Sources: AOL in talks to spin off HuffPost, primarily with Axel Springer, at a valuation over $1B
AOL Has Been in Talks to Spin Off HuffPost as Part of Verizon Acquisition Deal — According to numerous sources, while it has been negotiating its deal to sell to Verizon …
Context & Ripple Effects
The spin-off talk lands on the same day as Verizon's acquisition of AOL at $50 per share, roughly $4.4B, with Tim Armstrong staying on to run AOL operations and the stock up more than 18% on the news. Re/code had already reported that AOL weighed selling Huffington Post alongside TechCrunch after approaches from three bidders beyond Verizon, so carving out HuffPost was live on the table before the deal even closed.
What makes this notable a day later is the split verdict: sources say Verizon has no plans to spin off TechCrunch or Engadget, but HuffPost's future stays uncertain — making the Axel Springer talks the test case for whether Verizon wants any consumer news brands at all inside an ad-and-access business.
First-order effects
- Axel Springer would pick up a US news property valued above $1B — more than a fifth of AOL's entire $4.4B sale price — while Verizon's deal keeps TechCrunch and Engadget in-house under Armstrong.
Second-order effects
- If Verizon sheds its biggest editorial asset on day one, it sharpens the logic of Armstrong's next move: pitching Verizon on buying Yahoo to build an ad empire against Facebook and Google, where audience scale matters more than owning newsrooms.
Third-order effects
- The pattern holds across the decade: AOL ends up bundled into Apollo Global's 2021 purchase of Verizon's media assets for about $5B, and by 2025 Apollo is exploring an AOL sale around $1.5B — telecom and PE owners treating content brands as detachable inventory rather than core holdings.
The trend: Telecom and private-equity acquirers increasingly strip legacy digital media brands out of platform deals, spinning them off or reselling them separately instead of running them as part of an ad business.