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Seat to boost Web arm
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December 27, 1999: 7:21 a.m. ET
Italian listings publisher in friendly $730M bid for Buffetti retail chain
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Italian phone listings publisher Seat Pagine Giallem launched a 720 million euro ($730 million) friendly takeover bid Monday for office supplies chain Buffetti as part of its strategy to become a major e-commerce participant.
Seat, Italy’s largest publisher of telephone directories, aims to combine the distribution networks of the two companies to take advantage of the boom in Net usage in Italy, formerly a laggard among the major European economies.
Seat’s Web-based directories already account for 70 percent of Italy’s consumer advertising on the Net. The company acquired one of the largest Italian language portals, Virgilio, earlier this year.
Seat shares were suspended at the high end of the trading limit Monday morning before resuming at 3.26 euros, a gain of more than 12 percent.
Rome-based Buffetti’s stock was also suspended after jumping more than 25 percent to a session high of 17.7 euros. The stock gained 15 percent last Thursday ahead of a formal bid announcement.
Seat is offering 8.788 euros in cash and 5.47 of its own shares for each Buffetti share, valuing the offer at 16 euros a share based on Thursday’s closing prices. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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