IAC Buys About.com From The New York Times For $300M In Cash
Both AllThingsD and Reuters have reported a deal in the works, and we have now confirmed with a source very close to the situation that IAC is buying About.com from the New York Times Company for an all-cash sum in the region of $300 million. TechCrunch has also learned that the news is due to be made official either later tonight or tomorrow morning.
The source also confirmed that although Answers.com had also been interested in the information portal, its offer — reportedly valued at $270 million — was in debt and equity in Answers.com. Whether it goes for $270 million or $300 million, it’s a discount on the $410 million the NYT paid for the site in 2005.
Alexa ranks About.com as number 37 in the U.S. in terms of traffic, and 80 worldwide. Its pre-Demand Media approach to acquiring content for low prices spawned some 900 subject sites with general interest information on topics like regional foods, parenting and technology. In that, it served as a counterbalance to the New York Times itself both in substance and in business model — the idea behind About.com being very high traffic and advertising sold against that.
