Amazon

Amazon today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Zappos.com, a leader in online apparel and footwear sales (and Twitter customer service). “Zappos is a customer focused company,” said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “We see great opportunities for both companies to learn from each other and create even better experiences for our customers.” 
• Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon will acquire all of the outstanding shares and assume all outstanding options and warrants of Zappos in exchange for approximately 10 million shares of Amazon common stock, equal to approximately $807 million based on the average closing price for the 45 trading days ending July 17, 2009. In addition, Amazon will provide Zappos employees with $40 million in cash and restricted stock units. The acquisition is expected to close during the Fall of 2009.
• Following the acquisition, the Zappos management team will remain intact and Zappos will operate its successful brand, customer experience and unique culture of service independently with headquarters in Las Vegas, NV. “We are joining forces with Amazon because there is a huge opportunity to utilize each other’s strengths and move even faster towards our vision of delivering happiness to customers, employees and vendors,” said Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. “We will continue to build the Zappos brand and culture in our own unique way, and we believe Amazon is the best partner to help us do this over the long term.”

Update: The selling price was $920M. Also, sources close to Zappos said that the company was forced to liquidate by Sequoia Capital (their major investor). Zappos had plenty of cash to hold out until the IPO market recovered, pulling in over $1B in gross revenue in 2008, $625M in net revenue and had an EBITA greater than $40M. Times must be tough for the Sand Hill legend. (PE Hub)

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