AOL’s takeout of the HuffingtonPost this week for $315 million took many merger-and-acquisition bankers by total surprise.
It wasn’t that the profit-weary properties led by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and the eponymous chief Arianna Huffington decided to tie the knot, but the price paid by the one-time king of dial-up modems was startling.
Wall Street wags shuddered at the 30 times Ebitda multiple attached to the deal.
“There is a strategic value in high-quality sites, but I just don’t think it sets a new valuation parameter,” said Clayton Morgan at The Benchmark Co.
Do the numbers on this deal lift all media properties, or is a one-off type of deal?
“Hard to say if the 30 figure is the new normal or just a high-water mark,” said one analyst who covers media stocks but did not wish to be identified. “Time will tell.”
In the short term, many media companies had a nice pop in stock price this week in reaction to the deal, only to see the sector settle back to previous equity levels by Friday.
And it did not take long for the other media-centric blogs to crow with multiple Web postings on the richness of the deal.
Perhaps they were hoping that the afterglow of the $315 million would shine on them.
BusinessInsider.com had 58 separate posts on the merger. Could it be CEO Henry Blodget is using the posts as his own electronic roadshow for prospective suitors such as Yahoo!?
Gawker Media, with its newly redesigned site, did not allow On The Money to successfully search the site for how many posts were put up. Post staff
Au Current
There may be “a situation” over at Current TV.
Keith Olbermann isn’t the only big name moving to Al Gore‘s re vamped documentary channel.
We found former MTV programming czar Brian Graden mingling at the network’s upfront presenta tion at the Paley Center earlier this week.
Graden has been quietly helping the channel make its mark by giving it some guid ance about producing reality shows that get ratings. Graden is involved in a show named “4th and Forever,” about teens and high school sports.
In his spare time, Graden’s been penning a management book called “Greenlight Leadership,” which is pri marily about having the courage to make big bold decisions and stick to them.
Expect a mention or two of the Osbournes. When asked about his thoughts on “Jersey Shore,” argu ably MTV’s biggest hit since ” Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica,” Graden, who oversaw programming across several of MTV Net works channels, said “Jersey Shore” was his last big commission before he exited MTV back in June 2009. Success has many fathers, while . . . . Claire Atkinson
That smarts
You know what they say about desperate times. Nokia, the Finnish phonemaker, whose CEO Stephen Elop, which may rhyme with flop, came out this week to say his company is in such bad shape that it is “standing on a burning platform.”
Well, actually, On The Money did realize how dire it is.
Elop is looking to his former employer Microsoft to bail Nokia out with its smartphone technology.
Both companies are shells of their former self. As the cellphone market gets smarter and the PC market goes mobile, Microsoft and Nokia are left looking big, dumb and flat-footed.
To save each other in the mobile market, Nokia will start making phones that use Microsoft’s Windows 7 mobile software.
“Problem is, two turkeys don’t make an eagle,” as one Google staffer pointed out recently. Elop responded on Twitter with this gem: “Two bicycle makers, from Dayton Ohio, one day decided to fly.” Enough said. Garett Sloane
New columnist
Best-selling author Michael Gross is joining Crain’s New York Business as culture columnist starting tomorrow and will appear every other week.
He had penned three monthly columns last year for the paper on a tryout basis and was hired by editor Xana Antunes.
“It will be about politics, finance, real estate, philanthropy, the glamour industries of New York,” said Gross. “I think there will also be a healthy dose of media.
He’s the author of “Rogues’ Gallery,” a controversial look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and earlier penned “740 Park,” about the priciest residential address in Manhattan, as well as “Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women.”
Gross is the son of the late Post sports columnist Milton Gross. Keith J. Kelly