MySpace's parent company, Intermix Media, reaffirmed its recommendation on Monday that stockholders vote in favor of a pending acquisition by News Corp. The media juggernaut News Corp. said it would
pay $580 million, or $12 a share, for Intermix on July 18.
The announcement was an unambiguous rebuff of FreeMySpace LLC, an investor group that attempted to prevent News Corp.'s
acquisition of MySpace last week by offering to acquire a significant stake in Intermix Media. Brad Greenspan, Intermix's largest non-insider stockholder and one-time CEO, is leading the group of
private equity investors who offered shareholders $13.50 a share to become "the significant stockholders" in Intermix.
Intermix said Monday that the "unsolicited proposal from its former chairman
and chief executive officer Brad D. Greenspan does not constitute, and is not reasonably expected to lead to, a transaction that is superior to the News Corporation transaction."
FreeMySpace said
Greenspan would file a proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to solicit proxies from Intermix shareholders to vote against the News Corp. deal.
"Selling to News Corp. is not
in the best interests of Intermix's shareholders or MySpace's 30 million registered members," said Greenspan, who added that he believed the social networking site MySpace alone was worth more than
$580 million.
"The company has tremendous growth potential based on its deep relationship with users, which is what all the big Internet companies are willing to pay so much money for today,"
Greenspan said.
Under the terms of the FreeMySpace proposal, Intermix stockholders will be able to sell up to 50 percent of their shares at their option, and will also retain equity
participation, according to a FreeMySpace statement confirmed by Greenspan. FreeMySpace said the proxy would also seek to have Intermix defer its scheduled stockholder meeting.
The special
meeting of stockholders to vote on the News Corp. deal, which Intermix originally said it would hold on Wednesday, has been moved back to Friday, Sept. 30.