Flowering You With Dot-Com Love

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The florists are coming! The florists are coming!

United Online (Nasdaq: UNTD) completed its acquisition of floral services titan FTD Group last night. The $754 million deal will give United -- the company behind the Juno and NetZero Internet access providers and popular websites like Classmates.com and MyPoints -- a steady cash flow source.

It will also help United de-emphasize its fledgling access business, now that Juno and NetZero will only account for a quarter of the company's revenue mix.

On a combined basis, United and FTD rang up $1.1 billion in revenue and $169 million in operating profits over the past four quarter. That will improve as the synergies kick in. The acquisition's not just about shaving any redundant overhead. FTD, which provides floral arrangement orders and related services to roughly 45,000 floral shops worldwide, will also be able to market itself through United's other offerings.

In other words, United can send out FTD offers to its Web access subscribers and Classmates members before the key Valentine's Day and Mother's Day holidays.

Now that FTD is off the market, just a couple of years after ProFlowers.com parent Provide Commerce was sold to Liberty Media (Nasdaq: LINTA),  1-800-Flowers (Nasdaq: FLWS) has become the only publicly traded stand-alone floral specialist.

Diversification is the right approach for United, but don't tell that to access rival Earthlink (Nasdaq: ELNK). As United broadens its reach, Earthlink is angling for Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL dial-up business, and it may even make a play for Juno and NetZero if United ever wants to make a clean break.

Then again, who needs a breakup when you have a florist around to smooth things over with a conciliatory bouquet?

Other yearbook snapshots:

• Flowers for Your Classmates
• 5 Stocks Under $10
• An Extreme Buying Opportunity