Business
WebMD merger off
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted March 3, 2008
HLTH, WebMD's largest shareholder, said in February it was unable to reach mutually acceptable terms for a merger with WebMD, which it has been planning since November 2007.
However, HLTH, which owns various health businesses, said it plans to continue negotiations. After HLTH's announcement, WebMD stocks fell to $28.50 a share, the lowest point since December 2005.
The news came just days after Revolution Health Network, created by AOL co-founder Steve Case, announced it had surpassed WebMD as the largest health property on the Internet with 256 million page views in January. Revolution's network consists of revolutionhealth.com, carepages.com, drugstore.com, healthtalk.com and sparkpeople.com.
Also, even though Microsoft's bid was rejected by Yahoo, WebMD lowered its full-year earnings forecast citing concerns that a takeover of Yahoo might result in changes to its advertising partnership. Under their agreement, Yahoo places both search and display ads on WebMD's Web site.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/03/03/bibf0303.htm.












