Oct 6 (Reuters) – IAC’s digital media arm Dotdash on Wednesday agreed to buy Meredith Corp in a deal valued at about $2.7 billion, bringing People magazine, Allrecipes and Investopedia under one umbrella.
The combined company, to be called Dotdash Meredith, will be led by Dotdash top boss Neil Vogel, the companies said.
The deal will combine Meredith’s more than 40 brands, including People, Better Homes & Gardens and Allrecipes with Dotdash’s digital labels such as Investopedia, Serious Eats and Brides.
Dotdash will buy an entity that will hold Meredith’s National Media Group and its corporate operations in an all-cash transaction of $42.18 per share.
In June, Meredith had accepted a revised proposal from broadcast firm Gray Television Inc to buy Meredith’s television stations business for about $2.83 billion.
On its own, Dotdash currently reaches about 100 million online consumers monthly and its collection of 14 media brands in health, finance and lifestyle are among the fastest growing media brands online. It is one of the rapidly expanding businesses in parent IAC’s portfolio.
Television mogul Barry Diller-owned IAC, which is known to build businesses and later list them on the stock market, has successfully spun off online video platform Vimeo and online dating platform Match Group, which has popular online dating services including Tinder and Hinge. (Reporting by Manas Mishra and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
