Homestore.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: HOMS), today announced an agreement to acquire Langhorne, Pa.-based iPlace, Inc., the leading provider of online credit and neighborhood information to real estate professionals and consumers. The $150 million stock and cash transaction, of which approximately $70 million is cash, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2001. iPlace counts more than 600,000 paid consumer subscriptions and, according to the July 2001 Nielsen/NetRatings, had more than 6.7 million unique users to its family of Web sites. This, combined with Homestore's network traffic of more than 9.1 million unique monthly users in the same period, is anticipated to move the Homestore network of Web sites into the top 20 of the most visited Internet networks.

eNeighborhoods, Inc., founded by Siegel in 1996, later merged with ConsumerInfo.com, then a wholly owned subsidiary of MemberWorks Incorporated (Nasdaq: MBRS), and QSpace.com and was subsequently renamed iPlace. The company's array of products and services include iPlace.com, eNeighborhoods, ConsumerInfo.com, QSpace.com and Relocator, among others. iPlace was among the first to enable consumers to access their credit reports online and to offer an online merged report containing credit information in an easy-to-read format from the three major credit bureaus. Additionally, iPlace was among the first to enable consumer access to credit scores, which had been available only to lenders, says the company.

The closing of the proposed acquisition is subject to expiration of the required waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, as well as a number of other customary closing conditions.

Published: August 10, 2001

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