OpenMail will acquire online search business InfoSpace, the companies said Tuesday.
Bellevue-based Blucora announced Tuesday it has made a deal to sell its online search business InfoSpace, as the company restructures into a financial-services technology company.
Email-marketing company OpenMail will buy InfoSpace for $45 million in cash, Blucora said. Blucora will use funds from the sale to pay off some of its debt.
Blucora acquired financial-services company HD Vest for $580 million in October and announced it would refocus its business on providing tax services to financial advisers and others.
At the time, Blucora announced plans to sell its InfoSpace and Monoprice businesses during 2016. Former CEO Bill Ruckelshaus, who had announced he would leave as part of the transition, was replaced by Charles Schwab veteran John Clendening in March.
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OpenMail, based in Venice, Calif., is expected to complete the acquisition during the third quarter. All InfoSpace employees, about 100 people, will join OpenMail, a Blucora spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Blucora will have about 500 employees once Monoprice and InfoSpace are sold.
InfoSpace has had an embattled past. Once a rising dot-com stock star, the company deceived the public by making the company appear more successful than it was, a 2005 Seattle Times investigation found.
The company renamed itself Blucora in 2012.
As part of Tuesday’s deal, InfoSpace President Peter Mansour has stepped down. He was paid $250,000 as a bonus due to the sale, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.