Bending Spoons Adds AOL to Its Growing Digital Portfolio

The deal follows a long history of divestments for the former tech titan. After its massive 2001 merger with Time Warner, the company was eventually sold to Verizon in 2015 for $4.4 billion. Verizon later combined it with Yahoo under the banner of Oath, only to offload the entire operation to Apollo Global Management for roughly $5 billion in 2021. Today, AOL maintains a web portal and email service, though it recently retired its iconic dial-up internet business.

Bending Spoons has aggressively expanded its footprint by acquiring companies including Evernote, MeetUp, and WeTransfer, with a pending deal for Vimeo currently in the works. While previous acquisitions by the firm have occasionally resulted in layoffs and price hikes, CEO Luca Ferrari struck a different tone regarding the future of AOL. Ferrari emphasized that Bending Spoons has never sold an acquired business and intends to invest significantly to help the platform flourish for its loyal user base. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.