Greenspun family to sell Vegas.com to Remark Media for $15.5 million plus stock

In a deal worth up to $38 million including $15.5 million in cash, travel-booking website Vegas.com is being sold to a company whose other websites include apparel retailer bikini.com and irs.com, a tax information site not to be confused with the federal agency's official home page.

Remark Media announced Thursday it was buying the website that boasts 3.4 million monthly visitors from family-owned Greenspun Corp., based in Henderson, in a deal expected to close in mid-September.

A Remark financial filing said the deal includes $15.5 million in cash and $9.5 million in Remark stock, $10 million in future stock options and up to $3 million in the next three years based on the website's revenue performance.

Brian Greenspun, who publishes the Las Vegas Sun newspaper, Las Vegas Magazine and Las Vegas Weekly, and is one shareholder in the family-owned company, said he didn't know the size of the ownership stake Greenspun Corp. would have in Vegas.com after the deal closes or whether anyone from the family would be involved at a board level.

Asked why the company would want to sell the travel-booking site it started in 1998 as the number of visitors to Las Vegas picked up, Greenspun called Remark a "wonderful buyer" and said it's easier to sell anything in a better market than a lagging market.

"I think Remark's reasons for buying it are far more germane than why anyone would want to sell anything," he said.

Las Vegas-based Remark has said its media company focuses on the so-called millennial generation and plans to make Vegas.com the "go-to booking destination for new millennial travelers," according to Thursday's announcement.

Remark Chairman and CEO Kai-Shing Tao said in the statement that he expects to expand the website's reach.

Remark's board includes Las Vegas Strip executives connected to the Venetian and Palazzo hotel-casinos, CityCenter resorts and the Tao group of nightclubs.