IAC Takes $170 Million Hit
InterActiveCorp — owner of Ask.com and other big league web services — is taking a $170 million hit due to decreasing values.
The company has announced a $100 million drop for its lending division, which houses LendingTree.com. It’s also seeing a $70 million drop in its real estate sector, which includes RealEstate.com. IAC blames the bad housing market for the losses.
The company is still planning to break itself up into five separate and independent companies by the end of next month. IAC will handle the Ask.com sites. The other newly formed corporations will be in charge of lending and real estate, home shopping, ticketing, and time-share services.
IAC made headlines just a couple of months ago when it acquired Dictionary.com — adding that site, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com into its Ask arsenal — and then, a week later, bought out StarNet Interactive. StarNet ran the teen-targeted GirlSense site, which matched up nicely with IAC’s similarly teen-focused Zwinky service.
