Buy.com flees Australia

Buy.com's operation down under shut its doors yesterday although it's understood that the e-tailer's operations in the UK are unaffected. A notice on the Australian web site reads: "Effective 11:00am Tuesday 21 November, 2000, buy.com.au closed its virtual doors and is no longer taking new orders. All existing orders for which payment has been made will be fullfilled (sic) in accordance with existing contracts."

The EasyEverything empire has expanded again. Stelios Haji-Ioannou has launched EasyValue a price comparison Web site. It will compare prices on the Web, initially for books CDs DVDs and videos, but more products will be added later.

Eighteen of the UK's largest institutional property owners have joined forces with the Net incubator, Brainspark, to create a B2B commercial property portal. Propex will be launched next month.

Software provider, Intec Telecom, has spent £172 million on US firm Computer Generation. Analysts were unsure about the price tag, saying that 30 million

new shares at 600p was too high a price for a company with a "chequered" trading record. ®

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