Excite@Home Shells Out Over $45m for Minority Stakes

Computergram International, Sept 1, 1999

Excite@Home Inc said Tuesday that it had made a series of minority investments worth a total of over $45m. The cash went to the newly-formed Rosenbluth Interactive, which includes Biztravel.com, and E-Stamp Corp, as well as to several companies Excite@Home had invested in previously - General Magic Inc, Quokka Sports Inc, WebMD Inc and Webstakes.com Inc.

Excite@Home says the investments serve to diversify the company's traditional business model, deepen its content offerings and extend its position in what it sees as areas with substantial growth opportunities. It says that the cash reserves on the balance sheet of the recently-merged company afford it the ability to seek out and invest in new services for its network. The company pledges that it will continue on with such a growth strategy - which it calls "deep partnering" - going forward.

Breaking down the investments, E-Stamp received $2.5m, General Magic scored $6m and Quokka Sports got $5m in addition to a content and distribution deal. Meanwhile, the WebMD investment was worth $25m and Webstakes.com secured $7m. Details of the Rosenbluth Interactive deal were not disclosed but Excite@Home it says became a strategic investor in the purchase of Biztravel.com by Rosenbluth, which is an affiliate of travel management company Rosenbluth International.

The spate of activity announced Tuesday follows a larger deal earlier last month that saw Excite@Home as the lead investor in an $85m round of financing for sports and entertainment ticketing agency Tickets.com Inc. Excite@Home invested $15m in Tickets.com and has plans to invest a further $40m, subject to regulatory approval. In July, Excite@Home announced the acquisition of e- commerce software company iMall Inc for roughly $425m in stock.