Yahoo!/AOL Merger Rumor Denied ... For Now

Search For A Deal

The tech website SILICONALLEYINSIDER.COM is backtracking on its initial report that an AOL-YAHOO! merger was a "done deal." Apparently, confirmation of the deal from an AOL source was emphatically denied by a TIME WARNER SOURCE, who even apologized for the original news leak.

That same source indicated that the two parties are still talking, even though a deal is not "imminent." Reports had a purchase price for AOL in the neighborhood of $8-10 billion, which some observers believe is too high if it's only for the content and ad portions of the business, and not the access arm as well.

Rumors of such a merger have been floating around for quite a while, as ideally a combined entity could become a formidible rival to GOOGLE. But as one report notes, "Execution is crucial ... YAHOO needs to ruthlessly eliminate redundancy and completely integrate what remains, or the merger will be a distraction and flop. Unfortunately, YAHOO has not yet demonstrated that it has this competency."

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