Bummer. AOL Sheds $315 Million in Value Since Buying Huffington Post… For $315 Million

AOL Inc. lost $315 million in value since purchasing far left website Huffington Post… for $315 million.

You pay for what you get.

Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, co-founders of the Huffington Post, are said to be walking away with a combined $80 million to $100 million from an original $2 million per person investment — but so far AOL stockholders aren’t seeing that kind of return.

Since Feb. 1, the price of AOL shares has dropped from $23.85 to $20.89 at yesterday’s close.

With 106.7 million shares outstanding, that means AOL has shed $315 million in value over the last five trading days — which happens to be exactly the same price AOL agreed to pay to acquire HuffPo.

#1 February 9, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Chisum commented:

LMAO!!!!!
#2 February 9, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Spider commented:

I didn’t even know AOL was still a publicly traded company?

Do people still sign on to AOL?

Remember those CD’s were everywhere?
#3 February 9, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Truck Driver Divorce commented:

This may seem like a dumb question but it’s referencing the accounting tricks to read this so-called valuation.
So AOL, since buying HuffPo, is down $630 mil, or $315 for the sale and another $315 for the stock?
#4 February 9, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Truck Driver Divorce commented:

On another note, if Arianna is smart, she’ll wait ten months till HuffPo is almost completely broke, walk in and buy it for $1 and put it back on the map. A true Capitalist-hating Liberal Capitalist!
#5 February 9, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Chisum commented:

Huffington’s Heist

Hundreds of millions, on the backs of free help. Imagine the outcry if a conservative site did that.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/huffingtons-heist/
#6 February 9, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Dave-O commented:

#4 Truck Driver – nope, it’s just the drop in company valuation by $315 million (taking into account the expenditure (or loss) of the company’s $315 million cash for an apparently worthless asset in return).
#7 February 9, 2011 at 5:16 pm
kay commented:

equal is as equal does
#8 February 9, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Buffalobob commented:

Help me out. Did the stockholders get to vote on this acquisition? Did the board of directors?
#9 February 9, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Susan Skinner commented:

I am enjoying GMAIL having dumped AOL and Huffington yesterday.
#10 February 9, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Muffin commented:

See, with lefties running the country you see dumb moves like this. And we all end up broke.
#11 February 9, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Granny commented:

Susan, don’t get too comfortable with GMail – they are good but they never delete any mail that you get and they datamine everything in your account to serve up ads to you – and heaven only knows what else. Your privacy is not assured by a very long shot, this being Google.

BTW, welcome to sanity.
#12 February 9, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Khan Krum commented:

Speaking of nostagia, can anyone remember back in the early ’90s when Limbaugh was a big fan of AOL? I remember him talking about it (were they a sponsor?) and wondering what the hell is this thing? Now they just bought out the Huffington Puffington Post. How ironic!
#13 February 9, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Dave-O commented:

#8 BuffaloBob – I’m sure the board of directors approved the purchase – but what do they know? Generally speaking, they are there to rubberstamp whatever the executive leadership wants to do. I’m pretty sure that they hired some “accounting whiz” to gin up some numbers (where he got these number is anyone’s guess – but I’m pretty sure it was straight out of his a$$) – to support the $315 million – but you could find plenty more accountants who would come up with zero.

the shareholders, as usual, are left out in the cold watching their share prices (and investments) plummet to new depths.
#14 February 9, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Big L commented:

Was there cash pd? Or were friends helping a friend save face.Maybe it was worth a buck like Newsweek sold for. But for a lib to exit and to admit failure was too much. So they made a conditional deal.
#15 February 9, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Lenore commented:

Expected this. Wait till their customers choose a different service because of this buy out of Huffington post. How many Tea Partiers are going to cancel AOL when they find out how vicious the HP has been toward Tea Partiers? Speaking of Tea Partiers we have a new Magazine. http://www.teapartyreview.com/
#16 February 9, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Beto Ochoa commented:

AOL Sheds $315 Million in Value Since Buying Huffington Post… For $315 Million

It was a two for one sale?
#17 February 9, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Guy in Ohio commented:

Dumped AOL yesterday. I still had a dial up account that I used for emergencies, but I’ll just get a wireless account from Verizon. So, there’s another $120/year off their bottom line …
#18 February 9, 2011 at 6:14 pm
sablegsd commented:

CAN’T. STOP. LAUGHING.
#19 February 9, 2011 at 6:25 pm
myohmy commented:

dumb investment, just junk.
#20 February 9, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Alana commented:

Got rid of my AOL last night.
#21 February 9, 2011 at 6:36 pm
exceller commented:

this is so funny. AOL what a dog, who would still be holding stock in that company? its a complete loser. and what greater sell signal could they send than to way overpay for a garbage blog? hahahha, they bought Time Warner for $500Billion, 10 years later its Huffpo for $315 million? may they both circle the drain together. ZsaZsa as head of content? lmfao.
#22 February 9, 2011 at 6:48 pm
LibertyAtStake commented:

I can’t understand how this deal passed the rigorous cost/benefit review standards at HQ, Soros, Inc.

http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
#23 February 9, 2011 at 7:00 pm
USMC Thomas commented:

Thought all those fools learned their lesson when the dot-com bubble burst awhile back. This smells suspiciously like a real estate flipping scheme where the small time investors gets left holding a big bag of nothing.
#24 February 9, 2011 at 7:24 pm
befuddled commented:

and with what money they have left, they will buy the NY Times.
#25 February 9, 2011 at 7:53 pm
m commented:

It doesn’t look good for AOL. It seemed like that Huffington Post maybe ties to George Soros and Co. That why it has been such a bad week for AOL and Huffington Post. It is not a good investment.
#26 February 9, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Ed commented:

that means investors think that aol will lose money with the huffington post. stock price is simply a reflection of market sentiment….if the market likes what a company is doing, the stock price goes up….if the company makes a boneheaded move, the price goes down. clearly shows that investors hate what AOL did and ad revenues for aol will take a hit on this one as well.
#27 February 9, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Mad Hatter commented:

A few people talked about how they just dumped AOL. What the hell were you still doing with? LOL. AOL is like Detroit, it hasn’t evolved, only dissolved.
#29 February 9, 2011 at 10:42 pm
DaMav commented:

http://www.damaverick.com/zenb110.jpg

annotated AOL ticker
#32 February 10, 2011 at 8:19 am
JT commented:

Its a fair Trade, valueless for worth less.
#33 February 10, 2011 at 9:21 am
Westie commented:

Dang, what a great short play this represented….short Arianna now!
#34 February 10, 2011 at 9:25 am
burt commented:

Huffington: Zsa Zsa Gabor without the brains.