Excite Inc, the Redwood City, California search engine company, has reported second quarter net losses of $80.2m ($1.72 per share) up from $11.4m (46 cents per share) for the same period last year. The company announced a 2-for-1 stock split on June 29 (CI No 3,442) and is hip-deep in strategic partnerships and acquisitions, having won a deal with Netscape’s Netcenter and bought auction service Classifieds2000 and communities startup Throw Inc during the quarter. Not suprisingly, these activities carried significant charges. Excite sank $56.8m into the Netscape partnership and wrote of $16.2m for in-process technology charges related to the Throw purchase. Exclude those expenses from the results and suddenly Excite looks a whole bunch more attractive. According to First Call, Wall Street had been looking for losses per share of 42 cents. With pro forma net losses recalculated to 10 cents per share the company came out a striking 32 cents ahead. That’s not to say that Excite isn’t building its business. Traffic rose to an average of 44 million page views per day and the company booked $113m of new business, up 80% on last quarter.
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