November 29, 2000, 4:09 PM — LONDON -- Looking to expand its holdings in the online marketplace,
Internet service provider PSINet Inc. is buying Transaction Network Services
Inc. for $720 million, the companies
today.
The deal includes $351 million in cash and up to 7.8 million PSINet common
shares. If it's approved by shareholders and regulators, the deal is due to
close in the fourth quarter, PSINet said.
Transaction Network Services is an e-commerce data processing firm, handling
about 20 million Internet transactions per day from 2 million businesses in
Ireland, the U.K., Sweden, France, Australia and Japan, according to the
company. According to PSINet's statement, the deal will allow Transaction
Network Services to expand its international reach operating over PSINet's
global backbone, which has more than 600 points of presence.
PSINet has been aggressively moving into the e-commerce arena, most recently
in Brazil this past June when the company announced plans to buy fiber-optic
networks and to establish data centers there.
