11:37 a.m. | Updated The New York Times Company is in the process of selling the online resource guide About.com, according to an executive familiar with the negotiations.
The company has a letter of intent to sell the About Group, the unit that includes About.com, to Answers.com, a question-and-answer site, for $270 million, the executive said. It's unclear when the deal will close because financing has not yet been secured. The sale was first reported on the Web site AllThingsD.
Last month, the Times Company took a $194.7 million write-down of About.com. The company purchased the Web site in 2005 for just over $400 million. In its latest earnings news release, the company said revenues for the About Group declined 8.7 percent to $25.4 million, largely because of a drop in display and cost-per-click advertising.
The prospective sale of About.com follows a string of sales that The New York Times Company has been making. The company sold its stakes in the Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Boston Red Sox. It took a major write-down last year on its Regional Media Group before selling the newspaper group to Halifax Media Holdings in January for $143 million.
A spokesman for the Times Company, Robert H. Christie, said, “It is the policy of the company not to comment on rumors of potential acquisitions and divestitures.â€
