Business.com Sold To RH Donnelley; Beating DJ, NYT and News Corp; Price $345 Million


Business.com, the Santa Monica-based business info, directory and check site, continues to be offered to R.H. Donnelley, the phone book and native search firm, paidContent.org is familiar with, for $345 million, nearly what the organization was expecting.

The auction was heated, and initially incorporated IAC, New You are able to Occasions, DJ and News Corp.

IAC didn’t finish up putting in a bid, News Corp dropped out because the cost went above $300 million, Dow Johnson couldn’t pull it together within the wake of all of the turmoil with News Corp bid, and New You are able to Occasions was at there until late in the overall game.

Business.com’s 2007 EBITDA is all about $15 million, a WSJ story stated recently, smashing the news about this being available.

The website would be a laughing stock of the profession at some point, when Mike Winebaum and Sky Dayton plunked lower $7.5 million on one Internet domain title in 1999, which makes it among the greatest ever.

The organization began like a business portal, but went almost bust following the dotcom bubble, after which returned, centered on its directory and vertical search business, along with the launch of their Business to business PPC advertisements service.

This past year it released Work.com, a company guide featuring content from customers/experts in a variety of areas. The organization elevated a $ten million round in 2004.

Meanwhile, RHD puts out the AT&T (new york stock exchange: T - news - people ), Dex and Embarq phone book, coupled with made some large online forays: recently it re-released DexKnows.com, its new online local internet search site.

A WSJ story from earlier this year examined how RHD and competitor Idearc are dealing with online competition. “The information mill heading online to retain marketers and customers, however the companies still make each of their money from books.

Experts say Donnelley, which works dexknows.com, receives under 2% of their revenue from the web, while Idearc, which is the owner of superpages.com, receives about 9%.”

Update: The state release has gone out, and also the final cost is $345 million, upfront cash plus performance based within the next 3 years.

Business.com Boss Mike Winebaum is going to be hired as Leader of RHD’s interactive unit (RHDi), that will now include DexKnows.com, LocalLaunch internet search engine marketing company, Business.com, Work.com and also the Business.com Advertising Network.

Revenues are required to exceed $50 million in 2007 plus they presently have about 6000 clients. Much more particulars around the acquisition in RDH’s Q2 business call. Go to how to be a social entrepreneur and learn more today.