American Greetings to Buy Bluemountain.com

American Greetings Corp. said it would buy rival Bluemountain.com for $35 million in cash, just two years after At Home Corp. paid $780 million in cash and stock for the e-mail greeting card publisher.

The deal gives debt-laden high-speed Internet access firm At Home some much-needed cash. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company had warned that it lacked enough funds to carry it through the end of the year.

American Greetings, which operates the AmericanGreetings.com, Egreetings.com and BeatGreets.com Web sites, said the acquisition should boost profit in 2002 and beyond because of increased revenue from online advertising and other services.

As part of the agreement, At Home agreed to buy about $3 million in advertising on the AmericanGreetings.com and Blue Mountain sites.

When At Home bought Bluemountain.com in 1999 for about 11 million shares, its stock traded at $37.88. It closed Monday at 39 cents on Nasdaq.