Well that was fast. AOL has closed its $315 million acquisition of The Huffington Post. The deal was originally announced on February 6, so it’s taken a month for the acquisition to close.
As we heard a few weeks ago, Arianna Huffington is now the President and Editor In Chief of all of AOL’s media properties, which is now called the Huffington Post Media Group (and which includes TechCrunch).
AOL says the the combined entity will have a user base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 253 million around the world, according to comScore. For AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, The HuffPo acquisition is his largest deal to date.
Along with the closing of the acquisition, AOL has also poached a number of talented new writers to join its newly formed team. Yahoo’s Michael Calderone has been named Senior Media Reporter, the New York Times’ Trymaine Lee has been named Senior Reporter, the New York Daily News’ Michael McAuliff has been named Senior Congressional Reporter, and The Daily’s Jon Ward has been named Senior Political Reporter. Bonnie Kavoussi will be Business Reporter, and Lucas Kavner has been named Entertainment Reporter.
With the acquisition, AOL is buying into the new publishing model that the Huffington Post represents. Armstrong has said that the the driving factors behind the deal is how well the Huffington Post fits into the content platform he is trying to build, particularly around women, influencers, and local (his 80-80-80 strategy).
Tim and Arianna have been on a roadshow of sorts, explaining the new content strategy to the public. As we know, there will be layoffs, Hollywood, and more.
Disclosure: AOL owns TechCrunch.
