Lycos Europe shareholders voted to liquidate the business at an extraordinary general meeting at a hotel in Amsterdam this morning. They also nodded through management’s strategy to sell its domain registration business, shopping portal and Danish website as going concerns. Shareholders will get €50 million ($66.72 million) returned to them on December 19 - not a bad Christmas present, but the price per share of €0.1605 ($0.21) is vastly less than its opening high of about €24 (now $32) in 2000.

The majority of the company was owned by Telefonica’s Terra internet arm (32 percent), Bertelsmann (20 percent) and CEO Christoph Monn (12 percent), heir to Bertelsmann’s throne

Lycos Europe, which had been losing money and users for years, finally concluded last month that no one was going to buy it, after starting a strategic review in April. During the sale process, Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) took Lycos Europe to court in its native Netherlands, complaining the CEO had not explored all the options for the sell-off. About 500 of 700 staff are now losing their jobs. Lycos is based in Germany and Holland and has a UK ad sales team, which it’s thought also sells for sites including IMDb and About.com, but the Lycos UK content operations are outsourced to a third-party there. Release. Full story on paidContent:UK...

More at our Lycos Europe channel

• Lycos Europe To Shut Down After Failing To Find Buyer
• Earnings: Freefalling Lycos Europe Plans Cost Cuts; Clock Ticking On Sale
• Telefonica Complains Lycos Europe Sell-Off Too Slow