Expedia Grounded by USA-Vivendi Deal

Expedia's(EXPE Quote) departure has been delayed.

The deal in which Microsoft(MSFT Quote) agreed to sell its stake in the travel Web site to USA Networks(USAI Quote) for $1.7 billion has been put off, along with Microsoft's $650 million pretax gain from it, because of Vivendi's(V Quote) deal to buy USA's entertainment assets, which was announced Monday.

Microsoft said that instead of the Expedia deal closing during the current quarter, as expected, it should now get done in either the first or second quarter of next year. It also said that "other than the delay in the timing of the expected gain on the sale of its Expedia stake, Microsoft is not providing any update to the financial guidance it released on Oct. 18, 2001."

Analysts currently expect Microsoft to earn 49 cents per share on $7.2 billion in revenue during the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2001, according to Thomson Financial/First Call. The stock was up a nickel at $69.03 Tuesday.