With news that Verizon is purchasing AOL, what was once seen as a shrewd business move by media mogul Arianna Huffington is now a weak one in retrospect.
On the day that Huffington sold her Huffington Post website to AOL in 2011 for a reported $315 million, AOL’s shares closed at $21.19.
On Tuesday, Verizon announced that it would purchase AOL, which still owns the Post, for $50 per share — or more than double the price of AOL shares when the company purchased the Huffington Post. (Huffington recently said she actually took half stock, half cash when she sold her website, according to the New York Post.)
Though Huffington still earned a healthy sum for the sale of her website, based on the Verizon deal, that deal could have been far more lucrative. In early market trading Tuesday, AOL shares soared $7.65, or nearly 18 percent, to $50.24, reflecting the offer price.
AOL also owns other media properties TechCrunch, Engadget, MAKERS and AOL.com.
