Divine, originally Divine Interventures, was a company that invested in internet companies during the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

. The company was originally modeled after

CMGI Steel Connect, Inc. is an American company that provides supply chain management services to software companies. During the dot-com bubble, the company, which was then known as CMGI, Inc., had a market capitalization of $41 billion and owned the n ...

but changed its business plan after the bubble burst. The company's tagline was "an Internet

Zaibatsu is a Japanese language, Japanese term referring to industrial and financial vertical integration, vertically integrated business conglomerate (company), conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over signi ...

" and the company's goal was to create "a family of businesses that work collaboratively to create mutual opportunity and gain." In 2003, it filed

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

and underwent

liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redistrib ...

after executives were accused of looting a subsidiary.

History

The company was founded by

Andrew Filipowski Andrew J. "Flip" Filipowski is a Polish American technology entrepreneur born in 1950 in Chicago. He is currently the executive chairman and CEO of SilkRoad Equity, a private investment firm, and founded Platinum technology in 1987. He is also c ...

in 1999. The company had 38 people on

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

, including

Michael Jordan Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and former professional basketball player. His biography on the official NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the g ...

, and on February 3, 2001, 27 members resigned as the company attempted to streamline its management. In July 2000, as the

burst, the company became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. In February 2001, the company changed its name from Divine Interventures to Divine. In April 2001, the company acquired most of the assets of MarchFirst for $120 million. In May 2001, the company agreed to acquire RoweCom for $14 million in stock. In July 2001, the company agreed to acquire eShare for $71 million in stock. In August 2001, the company agreed to acquire

Open Market The term open market is used generally to refer to an economic situation close to free trade. In a more specific, technical sense, the term refers to interbank trade in securities. In economic theory Economists judge the "openness" of markets a ...

for $59 million in stock. In January 2003, creditors of RoweCom filed a lawsuit against Divine, claiming that executives fraudulently transferred $73.7 million that was due to publishers, before abandoning the business. On February 25, 2003, the company filed

. In April 2003, Divine's assets were sold at auction to Saratoga Partners, Golden Gate Private Equity, Little Bear Investment, and Outtask, for a total of $54 million. Saratoga Partners then sold the

enterprise content management Enterprise content management (ECM) extends the concept of content management by adding a timeline for each content item and, possibly, enforcing processes for its creation, approval and distribution. Systems using ECM generally provide a secure ...

business to FatWire. The Open Market patents were acquired by Soverain Software.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Divine (Corporation) 2000 initial public offerings Software companies established in 1999 Software companies disestablished in 2003 Defunct companies based in Chicago Defunct online companies of the United States Dot-com bubble Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2003 1999 establishments in Illinois 2003 disestablishments in California American companies established in 1999 American companies disestablished in 2003 Defunct companies based in California