When InterActiveCorp. Chairman and CEO Barry Diller climbs on stage this afternoon for a discussion at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, one thing he may not be crowing about while explaining the greatness behind his Web empire is an acquisition one of his subsidiaries recently made.
Early this week, Biletix, a Turkish ticketing company, said it had been acquired by InterActiveCorp's Ticketmaster for an undisclosed amount. There is no sign of the deal on the IAC web site. It's the latest in a string of small fry acquisitions that Diller's IAC has made this year to fill in tiny geographical or service holes in its sprawling offering. Earlier this year, IAC purchased Shoebuy.com and Spanish ticketing company Tick Tack Ticket. Its most exciting deal was its purchase of a majority stake in the owner of Collegehumor.com. All of those deals carried undisclosed purchase sums.
I don't think this pace of dealmaking puts a smile on Diller's face. As you can see from the table below, dealmaking slowed down significantly last year. I imagine Diller will avoid this issue and instead spend a lot of time this afternoon talking about how Ask.com is nicely tying together his online properties and that IAC's diversified approach to commerce provides it with steady growth prospects.
But, with a flat stock price, IAC has limited ability to strike the sort of growth deals that Diller prefers. Therefore, I hope he faces up to the most prescient question IAC must confront; how long can he endure life as an afterthought in a web world increasingly dominated by Google, Yahoo, MSN and eBay.
For more on Barry Diller at the Web 2.0 conference , see:
SocalTech
San Francisco Chronicle
Tags: iac, web2, web20summit, web20summit06, vc, venture+capital
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