MarchFirst to Sell Assets to Divine

Ailing Internet consultancy MarchFirst Inc. has agreed to sell many of its assets to software company Divine Inc. in a deal valued at as much as $120 million, Divine Chief Executive Andrew “Flip” Filipowski said. Divine is taking on 2,100 of MarchFirst’s 7,000 employees, he said. It wasn’t immediately clear how many of the remainder are losing their jobs. Officials at MarchFirst, which according to published reports began its latest round of layoffs in the last two days, did not return repeated phone calls Friday and could not be reached after Divine’s late-afternoon announcement. The merged company will be known as Divine Whittman-Hart. Trading in MarchFirst shares was halted in mid-session Wednesday with the price down to 16 cents on the Nasdaq Stock Market, which said it had requested additional information from the Chicago company. Shares of Divine rose 17 cents to close at $1.62 on Nasdaq.