NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) announced today that it has closed its acquisition of The Huffington Post, the influential and rapidly growing news and opinion site with over 27 million unique monthly US visitors.*
AOL will integrate The Huffington Post with all AOL Media and AOL Local properties to create the Huffington Post Media Group, a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community, and digital information. Arianna Huffington will lead the overall editorial direction of the new group as President and Editor-in-Chief.
Through this acquisition, AOL is accelerating its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe. The combined entity will have a user base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 253 million around the world.**
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the anticipated benefits of the transaction, the expected closing date and other statements identified by words such as "may," "will," "intend," "estimate," "should," "expect" or similar expressions. These statements are based on the current expectations and beliefs of AOL's management, and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances, including, but not limited to, the approval of the transaction by antitrust authorities, the satisfaction of the closing conditions to the transaction, the competitiveness and quality of our combined content offerings and significant competition in the media and journalism industries generally, our ability to timely and successfully integrate The Huffington Post's operations into our operations, our ability to retain, hire and develop skilled employees and the parties' performance of their obligations under the agreements. Any forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the statements herein, due to changes in economic, business, competitive, technological, strategic and/or regulatory factors, as well as factors affecting The Huffington Post's and AOL's operations and businesses. More detailed information about these factors as they relate to AOL may be found in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in AOL's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, filed with the SEC. AOL is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
About AOL
AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is a leading global Web services company with an extensive suite of brands and offerings and a substantial worldwide audience. AOL's business spans online content, products and services that the company offers to consumers, publishers and advertisers. AOL is focused on attracting and engaging consumers and providing valuable online advertising services on both AOL's owned and operated properties and third-party websites. In addition, AOL operates one of the largest Internet subscription access services in the United States, which serves as a valuable distribution channel for AOL's consumer offerings.
*comScore, January 2011
**comScore, January 2011