Apr, 2001 : VeriSign to acquire CyberCash for $20 million

📅 April 16, 2001 - The Washington Post reported on Monday that Verisign Inc. (verisign.com), a leading provider of Internet trust services and the world's major domain name registrar, would be involved in a $20 million dollar acquisition of CyberCash Inc., a company based out of Reston, Virginia?s.
CyberCash processes credit card payments, as well as providing several other online financial services. The company is under chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, however, and auctioned off the right to its operations last week.
VeriSign, working together with First Data Merchant Services Corp., won that auction with a bid of $20.4 million. According to the arrangements made between the two companies, First Data Merchant Services will take over CyberCash's software products, and VeriSign will take over the company's services, all pending the approval of a bankruptcy court judge.
The planned new acquisition would add CyberCash to the California-based VeriSign's collection of Northern Virginia's former Internet stars. The deal comes just over a year after VeriSign bought the Herndon, Virgina-based Internet domain name registrar Network Solutions Inc., for $15.3 billion.
VeriSign announced last month that it plans to add 400 to 500 workers to its offices in the Washington area this year, not including former CyberCash employees. The company says that with its base in technology on both the West Coast and the East Coast, VeriSign will be well-equipped to penetrate whatever markets it decides to enter.
VeriSign plans to make a number of decisions on how to run the subsidiary before the CyberCash deal closes on May 1, 2001.