When AOL was at its highest value, the company was worth about $240 billion. Back in 2000 AOL purchased Time Warner for $164 billion as part of a merger structure. The new company would be called AOL Time Warner. The deal was announced on January 10, 2000 and was filed on February 11, 2000. The FTC cleared the deal on December 14, 2000 and the merger was completed on January 11, 2001.
AOL shareholders owned 55% of the merged company and Time Warner shareholders owned 45%. America Online’s Internet Service Provider division drastically declined. AOL Time Warner had to report a loss of $99 billion in 2002 which was the largest loss ever reported by a company. Steve Case ended up resigning from the Time Warner Board of Directors on October 31, 2005. Ever since then the future of AOL was unknown. Time Warner wanted to spin off AOL from their own company for a very long time.
That issue has officially been resolved today. AOL will be officially spinning off from Time Warner on December 9, 2009. AOL stock will begin trading the next day. Investors that have 11 shares of Time Warner will receive 1 share of AOL on the day that the stock goes public. Time Warner has a market cap of $38 billion so that gives AOL a value of $3.2 billion.
When AOL goes public, one of the brands that they will be leaving with Time Warner is celebrity gossip blog TMZ.com. TMZ was created out of a partnership between AOL and Telepictures Productions. Telepictures is a subsidiary of Time Warner. AOL and Telepictures split the revenues of TMZ evenly. In 2008, TMZ made about $12.7 million for AOL so the company made $25.4 million total for the year. Up until this September of this year, TMZ.com earned $12.4 million total.
AOL will trade under the NYSE with the stock symbol “AOL.” AOL was trading in the NYSE before it merged with Time Warner back in the day too. The full press release is available after the jump:
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has fired two major executives recently. Armstrong fired COO Kim Partoll and SVP of search and local media John Kannapell. Armstrong is preparing to spin AOL off from Time Warner as a public company again. People within the organization said that they are not planning on replacing the two anytime soon either.
AOL has a new Chief Financial Officer. His name is Artie Minson and he was a previous EVP and Deputy CFO at Time Warner. Before Time Warner, Minson worked at AOL in a Corporate Finance and Development position.
“Artie’s strong financial acumen, operating experience, and deep understanding of our company and the Internet and content industries make him a perfect fit for AOL,” stated AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. “He’s also a public company veteran who helped handle Time Warner Cable’s transition to a public company. Artie will hit the ground running and be a tremendous asset to AOL as we focus on driving growth, value and innovation.”
Minson has an Accounting B.S. degree from Georgetown University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
AOL has bought out a local news website called Patch.com. Tim Armstrong invested seed capital in Patch.com back in 2007. As part of the deal, Armstrong will not profit from the seed investment he put in. However, he will receive his seed capital back through AOL shares once the company separates from Time Warner.
Armstrong’s seed capital was made through his private investment company Polar Capital Group. Another acquisition that AOL announced is Going.com. The price of both properties were not disclosed.
The full press release is available after the jump.
Nikesh Arora and Tim Armstrong were the two of the top sales leaders at Google when Armstrong was still on board. Both of them would compete with each other on how well their sales organization was. Armstrong was the head of U.S. sales and Arora was the head of Europe. Since then Armstrong quit Google to become CEO and Chairman of AOL.
Now that Tim Armstrong is gone and Arora has stepped up as the President of Global Sales Ops and Business Development at Google, there has been some shuffling around. Arora hired Dennis Woodside to replace Armstrong. Woodside is a former analyst at McKinsey that has strength in analytics and data.
Here are some of the additional changes: Company-Wide:
- The East, West, and Central sales organizations for Google AdWords will be dissolved and they will be focusing on vertical industries.
- Print related jobs will be eliminated and will be given the opportunity to apply for other jobs within the company.
Personnel: - Penry Price has become VP of agency and industry relations.
- Jon McAteer will be responsible for retail and technology clients.
- Jim Lecinski is working with B2B, consumer-packaged goods businesses, local, and healthcare clients
- Bonita Stewart is responsible for automotive, financial, media, travel, and entertainment
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is using their brain power to work on a new algorithm. The algorithm doesn’t focus on the best ways to index the web this time. They are working on an algorithm that is able to figure out what types of perks and pay that employees need to stay with the company and who is predicted to leave.
Google said that they are able to figure out which of their 20,000 employees will most likely leave. The algorithm crunches data from employee reviews, promotion dollars involved, and previous pay histories.
Laszlo Bock, the VP of People Operations at the search engine company said that the algorithm helps “get inside people’s heads even before they know they might leave [WSJ].”
Omid Kordestani, Senior Advisor of the Office of the CEO and Founders at Google recently received $5.12 million when he exchanged 36,000 stock options at a price of $448.23. Omid led the first group of employees that sold contextual ads for Google [BI].
Google has been growing at a rapid pace. Many of the employees that leave do so because they feel that they aren’t making a difference at the company. The employees at Google are drifting to startup companies like Twitter and Facebook.
Earlier this week, AOL decided to fire at least 30-50 people from their sales and marketing division. Many of those that were affected belonged to the Platform-A subsidiary. The firings are based on past sales performance according to a BusinessInsider.com source. The sales representatives had experience that ranged anywhere from 2 to 10 years.
“From what I’m hearing the state over there is panic shock and chaos. It was a bloodbath,” stated a source. Laid off representatives from the company will most likely be replaced by Google representatives. Poaching from Google started to pick up after former Google executive Tim Armstrong became chairman and CEO of AOL in March. Former Google exec Jeff Levick replaced Greg Coleman, who was at AOL for less than three months.
Google may want to consider stepping up some incentives for their salespeople to prevent Armstrong from strong-arming them to AOL. If anyone has any further information about this lay-off, please leave it in the comments.
AOL has hired Jeff Levick, a former executive at Google. Levick will become the president of global advertising and strategy, who will directly report to new AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. Armstrong himself was Google’s former North America ad sales head a couple of months ago.
“This is a perfect time to join AOL and I firmly believe that AOL’s best days are ahead of it,” stated Levick. “The company has one of the largest and most engaged audiences on the Web, some of the best advertising technology in the business, and a powerful third-party network. There is great opportunity here for us to capture.”
Greg Coleman was replaced by Levick. The reason why he was let go is unknown. Coleman joined AOL in February 2009. That he was at AOL for less than 3 months! Coleman was an advertising head at Yahoo! before AOL.
About two years ago, Google hired Matt Brittin from Trinity Mirror. Now Brittin will be heading up Google’s entire UK operation. Dennis Woodside, managing director of Google UK, Ireland, and Benelux will be replacing Tim Armstrong. Armstrong is the former VP of Americas that is now taking the role of AOL CEO and Chairman.
Brittin was on the rowing team for Great Britain in 1988 for the Olympics and won several World Championship medals. Brittin used to tbe the Director of Strategy and Digital when he was working there. He worked closely with major advertising companies.
Mark Howe currently maintains Google UK’s ad agency and will be reporting directly to Brittin. Brittin will be managing the UK while other managers will oversee Ireland and Benelux operations.
As many of you know by now, former Google VP Tim Armstrong left the company to join AOL as the CEO and Chairman. This leaves an empty slot at Google where big shoes have to be filled. Google had already stated that they were planning on finding a replacement internally, someone who already knows the business inside and out. Well now we have a potential name: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy.
Cassidy is Google’s President of Asia-Pacific and Latin American Operations. She works closely with SVP of Global Sales and Business Development Omid Kordestani. Armstrong built strong ties with several media bigwigs including Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal. Cassidy will have to maintain those relations.
Cassidy is formerly a product manager at a database company called Junglee. Cassidy was also an investment banker for some time at BSkyB. Cassidy started a company back in 1999 called Yodlee.com and worked there up until 2003.
It sounds like Cassidy has quite a bit of entrepreneurial experience, but Armstrong worked very closely with “big media.” Although I do not know much about Cassidy, I can definetely say that it will be a major challenge.
Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) stated today that they have named Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) SVP and President of American Operations as the new Chairman and CEO of AOL. AOL’s current Chairman and CEO Randy Falco will be leaving along with President and COO Ron Grant.
“Tim is the right executive to move AOL into the next phase of its evolution. At Google, Armstrong helped build one of the most successful media teams in the history of the Internet — helping to make Google the most popular online search advertising platform in the world for direct and brand marketers. He’s an advertising pioneer with a stellar reputation and proven track record. We are privileged to have him preside over AOL as its audience and programming businesses continue to grow and its advertising platform expands globally. He’ll also be helpful in helping Time Warner determine the optimal structure for AOL,” stated Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes.
