Ask Jeeves today announced it has closed the acquisition of privately-held Interactive Search Holdings, Inc.
“The acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings is an important step in Ask Jeeves’ growth strategy. This acquisition doubles our market share and enhances our ability to compete in the fast-growing search market,” said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Ask Jeeves. “We now have substantially more traffic and advertising inventory, which we believe will increase our value to advertisers and partners. Additionally, consumers like to access information in different ways and we believe through our expanded portfolio of brands we will be in an even better position to meet those needs.”
According to Nielsen NetRatings (March 2004), with the acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings, Ask Jeeves:
* Becomes the 7th largest domestic Web property in terms of unique users;
* Extends its reach to 27% of the domestic Internet, representing approximately 39 million unique users; and
* Increases its reach of domestic searchers to 25%, or approximately 29 million unique searchers.
Interactive Search Holdings’ Web properties and businesses include My Way, iWon, Excite, My Search, My Web Search and the MaxOnline advertising network.
Under the terms of the agreement, Ask Jeeves issued 9.3 million shares of common stock and options and paid approximately $144 million in cash. This reflects an aggregate purchase price of $501 million based on Ask Jeeves’ closing price on May 5, 2004.
