Business-directory marketing firm R.H. Donnelley said Sept. 21 that it purchased Sprint's yellow pages business in a $2.23 billion deal, making itself the largest stand-alone publisher of yellow pages directories.
R.H. Donnelley, Purchase, NY, now will publish about 260 directories in the 18 states Sprint operated its yellow pages division. Previously, R.H. Donnelley served as a sales agent for 41 Sprint directories in four states.
As part of the deal, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners 2000 invested $200 million in R.H. Donnelley through the purchase of company stock. The sale is expected to close in the first quarter of 2003.
Sprint's yellow pages have a total circulation of about 18 million. They serve about 156,000 local and 4,700 national advertisers. Sprint had the fifth-largest yellow-pages publishing business in the United States.
