TechnesstivityYahoo And AOL In Merger Discussions
When I saw this on my feed, I thought it was some kinda parody from The Onion or something. Well, it’s not. Bloomberg reports that AOL and Yahoo have begun merger talks a few days after Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was fired on the phone. She has since been replaced with CFO Tim Morse.
Bloomberg says AOL CEO Tim Armstrong had approached Carol Bartz about a merger last year but he was rejected. Now that she’s out, Armstrong is trying again.
However, an unnamed source told CNBC,
Yahoo is unlikely to be interested in a deal for AOL at this time given the company’s losses and declining revenue, according to one person familiar with the matter. AOL’s market value is about $1.6 billion, while Yahoo’s is about $18.2 billion.
Graham James, a spokesman for AOL, and Kim Rubey, spokeswoman for Yahoo, declined to comment.
In 2008, Yahoo rejected an acquisition offer from Microsoft, that would have valued the company at $44.6Billion. If this AOL – Yahoo merger goes through, Tim Armstrong will sit as the head of both companies.
AOL doesn’t have all things going smoothly for them at the moment as TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington was fired after he announced he was starting a $20Million Venture Capital fund for startups. TechCrunch bloggers have publicly published their disappointment at AOL who promised to let the tech blog run free after acquiring it last year. Some TechCrunch bloggers have said they’ll resign if the Arrington firing takes place.
Source: The Next Web
Image Credit: The Last Paladin, Flickr
