Investors are liking the new face of InfoSpace. The Bellevue company, a dot-com darling and survivor, transformed itself yet again with the $287 million purchase of online tax preparation company TaxAct earlier this year. And the addition of that unit is already adding a nice boost to InfoSpace, which Wednesday reported that revenues jumped 124 percent during the quarter to $115.7 million.
That news pushed InfoSpace’s stock through the stratosphere this morning, sending it up more than 24 percent to $13.68. It now has a market value of $545 million.
InfoSpace’s search business is still the bigger of the two units, with $75.3 million flowing to search engines such as Dogpile, Metacrawler and others. But tax preparation also is doing well, with TaxAct now representing $40.4 million. (Maybe the potty-humor of TaxAct’s Super Bowl ad really did pay off).
“The acquisition of TaxACT in January represents a significant milestone for our company, and substantially diversifies our overall business operations. We are pleased with the performance in both our search and tax preparation businesses and feel positive about our combined company growth and profitability outlook,” said InfoSpace CEO Bill Ruckelshaus in a statement.
In the first quarter, InfoSpace’s net income jumped to $11.4 million, up from $1.3 million during the same period last year.
Of course, InfoSpace has a long — some may say impossible climb — to go in order to return to its stock market glory of the dot-com years. Back in March 2000, the company’s stock price hit an all time high of $1,299.
