Lycos sells Quote.com for $30 million

Portal site operator Lycos Inc. has sold the Quote.com financial news and information Web site to Interactive Data Corp., a financial data provider, for US$30 million in cash, it said Thursday.

Quote.com will be operated as part of Interactive Data's eSignal division after the acquisition is complete, Interactive Data said. Completion is expected during the first quarter.

Lycos, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, acquired Quote.com for US$78.3 million during the Internet bubble in 1999.

The sale is part of a restructuring of Lycos that began in the middle of 2005 when the company appointed former Bertelsmann executive Alfred Tolle as its chief executive officer. Tolle is also a member of the board of directors of Daum Communications Corp., the South Korean portal operator that acquired Lycos in 2004.

Other Lycos sites include Hotbot.com, Wired.com, Tripod.com and Angelfire.com.