4 ms·

Who keeps giving AOL money???

by hristov 16y ago

dcurtis 16y ago
The AOL you knew before November 24th, 2009 is dead. Don't make the mistake of underestimating the new AOL. It's a profitable media empire that is growing rapidly and knows what it wants. It made $500mm in revenue last quarter. Here's AOL's 10-Q filing last quarter: http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2lyLmludC53ZXN0bGF3YnVzaW5lc3MuY29tL2RvY3VtZW50L3YxLzAwMDExOTMxMjUtMTAtMTc2MDk1L3htbA%3d%3d http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=irol-SECText&... It's hard to parse because last quarter ended the first three month stretch AOL has had as an independent company from Time Warner. It contains a ton of information about the IPO and spinoff leading up to November 2009, but if you read carefully, you'll see that AOL made $557mm in revenue last quarter, had $495mm in normal expenses, and made a net profit before tax of $62mm. Sort of. These numbers are dubious because there was a $1.4 billion charge for "unusual expenses," including a write-off from the IPO for disintegration costs and a total write-down for Bebo.com. The real balance sheet in the 10-Q from last quarter is further obfuscated by a $182mm stock purchase of AOL by Digital Sky Technology, the Russian investment firm that bought a chunk of Facebook a while ago. A few hundred pages are devoted to that and some calculations are skewed. Together, the things above make it look like AOL as a business is unprofitable, but I don't think that's true. We won't know how much the company really makes until its next 10-Q filing, but I am inclined to believe the backwards projections suggesting that AOL made profits during the four quarters prior to its IPO of $34.7mm, $1.4mm, $74mm, and $90.7mm.
- fortes 16y ago
  Interesting. Got any details?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- johnglasgow 16y ago
  It sounds like Time Warner moved a lot of write-offs to AOL right before the spin-off to hide their own losses. Then AOL was forced to "take a bath", where you toss out all the huge one time write-offs(i.e. Bebo) in one earnings season and return to good numbers in the next earnings season.
_delirium 16y ago
Their long, slow decline in subscribers is really long and slow, and has given them years of cushion to retool--- their legacy subscription revenues last year were about $1.5 billion.

Who keeps giving AOL money???

by hristov 16y ago

Who keeps giving AOL money???

The AOL you knew before November 24th, 2009 is dead. Don't make the mistake of underestimating the new AOL. It's a profitable media empire that is growing rapidly and knows what it wants. It made $500mm in revenue last quarter. Here's AOL's 10-Q filing last quarter: http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2lyLmludC53ZXN0bGF3YnVzaW5lc3MuY29tL2RvY3VtZW50L3YxLzAwMDExOTMxMjUtMTAtMTc2MDk1L3htbA%3d%3d http://ir.aol.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147895&p=irol-SECText&... It's hard to parse because last quarter ended the first three month stretch AOL has had as an independent company from Time Warner. It contains a ton of information about the IPO and spinoff leading up to November 2009, but if you read carefully, you'll see that AOL made $557mm in revenue last quarter, had $495mm in normal expenses, and made a net profit before tax of $62mm. Sort of. These numbers are dubious because there was a $1.4 billion charge for "unusual expenses," including a write-off from the IPO for disintegration costs and a total write-down for Bebo.com. The real balance sheet in the 10-Q from last quarter is further obfuscated by a $182mm stock purchase of AOL by Digital Sky Technology, the Russian investment firm that bought a chunk of Facebook a while ago. A few hundred pages are devoted to that and some calculations are skewed. Together, the things above make it look like AOL as a business is unprofitable, but I don't think that's true. We won't know how much the company really makes until its next 10-Q filing, but I am inclined to believe the backwards projections suggesting that AOL made profits during the four quarters prior to its IPO of $34.7mm, $1.4mm, $74mm, and $90.7mm.

fortes 16y ago
Interesting. Got any details?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
johnglasgow 16y ago
It sounds like Time Warner moved a lot of write-offs to AOL right before the spin-off to hide their own losses. Then AOL was forced to "take a bath", where you toss out all the huge one time write-offs(i.e. Bebo) in one earnings season and return to good numbers in the next earnings season.

_delirium 16y ago

Their long, slow decline in subscribers is really long and slow, and has given them years of cushion to retool--- their legacy subscription revenues last year were about $1.5 billion.