Jul, 2003 : Yahoo! to Acquire Overture for $1.6 Billion

📅 July 14, 2003 - Internet giant Yahoo! (yahoo.com) announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Overture (overture.com), a provider of paid commercial search services.

The purchase price, combining stock and cash, will total approximately $1.63 billion.
"The combined assets position Yahoo! as the largest global player in the rapidly growing Internet advertising sector," said Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer of Yahoo!. "Together, the two companies will be able to provide the most compelling and diversified suite of integrated marketing solutions around the globe, including branding, paid placement, graphical ads, text links, multimedia, and contextual advertising."
Overture boasts a customer base of more than 88,000 advertisers.
"Overture pioneered commercial search, and we believe there remains huge upside potential in this market," said Ted Meisel, president and chief executive officer of Overture. "By combining the assets of Yahoo! and Overture, we believe the company will be strongly positioned to take advantage of this growth opportunity by more rapidly developing and deploying innovative search and marketing solutions."
The companies expect the transaction to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2003.
Overture will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo! and its operations will remain in Pasadena following completion of the acquisition. Ted Meisel will continue to head up Overture's operations and report to Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo!'s chief operating officer.
The deal will combine two companies that each have several assets related to search engine technology. Earlier this year, Overture purchased Altavista, a popular search engine. Late last year, Yahoo! purchased search technology firm Inktomi.