November 19, 2004 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — E-commerce outsourcing provider Digital River, Inc. (digitalriver.com) announced on Thursday it has acquired BlueHornet Networks Inc., a permission-based email marketing solution. Through the acquisition, Digital River plans to offer online merchants an expanded range of advanced tools for survey and email creation, database and campaign management, loyalty building, revenue tracking and statistical analysis.
“On the front-end, the email marketing system is a valuable tool that clients can use to identify and target high-value customers while generating qualified traffic and sales for their online stores,” says Joel Ronning, Digital River’s CEO. “On the back-end, it will have the capability to be integrated into our Fireclick Web analytics engine so that companies can use the combined metrics to continuously optimize their sites and e-commerce strategies.”
Digital River acquired all of the outstanding capital stock of BlueHornet through a merger transaction in which former BlueHornet shareholders received stock of Digital River with additional compensation available to them based upon the terms of an earn-out. As a result of the merger, BlueHornet has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Digital River. Digital River anticipates the acquisition to be accretive to earnings in the near term.
