Ask Jeeves buys Excite Europe

Excited? Nah, us neither

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 20th May 2005 14:07 GMT

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Ask Jeeves - the snooty search engine fronted by a butler - has acquired Excite Europe from ISP Tiscali.

In a statement Ask Jeeves said that "financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed". Tiscali, on the other hand, wasn't quite so stuck-up and reported that Ask Jeeves had coughed up €6.1m for the business.

The acquisition of Excite Europe extends Ask Jeeves' ownership of the Excite brand beyond the US including Spain, Italy, France, UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Ask Jeeves acquired the US bit of Excite.com in March 2004.

Anyhow, Ask Jeeves boss Steve Berkowitz said that the deal marked the "next step" in the firm's "European expansion strategy", adding: "Access to Excite's pan-European operational infrastructure and market knowledge will accelerate our European growth initiative and provide an instant revenue stream from additional users and advertisers."

Tiscali acquired Excite Europe in April 2002. Since then, the European ISP has been forced to sell a number of "non-core" assets including its ISP business in France. ®