Intermix Shareholders Counter Offer

A group of Intermix Media Inc. shareholders has offered to buy a “significant interest” in the Los Angeles-based company for $13.50 a share, as an alternative to a $12-a-share acquisition offer from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

The shareholder group, led by former Chief Executive Brad Greenspan, said Intermix Media shareholders would be able to sell as many as half of their Intermix shares under the group’s offer.

The investor group is calling itself FreeMySpace, referring to MySpace.com, the popular social-networking website that is Intermix’s prized possession.

Shares of Intermix increased 39 cents to $12.30.

News Corp., which agreed to purchase Intermix for $580 million in cash in July, recently reported a 23.7% stake in the company.

Intermix said it had not received FreeMySpace’s offer. The company has previously said it was “perplexed” by Greenspan’s opposition to the News Corp. deal and was “confident that the majority of our stockholders see the value in, and fully appreciate, our acquisition by News Corp.”

In a news release, Greenspan, who owns 4.2 million shares, or about 10% of Intermix’s stock, said the News Corp. proposal “significantly undervalues” Intermix.

Greenspan said if his offer was successful, he planned to sell non-MySpace assets and increase the company’s stake in the site to 100%.

Intermix owns more than 30 websites. It holds a majority stake in MySpace.com.