Verizon, a major U.S. cellular and Internet service provider (ISP) has now completed their acquisition of AOL at $50 cash per share, totalling $4.4 billion USD. For now, AOL’s current CEO (Tim Armstrong) will remain. To some, AOL may look like a thing of the past, but the company is still quite relevant. AOL owns TechCrunch, which is one of the biggest and most influential technology websites in the world, and Huffington Post, so this is a very significant buyout.
TechCrunch’s strong influence on public opinion means that Verizon is going to become a significantly more powerful company. Let’s hope their intentions are good!
Ingrid Lunden of TechCrunch said:
‘The announcement of the deal getting completed was pretty short. Verizon will be providing more detail in a conference call in about a half an hour. We’ll update with more information then. Update: no more detail in the 15-minute call! But… all us AOL employees are apparently getting Verizon tablets as welcome presents…’
Yay!
