German Internet holding company InternetMediaHouse.com has said one of its units had filed for insolvency and two others in which it has stakes may be closed if they cannot win new funding.
InternetMediaHouse said in a statement it has stopped an additional financing for German online cosmetics shop BeautySpy GmbH, in which it holds a 40 per cent stake.
The Bavarian company said the unit would file for bankruptcy because it has failed to find a business partner but that talks with potential investors for the unit would continue.
The two other ailing units are based in the United States. InternetMediaHouse said Internet Cool Guide Inc, a New York-based publisher of Internet guides, has shut down its online activities due to declining online advertising sales.
The offline activities of the unit are unaffected and English and German book series will continue to be distributed.
InternetMediaHouse said that it is in talks with potential partners from the media industry to prop up Internet Cool Guide but that if the talks fail, the unit would be closed.InternetMediaHouse, which owns minority or majority stakes in about 20 Internet technology and content companies, also said Palo Alto-based software company Zadu Inc would reduce its operations as the division has not been able to secure its next round of financing.If the company, in which InternetMediaHouse holds a 18 percent stake, fails to find a financial backer it will be shut down, InternetMediaHouse said.
The company did not give financial details.
Announcement of the possible closures comes after InternetMediaHouse said in December it would start selling some of its loss-making holdings.
In January, it stopped financing of its insolvent German multimedia agency BlueOrbit after it failed to sell the majority holding and earlier was not able to publicly list the unit.