By our count, Ticketmaster's upcoming spinoff from IAC will be the seventh time Barry Diller has bought or sold a piece of the online-ticketing agency, starting from the first stake he acquired in it a decade ago. After the jump, a chronology of Diller's Ticketmaster deals.

• July 1997 Diller's company acquires 50 percent of Ticketmaster Group, from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen
• May 1998 Acquires remaining half of Ticketmaster from public shareholders
• September 1998 Ticketmaster Online merges with CitySearch, an online city guide
• December 1998Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch (TMCS) completes IPO
• January 2001 Ticketmaster merges with TMCS
• January 2003 Diller buys remainder of Ticketmaster
• November 2007 Diller announces Ticketmaster spinoff

(Source: IAC)

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