Ticketmaster to Acquire Biletix: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"Ticketmaster, the world's leading ticketing company and an operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IACI - News), today announced its acquisition of Biletix located in Istanbul, Turkey. Through this acquisition, Ticketmaster will acquire Biletix from founding partners the Koc Group and TAG Enterprises Limited. Biletix becomes the operating arm of Ticketmaster Turkey and will continue to provide its award winning ticketing services to its more than 400 venue, promoter and sports team clients throughout the country. The acquisition reflects Ticketmaster's continued commitment to strategic international development."

About Biletix
"Biletix is the first and the largest ticket sales and distribution agency in Turkey (founded by the largest industrial conglomerate of Turkey, Koc Group, and TAG Enterprises) currently providing ticketing services to more than 6,000 events each year. Since its establishment in 2000, Biletix has continued to provide event-goers with a convenient, secure and valuable system for purchasing tickets to entertainment and sporting events as well as movie theatres in and around Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Trabzon, Antalya, Konya, Cesme and Bodrum."

Notes: We wonder why Ticketmaster didn't just buy Stubhub instead; and we wonder how well their recent change in business model to better compete against Stubhub and others is going. Rumor has it ebay has offered $300m for the hub - that would be a steal given the tremendous growth and margins for the Stubhub business.