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:
Northern Trust is an investment management company with $82 billion in banking assets and $3 trillion in assets under custody. The company’s headquarters are in Chicago. Northern Trust received about $1.6 billion in federal bailout money.
What Northern Trust did with the bailout money did not directly benefit any of their customers. Instead the company used the money to pay Sheryl Crow for a private concert, sponsor golf tournaments, and flew clients and employees to LA for lavish parties. What a way to spend our tax dollars, eh?
AOL-owned blog TMZ.com exploited the events and then the bank was forced to returned their bailout money. I actually thought this was amazing. TMZ fixed something that was wrong. Northern Trust laid off 450 workers in December and then turned around and spent a lot of our tax dollars on paying for private concerts. Northern Trust did not even request for bailout money.
Congressman Barney Frank demanded the money back and Northern Trust CEO Frederick Waddell stated that he will repay the funds “as quickly as prudently possible.”
Worldwide Biggies is a new digital entertainment website that was started by Albie Hecht. Hecht is best known for his work on Spike TV and Nickelodeon. For example, he produced shows like Clarissa Explains It All, Rugrats, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, etc. Hecht also oversaw SpongeBob SquarePants and Blue’s Clues. Now Hecht is making a comeback full force and has raised $9 million in Series A from NBC Universal, Platform Equity, Greycroft Partners, Hearst Corporation, and Prism Ventures.
“The production studio creates content that’s directed for a multi-platform distribution model, offering content to be streamed online, on mobile phones, television, film, and consumer products. Covering all its bases, Worldwide Biggies is looking to attract the entire gamut of advertisers, regardless of what type of campaign medium they’d like to try their hand for[1],” wrote Kristen Nicole of Mashable.
Worldwide Biggies is based in New York and has also struck a deal with TMZ.com. From what I understand, TMZ, is working with Worldwide Biggies to create a website called StarVsStar, a fantasy betting-like league for celebrity controversies.
Worldwide Biggies was started in 2005 and the funding that the company received seems to be consistent with other recent funded-comedy website launches like FunnyOrDie and NationalBanana.
References:
[1] Mashable: Worldwide Biggies Funded by NBC and Hearst
[2] Red Herring: NBC Funds Worldwide Biggies
