United Online To Acquire FTD Group for $800 Million

United Online has announced plans to acquire FTD Group in a transaction valued at $800 million. The transaction requires the approval of FTD stockholders and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008. The combined company has pro-forma revenues over $1.1 billion.

If you haven't heard of United Online, they run the popular NetZero and Juno Internet dial-up services. United Online also owns Classmates.com.

United Online notes that this deal will provide additional diversification of revenue for the company. They also claim that floral sales online continue to see significant growth. While selling flowers might sound odd to pair with a social network and an Internet provider, the ability to push the products FTD offers to their users might just work - you just know that FTD will become the leading sponsor on all of the United Online properties.

After the closing of the acquisition, FTD will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Online from FTD's existing facilities, including its U.S. headquarters in Downers Grove, Illinois and its international headquarters in the United Kingdom.