Stock Watch: Takeover Talk Boosts Infoseek

On a day when most Internet stocks were down, shares of search site Infoseek (Nasdaq: SEEK) were up sharply, climbing 6-1/16 to 49-1/16 on Tuesday.

The 14 percent climb came after Disney (NYSE: DIS), which owns 43 percent of Infoseek, said it was in talks to purchase the rest of the site. Disney also announced on Monday that it is a founding investor in eCompanies, a newly launched Internet company incubator.

Disney’s stake in eCompanies and interest in Infoseek , which is an anchor page of the Go Network raises the question of whether Disney could spin off its Web holdings into an Internet company that combines content and e-commerce.

Such a deal could increase the value of Disney’s Web assets, but keep in mind that Disney is restricted from having a majority stake in Infoseek before 2001. That’s a long time, especially when we’re talking about Web time. Shares of Disney closed down 1-1/4 to 29-5/8 on Tuesday.

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