MAID to Buy Knight-Ridder Database Unit

MAID, a money-losing British electronic information provider, said Thursday that it will acquire Knight-Ridder Information Inc. in a $420-million deal that would create the world’s largest online information company.

KR Information, part of U.S. newspaper publisher Knight-Ridder Inc., owns huge databases containing the equivalent of 6 billion pages of text. It is a key information provider to research libraries in corporate, government and academic institutions.

Miami-based Knight-Ridder, publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and other newspapers, recently sold its real-time news operation as part of a withdrawal from the electronic information business.

The deal would double the size of MAID, a $320-million business founded by former advertising executive Dan Wagner 12 years ago.

Wagner, MAID chief executive, would have overall executive control of the enlarged company, to be renamed Dialog Corp.

MAID (for Market Analysis and Information Database) is betting its software would make it easier for customers to fetch everything from news stories to scientific and financial data from Knight-Ridder Information’s services, such as Dialog and DataStar. That would help it take on Reed Elsevier’s Lexis-Nexis for the lead in the $1-billion market.

Shares of Knight-Ridder fell 19 cents to close at $55.75 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The companies said in August that they were close to a sale. The deal is expected to be completed by November.