ASKJ is no more. As of Tuesday’s market close, Ask Jeeves was delisted as one of the last steps before being folded into Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive in a deal valued at $1.96 billion; each share of ASKJ was converted into the right to receive 1.2668 shares of IAC common and options were converted to options for IAC. IAC issued roughly 74.8 million shares and could issue another 13.2 million. Ask Jeeves lives, though, as an operating business with IAC’s Media & Advertising group. A reminder: this means IAC also owns Bloglines (and the ubiquitous Bloglines plumber), moving Mark Fletcher from standalone start-up to big public company to much bigger public company in less than six months.
Also on the IAC front, shareholders approved the spin-off of Expedia effective Aug. 8. IAC’s earnings call on Aug. 2 should be interesting as Diller lays out the next phase of his online vision.
This all feels a little anticlimactic, providing a good reminder of how much time it can take to move from deal to close. We started covering ASKJ-IAC on a Sunday night in late March. Four months to the day, it’s finally time to move from potential and what ifs to action. A year from now I hope we’re writing about how well it’s working for all involved and that users are benefiting as much as shareholders.
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