France Telecom's Internet unit, Wanadoo, is furthering its European expansion by buying Spain's Indice Multimedia for E360 million ($323 million). Indice has a ten per cent share of the Spanish Internet market. That's on top of the £1.6 billion it's paying for British ISP, Le Freeserve.

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Durlacher Corporation - the European research-driven investment and securities group focused on emerging technologies and media – has written off £13 million from its recent investments.

These could include teen girl site Wowgo, which shut up shop in November, and contemporary art seller Unit26. Durlacher’s not saying.

It’s other investments include the 365 Corporation, the451.com, icollector, and Zeus Technology.

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US online grocer, Homegrocer.com, has laid off 100 staff from its east Seattle-based HQ. This means 150 people have got the boot since the business was bought by Webvan for $534 million in September. HomeGrocer employed about 460 people at its HQ before the take-over.

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The cost of running and developing Web sites will fall next year, according to the publishers of the FT.Com. Pearson, which owns FT.Com along with the Financial Times newspaper, said "our FT Internet enterprises remain on track to break even in 2002, some two years ahead of our original expectations." It added that all its businesses, which include book publishing, are "on track to deliver substantial revenue and operating profit growth". Bloomberg also reports that Pearson is investing in publishing educational materials, as well as financial news, online.

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The easyEverything Net cafe business, which has a strong toehold in European cities, is to spend £20 million to expand its operation across the US. ®

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