Seemingly returning from the grave, AOL graced our news stream a couple of months ago, but it was only to announce that the company is discontinuing dial-up internet services. Now, the firm has returned yet again, but it isn"t good news this time either, depending on how you look at it.
Reuters reports that AOL"s parent company, Yahoo! Inc., is preparing to sell the online service provider to an Italian firm for $1.4 billion. While that may sound like a lot, it"s a far cry from the $100 billion that it was valued at in the early 2000s. AOL has been sold many times over the past couple of decades, with the most recent one being a $5 billion transaction for 90% of Verizon"s media group (comprising AOL and Yahoo!) to Apollo Global Management in 2021.
Although the latest deal with the Milan-based tech firm, Bending Spoons, is in "advanced" stages, it is important to note that the transaction has not yet been finalized and could still fall through. Although Apollo Global Management would be able to get at least some of its cash back from the deal, it"s unclear what advantages the transaction has in store for Bending Spoons.
As Reuters notes, Bending Spoons is a prominent European firm that seemingly specializes in purchasing apparently dead tech firms and then revitalizing them. A recent example of this is its purchase of video platform Vimeo, in a deal worth $1.38 billion. In 2024, Bending Spoons was valued at $2.55 billion, which is rare for an Italy-based tech entity.
Although the terms of the transactions are currently unknown, an unnamed source told the media outlet that AOL still has a huge customer base, and it continues to generate revenue from its ads and subscription services, as well as traffic from its website. Meanwhile, Bending Spoons boasts over 300 million monthly users across all its products, so it may be aiming to grow this number even further with its AOL purchase. We"ll likely find out more over the next few days.