• Reuters, Friday, December 5, 2008 11:46 AM

Barry Diller reckons that his online conglomerate, IAC/InterActive Corp., will be sitting on a cash pile of $2.2 billion by next March, but says that he won't cave into investor demands to buy back the company's stock in order to boost its flagging stock price. Instead, Diller tells Reuters that he's biding his time so that IAC can pounce on what he expects will be a "cascade" of acquisition opportunities as asset prices fall further in the weak economy.

"My sense is that we wouldn't be purchasers of our own stock and that's because tomorrow will present unknown opportunities," Diller told a Reuters Media Summit on Thursday. With little to no debt, the Internet giant may consider acquisitions of up to $5 billion in size, the report says. "We can turn ourselves into any shape pretzel that opportunity presents," Diller said. IAC's properties include the Ask.com search engine and the Match.com dating service.

"I don't care if an investor buys our stock or not," the IAC CEO said, adding: "In entertainment and media, I think there's going to be a 'cascade' of acquisition opportunities," as media valuations fall further. "I don't think now is the time to buy anything unless it's desperately needed."

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