Primedia, publisher of New York and Seventeen magazines, expanded its push into the Internet on Monday, saying it would buy online media company About for $690 million in stock.
The move will combine Primedia (PRM) with an Internet portal that is the seventh most-visited website. Primedia said in a statement that shareholders of About (BOUT), which operates the About.com online network, would get 2.3409 Primedia shares for each share of About.
Primedia will issue about 45.2 million shares in the deal. The transaction values About at roughly $35.70 per share, a 50 percent premium from its closing price on Friday. Primedia has made dozens of deals recently to beef up its online presence. This month Primedia agreed to buy media research firm Kagan World Media in a stock deal whose terms were not disclosed.
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A bite worse than its bark: The dot-com financing crunch has bitten online pet store market Petopia.com, prompting the self-proclaimed "Internet pet paradise" to lay off about 120 workers, or 60 percent of its staff, company officials said.
The layoffs at the San Francisco company came after a hoped-for financing deal collapsed Wednesday. The company said that the site, which tried to serve as an online pet store and community for animal lovers, would fulfill existing orders and continue to take new ones.
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News Corp covets Microsoft dough: Microsoft is in talks with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp about investing more than $1 billion in the media firm's Sky Global Networks satellite TV unit, The Wall Street Journal said.
If a deal is reached, Microsoft (MSFT) will take a 3.5 percent stake in Sky Global, Murdoch's soon-to-be-floated unit, consolidating News Corp's global satellite TV assets, the newspaper said.
British Sky Broadcasting -- which is 37.5 percent owned by News Corp (NWS) and a key asset in Sky Global -- saw its shares rise more than 6 percent on the prospect of Microsoft becoming one of Sky Global's minority partners.
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Uncertainty dogs Amazon: Shares of No. 1 U.S. Internet retailer Amazon.com tumbled as much as 8 percent in early trading, as questions still loomed over the company's accounting methods as well as its cash position.
By mid-morning shares of the Seattle-based Amazon (AMZN) recovered somewhat but were still trading down $1-1/2, or about 4 percent, at $34-3/16 on the Nasdaq stock market.
Last week, Amazon posted better-than-expected financial results for the third quarter. After the earnings announcement, Lehman Brothers debt analyst Ravi Suria repeated warnings he had made in June describing Amazon's credit as weak and deteriorating. Suria recommended investors "avoid" buying the Web retailer's convertible bonds.
A pair of recent articles in Barron's also highlighted Amazon's statement in its quarterly filing that the Securities and Exchange Commission had begun an "informal" inquiry into accounting practices.
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Things looking up, for a change: Matsushita Electric Industrial company, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, announced a more than 50 percent jump in operating profit for the past half year, its first rise in three years.
The Osaka-based giant (MC) best known for its Panasonic, Technics and Quasar brands, has staged a comeback this year on strong demand for electronics parts, including chips and liquid crystal displays.
Its operating profit grew 53 percent to $917 million, while net profit rose 51 percent to 51.4 billion yen in the April-September half-year.
Reuters contributed to this report.
