Property ManagementHomestore Buys iPlace
Homestore.com, Inc. (Nasdaq:
HOMS), today announced an agreement to acquire Langhorne, Pa.-based iPlace,
Inc., the leading provider of online credit and neighborhood information to
real estate professionals and consumers. The $150 million stock and cash
transaction, of which approximately $70 million is cash, is expected to
close in the third quarter of 2001. iPlace counts more than 600,000 paid
consumer subscriptions and, according to the July 2001 Nielsen/NetRatings,
had more than 6.7 million unique users to its family of Web sites. This,
combined with Homestore"s network traffic of more than 9.1 million unique
monthly users in the same period, is anticipated to move the Homestore
network of Web sites into the top 20 of the most visited Internet networks.
eNeighborhoods, Inc., founded by Siegel in 1996, later merged with
ConsumerInfo.com, then a wholly owned subsidiary of MemberWorks Incorporated
(Nasdaq: MBRS), and QSpace.com and was subsequently renamed iPlace. The
company"s array of products and services include iPlace.com, eNeighborhoods,
ConsumerInfo.com, QSpace.com and Relocator, among others. iPlace was among the
first to enable consumers to access their credit reports online and to offer
an online merged report containing credit information in an easy-to-read
format from the three major credit bureaus. Additionally, iPlace was among the
first to enable consumer access to credit scores, which had been available
only to lenders, says the company.
The closing of the proposed acquisition is subject to expiration of the
required waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements
Act, as well as a number of other customary closing conditions.