Random Politics & Religion #00

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: Democracy simply doesn't work."

Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) said on Tuesday it will buy AOL Inc (AOL.N) for $4.4 billion, turning the biggest U.S. wireless carrier into a leading provider of content and video for the web and mobile phones.

The $50-per-share offer represents a premium of 17.4 percent to AOL's Monday close. AOL and its properties, including the Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget websites, would become a Verizon subsidiary, with AOL Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong staying in his role.

Armstrong, who has been trying to build up AOL's expertise in mobile advertising technology, sees mobile representing 80 percent of media consumption in coming years.

"If we are going to lead, we need to lead in mobile," Armstrong said in a memo to employees on Tuesday.

Verizon has over 100 million mobile consumers, content deals with the likes of the National Football League and "a meaningful strategy" in mobile video, Armstrong said.

For Wall Street, the deal is about the technology. "AOL's ad-tech offering has been driving its growth for some time now as the Internet business has faded," Dan Ridsdale, an analyst at Edison Investment Research, wrote in a note to clients. "This acquisition is aimed at enabling Verizon to maximize its revenues from mobile video.”

Verizon, which last year bought the assets of OnCue, Intel's (INTC.O) Internet-based TV platform, has been building a video streaming product as it faces the wide availability of voice and data services.

AOL shares jumped nearly 19 percent to $50.62, while Dow Jones industrials component Verizon was down 0.7 percent at $49.46.

Armstrong told Reuters talks between Verizon and AOL started last year. He met with Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam last July about how to further their partnership.

Armstrong said he has a multiyear commitment to stay with Verizon and run AOL as a separate division but declined to give further details.

"GETTING A HODGEPODGE"

The proposed acquisition was the latest example of how established telecommunications companies look to make deals to jump-start growth as mobile phone expansion slows. AT&T Inc (T.N), the second biggest U.S. telecom company, is also betting on video, agreeing to buy No. 1 U.S. satellite TV provider DirecTV (DTV.O), for $48.5 billion. The deal is pending.

Advertising has become a major revenue stream for AOL, helped by the acquisition of automated advertising platforms such as Adap.tv.

Demand for the real-time bidding platform that helps advertisers place video and display ads helped AOL beat sales and profit forecasts in its most recent quarterly report.

For AOL, the deal caps a years-long period of reinvention into one of the most successful advertising technology companies.

At the peak of the dot-com boom, AOL, whose dial-up Internet service once counted tens of millions of subscribers, used its elevated stock price to buy movie, television and publishing conglomerate Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) in one of the most disastrous corporate mergers in history.

After being spun off from Time Warner in 2009, AOL shares returned to the New York Stock Exchange, opening at $27 in November 2009.

The $50-per-share bid by Verizon values AOL below its high of $53.28 in January 2014. Shares have fallen in three of the last five quarters but have gained as much as 56 percent from last year's low of $32.31, leading some analysts to question whether Verizon was overpaying.

"There’s the question of whether there is truly an advantage in owning all of this themselves," said Craig Moffett of media research firm MoffettNathanson. "They are paying a premium to own rather than rent, and they are getting a hodgepodge of ancillary assets that may be as much a distraction as a benefit."

AOL has held talks to spin off Huffington Post as part of the Verizon deal, potentially valuing the news and commentary website at $1 billion, Re/code, the technology news website, reported Tuesday, citing sources.

Verizon was showing signs of desperation as its core wireless business comes under pressure, Macquarie Capital analysts wrote in a note. It will need to buy telecommunications spectrum aggressively to accommodate rising mobile video traffic.

"We feel that Verizon paid a hefty price ... for what we believe to be an unproven programmatic ad-tech platform in the nascent video ad-tech space," they said.

Verizon said it expects the deal, which includes about $300 million in AOL debt, to close this summer.

LionTree Advisors, Weil Gotshal & Manges and Guggenheim Partners advised Verizon. AOL's advisers were Allen & Co Llc and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

(Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar and Abhirup Roy in Bengaluru, Jennifer Saba and Rodrigo Campos in New York; Writing by Nick Zieminski; Editing by Savio D'Souza, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Don Sebastian and Jeffrey Benkoe)
Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL Inc., speaks during an interview with Fox Business Channel in New York December 3, 2014.
Reuters/Brendan McDermid (UNITED STATES - Tags: SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS) - RTR4GL49

lol AOL is still around!?



I should probably check my mail...it's been about /looks at watch~less arm

forever

Oh ***, floppies!

I remember playing Oregon Trail !

They still make trackballs, yes. I know a few doctors I work with prefer them, on because of arm problems, one just by preference.

Did you die from dysentery?

The White House criticized Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives for a plan that would cut grants to Amtrak, part of a transportation funding bill that lawmakers were set to consider on Wednesday in the wake of an Amtrak derailment.

The House spending bill for the coming fiscal year would cut Amtrak grants by $252 million from current levels, said Shaun Donovan, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

"You're looking at more than a 15 percent cut in investments in Amtrak," Donovan told reporters on a conference all, noting Obama had proposed a boost to Amtrak funding to $2.45 billion, up from current levels of $1.4 billion.

Donovan also said the federal investigation into the cause of the derailment is ongoing and cannot be linked to funding levels.[/url]

Meh. Not exactly as you're making it sound. Suffice to say what you're calling "trimming excess and redundancies" is, in fact, downsizing staff and making others do more work for no increased pay, and in some cases for reduced pay.

But too far off topic in this already contentious thread, so I'll stop this line of discussion I guess.

On Thursday, October 6, 2005 shareholders from EB Games and GameStop agreed to a $1.44 billion takeover deal. The deal offered $38.15 in cash as well as approximately ¾ of a share of GameStop stock for every 1 share of EB Games stock. This offer was a 34.2% premium on the $41.12 per share closing price of EB Games stock. GameStop decided to close EB Games' newly constructed distribution center in Sadsbury, PA, their call center in Las Vegas, NV, and their International Headquarters in West Chester, PA, eliminating more than 800 jobs. Only 65 former EB Games employees were offered jobs at GameStop's headquarters in Grapevine, TX.

EB Games

Regarding job cutting.

GameStops wages -- at the time -- were lower than EB's.

because I believe in treating employees like human beings, not resources to be bought, sold, or traded at the whim of investors or executives.

Because I am treated like a human being at where I work. I plan on treating all my employees, even those not working with me or for me directly or indirectly as human beings when I start my CFO gig in June. The culture of the job I'm currently am and will be in the very near future also treats people like human beings, not as tools like you seem to think we do. And I'm almost positive that most other businesses do the same thing on all levels, regardless of size. While I will admit the obvious outliers like Walmart and Target may treat their employees like ***, guess what? Not every business is like them! In fact, there are no other businesses like Walmart and like Target.

Does your job treat you like ***all the time

Care to prove that? Mind you, we are talking about the majority of their workforce, which is the stores, not corporate. You already shown that all but 65 corporate employees were let go because of redundant positions.

If you're a low level worker in retail (a large majority of the US), you're likely treated like a blowup doll. Pumped and then dumped.

Other sectors may vary. But most people when they talked about being treated like a battered wife are talking retail.