NEW YORK2008-01-31 13:30:46 GMT (Reuters) (Reuters) — Amazon.com said Thursday that it reached an agreement to buy Audible, a provider of digital audiobooks, for $11.50 a share, in a deal that bolsters the online retailer's offerings of audio downloads.
Amazon values the transaction at about $300 million, including Audible's cash and short-term investments.
Audible's over 80,000 programs, including audiobooks from authors such as Stephen King and Jane Austen, may complement Amazon's growing digital music store that offers songs without copy-protection technology known as digital rights management. Amazon MP3, launched in September 2007, now includes more than 3.3 million songs.
The offer represents a 23% premium to the Nasdaq closing price of $9.33 a share on Wednesday for Audible, which ended its fiscal third quarter in September with 455,000 members to its AudibleListener service.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2008-01-31-amazon-audible_N.htm
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