Excite Swallows Up iMall

Excite@Home, a global media company, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire iMALL, Inc., a leading provider of fully integrated, "one-stop" e-commerce solutions. In the merger, Excite@Home will issue approximately 8.3 million shares of Excite@Home stock, having a value of approximately $425 million and also will assume iMALL's outstanding options and warrants. In addition, Excite@Home and First Data Corporation (NYSE: FDC) subsidiary First Data Merchant Services, a leading electronic commerce payments solution provider, today announced an agreement to enable merchants to quickly establish an online commerce storefront with transaction capabilities and access to Excite's millions of daily users.
     These two agreements provide Excite@Home with industry-leading momentum in adding merchants to the Excite Shopping Service for consumers. For businesses, the First Data/iMALL solution will be marketed through @Work, Excite@Home's business-to-business division which provides Internet access and hosting solutions, to various Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) resellers and other third parties that want to offer their e-commerce services for sale. First Data gains the opportunity to begin generating enormous consumer traffic for its merchant alliance partners' and financial institution customers' online merchants. Excite@Home and First Data will also explore opportunities to develop and cross-promote additional products and services in a preferred marketing relationship. This relationship has the potential to give Excite@Home in-store exposure to a base of more than two million merchant locations, and First Data clients' merchants exposure to Excite's 22 million unique visitors each month.