divine inc. said it will buy Eprise Corp. for about $43 million in stock to expand further into Internet content management. Chicago-based divine, which has been snapping up low-priced Internet companies all summer long, said it would issue about 54 million shares of class A stock for all of Eprise’s shares. Eprise shareholders will get 2.4233 divine shares for every share of Eprise common stock. Based on divine’s closing Nasdaq stock price on Monday of 80 cents, those terms value Framingham, Massachusetts-based Eprise at $1.94 per share, more than double its closing price Monday of 71 cents, also on Nasdaq.
In early Tuesday trading, Eprise shares were up 43 cents, or nearly 61 percent, at $1.14. Shares of divine were down 9 cents, or more than 11 percent, at 71 cents. The company said the acquisition of Eprise would expand its market share in the business of providing software that manages Web content and would contribute significantly to revenue. www.divine.com