AOL Agrees to $388 Million Purchase Of MovieFone, Enhancing Its City Guide
America Online Inc. said it will buy MovieFone Inc. for about $388 million in stock, adding the seller of movie tickets to its stable of city-guide offerings.</br></br>At $29.25 a share, the transaction values MovieFone at a premium of $4.25, or 17%, to its Friday closing price. Shares of MovieFone fluctuated wildly yesterday after the company made a morning announcement that it was in talks for a sale. The stock rose as high as $33 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, then dipped back to close at $26.50 just before trading was halted for AOL's late-afternoon announcement.</br></br>In composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of AOL fell $4.5625 to close at $171.1875.</br></br>MovieFone, based in New York, is best known for its telephone-ordering service, which lets moviegoers call and buy tickets by punching in a credit-card number. The service -- with its signature introduction, "Hello! And welcome to MovieFone!" -- has become a pop-culture emblem parodied on "Seinfeld" and other television shows.</br></br>But in recent months MovieFone has placed a growing emphasis on its MovieLink site on the World Wide Web, which lets Net surfers order movie tickets online. Moviegoers pay $1.50 a ticket for the service.