Diller Dishes on IAC Split
by Mike Farrell -- Multichannel News, 5/26/2008
Weeks after winning a sometimes-brutal court battle with Liberty Media, IAC/InterActiveCorp chairman Barry Diller was decidedly upbeat at the Goldman Sachs Internet conference in Las Vegas last week.
Diller, who opened the conference at 8 a.m. last Wednesday — a time he called a “crime against humanity” in Las Vegas — said that his plans to split IAC into five separate companies should unlock virtually unlimited growth potential for each of the businesses.
The road to the split became even easier earlier this month when Liberty said it would not own more than 35% of each entity after the split. Liberty also receives the right to elect 20% of the board of directors of each spun off company.
It was Diller’s decision to split IAC into IAC, Lending Tree, Ticketmaster, HSN and Interval International.
Diller didn’t gloat about his victory over Liberty, and only mentioned it in passing at the conference.
“We announced this [split] in December — we had a slight interruption that some of you may have heard about,” Diller said at the conference. “That’s over now.”
Diller said the split should be completed in August, adding that every month since the December announcement of the split has only reaffirmed his conviction to do the deal.
