 by Brian Kariger, CEO, and Daniel Fierro. Both will be staying on for the integration into Ask.com.
The iconic domains, which also include Thesaurus.com and Reference.com, come with a serious amount of traffic, increasing the Ask Network's traffic by 11 percent to 145 million-plus uniques. Ask claims this will make it the ninth largest web property in the worldahead of Facebook and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL).
Ask isn't talking revenue either, but Doug Leeds, the Ask.com chief strategy officer who will run the company, told me, "It is profitable, very profitable." Lexico has a paid search deal with Google (NSDQ: GOOG).
It's the second time Lexico has agreed to be acquired in less than a year; last July, Answers Corp. said it would acquire Lexico for $100 million. But troubled Answers could never come up with the scratch to cover the costs, failing multiple times to raise the money. In the end, Lexico made $500,000 from Answers because the deal collapsed.
More to come
By Staci D. Kramer