Diller hopes his change to InterActiveCorp will help demonstrate his vision of an e-commerce giant.
By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published June 20, 2003
Barry Diller changed the name of USA Interactive to InterActive Corp on Thursday to reflect his latest vision for the e-commerce conglomerate.
The name change is the fifth in eight years for the billionaire's chameleonlike empire.
Diller began building the company in 1995 as Silver King Communications Inc., a St. Petersburg company that owned broadcast TV stations that aired only the Home Shopping Network.
But the stations were sold long ago. And the reason for keeping "USA," which came in with the acquisition of the USA Network, faded once Diller sold it and other cable TV channels to Vivendi Universal. Meanwhile, Diller went on a buying binge, snapping up HSN, Ticketmaster, CitySearch, Match.com, Hotels.com, Expedia, Lending Tree and the time-sharing exchange Interval International.
On Monday his company gets a new stock symbol, IACI, but will continue to trade on the Nasdaq, where the stock closed at $38.12, down 64 cents, Thursday. Diller, however, hopes IAC will become short-hand for InterActiveCorp like IBM has been for International Business Machines. Diller chose the name because his goal is to create "the world's largest and most profitable interactive commerce company through a multibrand strategy."
Diller shook up the top ranks of his inner circle Thursday, junking an organizational structure that lasted only a few months. Instead of being broken into three major business units, IAC now will be split into nine. Tom McInerny, a former Ticketmaster executive, remains in charge of HSN and electronic retailing. Each of the travel company units now will operate separately. Anne Busquet, a one-time American Express executive hired to integrate Diller's investments in the travel booking industry, is now a "senior adviser" to the company.
In recent analyst calls, Diller's executives routinely compared the company's revenues to e-commerce giants Amazon.com and eBay Inc.
If Diller picked the new name to prove that his ambitions lie solely in exploiting new forms of interactive commerce, some analysts and Hollywood executives still think Diller wants to be an entertainment baron again.
Fueling the speculation is the upcoming auction by Vivendi Universal, the faltering French entertainment giant that owns Universal Studios and half of the Universal Orlando theme parks. At least six bidders are lined up to bid for all or some of Vivendi. Some of them have lengthy business relationships with Diller, who once headed Fox and, more recently, Vivendi's U.S. entertainment assets.
One of the bidders, Edgar Bronfman, is a member of the IAC board. Another is John Malone, whose Liberty Media Inc. is the biggest shareholder in Diller's InterActiveCorp. Armed with $6-billion in cash, Malone told his shareholders Wednesday that he intends to bid, but he said Diller appears to be on a "different trajectory."
Diller's IAC also controls a minority stake in Vivendi that some analysts value as high as $2-billion.
