AOL will buy Huffington Post for £190 million

AOL have paid £190 million ($315 million) for the Huffington Post. Part of the deal sees Arianna Huffington, the Huffington Post co-founder and editor in chief named president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. AOL said that the price will be funded from cash on hand.

The boards of both companies have approved the transaction and it is expected to close late first quarter or early second quarter.

Technology analyst Rob Enderie told the Associated price that AOL are paying the money because it is ‘really just the hiring fee to get Arianna'. “This is one of those out-of-left-field moves that actually makes a lot of sense. This could put AOL back on the map.”

Huffington have used a blog post to describe their views on this, saying its a “1+1 =11”. “This moment will be for HuffPost like stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet.”  You can read it in detail over here.

This deal gives both companies now a combined readership of 117 million visitors a month in the US and 270 million around the world, using numbers from ComScore. The Huffington Post contributes 25 million monthly visitors to this number.

KitGuru says: sounds like a good deal for everyone involved, unlike AOL's Time Warner merger which cost $186 bn

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