John Malone's Liberty Media yesterday announced a $477 million (€404 million) takeover of an online retailer of meat, flowers and fruit as part of the media mogul's effort to expand his company's e-commerce portfolio.
Provide Commerce, which operates the ProFlowers, Cherry MoonFarms, Uptown Prime and Secret Spoon websites, will receive $33.75 per share from Liberty, or an 11.6 per cent premium over the stock's closing price on Friday. The transaction underlines Liberty's effort to move to e-commerce and TV shopping following the disposal of overseas cable-television assets. Its largest unit is the QVC shopping channel.
In addition, Liberty owns stakes in Expedia, the online travel agent, and IAC/InterActiveCorp, as well as News Corporation. Liberty is in the process of creating a tracking stock for its interactive assets such as QVC, IAC and now Provide.
"We believe in the power of video to drive television and web-based retailing businesses and Provide is a compelling addition to our strategy," Mr Malone said
Pending shareholder and regulatory approval, the transaction was expected to close in the second quarter of 2006. Jovian Holdings, which owns or controls about 29 per cent of Provide shares, has agreed to vote in favour of the transaction or against other rival bids.
Provide, which had a cash balance of $60 million as of September 30th, last month reported a narrower loss than expected in its fiscal first quarter on revenue growth of 34 per cent to $27.8 million. In early New York trading yesterday, Provide shares added 10.9 per cent to $33.53.
