NetCreations Inc. yesterday identified SEAT Pagine Gialle SpA, Turin, Italy, as the unnamed company that made the 11th-hour acquisition bid topping DoubleClick's offer.
NetCreations, New York, accepted the acquisition bid of $7 per share in cash, making the deal worth about $111 million. The deal upended DoubleClick Inc., New York — which previously had agreed to acquire NetCreations — in its effort to acquire the provider of opt-in e-mail services. NetCreations revealed its acceptance of the third-party bid last week but at the time declined to reveal that SEAT Pagine Gialle had made the bid.
The SEAT Pagine Gialle deal is expected to close during the first quarter of 2001.
DoubleClick's offer was for 0.41 shares of its stock for each share of NetCreations' stock. The DoubleClick deal was worth about $191 million when announced in October. However, with the decline in value of DoubleClick's stock, the SEAT Pagine Gialle deal is more attractive to NetCreations' shareholders. On Dec. 21, DoubleClick's shares closed at $9.18, down 81 cents from the previous day's close. At that price, DoubleClick's offer for NetCreations is now worth $58.4 million.
DoubleClick said last week that it would not make a counteroffer and that it would terminate its acquisition agreement with NetCreations. By terminating its previous agreement with DoubleClick, NetCreations must pay the company an $8.6 million breakup fee, plus expenses.
SEAT Pagine Gialle is Italy's largest Internet service provider and a publisher of telephone directories. The company announced that NetCreations would become a wholly owned subsidiary of SEAT Pagine Gialle. The firm also recently acquired the French company Consodata, which also provides e-mail marketing services.
Rosalind Resnick, the chairwoman/CEO of NetCreations, will continue to run the company.
