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Am I the only one who hears echoes of AOL-Time Warner in the Jet.com acquisition by Walmart?
by KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
Am I the only one who hears echoes of AOL-Time Warner in the Jet.com acquisition by Walmart?
- praccu 10y agoI think there may be a distinction: Walmart could fill a hole in the ground with $3 billion dollars and burn it, and not care. [A bit of an exaggeration, as that's half their annual profit] AOL acquired Time Warner for $182 billion.
- trimbo 10y agoWhat similarity do you see? At the time of AOL-TW, both were profitable and it was the largest US merger ever.
- smileysteve 10y ago[Aol drastically miscategorgized R&D as an asset, paid itself, and recognized loans as revenue - to the extent of fraud](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64365-2005Jan10.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64365-2005Jan...) As an Atlantan who has seen Ted have to sell most of his Turner based business interests (Braves, Hawks, TBS, Thrashers) I can tell you it wasn't a very profitable merger.
- schlumpf 10y agoIf it were Jet.com buying Wal Mart, then no you would not be alone. That it's a bricks-and-mortar behemoth buying a startup facing an uphill battle against a much larger online incumbent seems altogether more rational this time around.
- ucaetano 10y agoThere is an interesting way to look at the AOL-TW merger: AOL knew it was extremely over-valued, and that valuation wouldn't hold, so it used the very high prices to buy something which actually had value. From that perspective, it was a highly successful move. But it might all be hindsight, just like the Honda Motorcycle case.