Media company AOL reported their first quarter financials today. AOL’s revenues hit $538 million for the quarter, which is up from the same quarter one year earlier. Net income increased 23% to $26 million. The growth is largely due to increasing advertising revenue. Total ad revenue grew to $359 million, up from $330 million in the same quarter one year earlier. Global display ads increased 8% to $140 million.
AOL Inc. has announced their financial results this morning. The company reported earnings of 22 cents per share compared to a loss per share of 2 cents in Q3 2011. AOL was expected to report Q3 earnings at 17-19 cents per share so they beat Wall Street expectations. AOL’s total revenue was pretty flat at $531.7 million compared to the same quarter in 2011. Operating income was at $43.1 million and net income hit $20.8 million for the 3 months ended September 30, 2012. Total ad revenue was at $340 million for the quarter (up 7% from $317.7 in Q3 2011).
AOL Inc. said that they will buy back $600 million worth of stock. They will pay a dividend of $5.15 per share as part of a plan to return shareholders $1 billion. AOL received this additional capital by selling patents to Microsoft Corporation. AOL had won a proxy battle against activist hedge fund and pledged to give the entire $1 billion from the patent sale proceeds to their shareholders. AOL will pay Barclays Bank $600 million up front to execute the repurchase this year. Barclays will deliver the first four million shares by August 30th. AOL has 93.9 million shares outstanding. [Reuters]
AOL has reported their earnings this morning and they were ahead of analyst expectations. The company reported revenue of $531 million. Wall Street estimated $519 million. The revenue is just a 2% decline from the same quarter last year, which was the company’s lowest decline in seven years.
Yesterday AOL announced that they would be buying back $400 million worth of shares. Now they are reorganizing into three operating units, plus a separate one that will offer corporate support for all three. The three divisions will be called AOL Membership, Brand Group, and the Advertising.com Group. Brand Group includes content websites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, and TechCrunch.
Shareholders at America Online has voted to re-elect all of the company board of directors despite a proxy challenge from Starboard. Starboard owns over 5% of AOL and initiated a proxy battle by sending a series of activist letters to AOL’s board starting at the beginning of the year. AOL’s stock is up 80% since the start of 2012, primarily because of a billion dollar sale of patents to Microsoft.
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TechCrunch editors Eric Eldon and Alexia Tsotsis said “we’re not being sold.” Instead TechCrunch has hired a bunch of “brilliant writers and a new COO.” Over 1,000 people attended their TechCrunch NYC meet-up last night as well. Traffic has been up with regards to unique visits year over year. They did hear about sales rumors as well with interest supposedly from Jason Calacanis.
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“We are continuing to work on the comeback of AOL and have a plan that is beneficial for employees, customers and shareholders,” said AOL in a statement. On Friday, AOL extended their employment agreement with chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong through March 2016. His previous deal was supposed to expire on April 7.
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