By Milana Vinn and Elvira Pollina
New York (Reuters) -Yahoo is in advanced talks to sell AOL to Italian technology company Bending Spoons for about $1.4 billion, four sources familiar with the matter said, as the Apollo Global Management-backed firm sheds one of the most recognizable names of the early internet era.
The Milan-based app developer is in advanced talks to purchase the legacy media brand, the sources said. But they cautioned that a final agreement has not been signed and talks could still fall apart.
The sources requested anonymity to discuss confidential negotiations. Yahoo is owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which acquired a 90% stake in the company from Verizon in 2021 in a $5 billion deal.
Bending Spoons and Apollo declined to comment. Yahoo did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
A deal would mark a fresh chapter for the one-time giant of the internet age, known for its email service and “You’ve Got Mail” notification. AOL was at the centre of the biggest merger in history at the time when it combined with Time Warner in 2000 but the mega-deal resulted in regulatory probes and writedowns.
Bending Spoons has emerged as one of Europe’s most prominent technology firms, with a strategy of purchasing struggling tech companies and revamping them. In February 2024, the company completed a funding round that valued it at $2.55 billion, making it a rare “unicorn” in Italy’s tech landscape. A unicorn is a private company with a valuation of $1 billion or more.
The deal would add AOL’s vast user base to Bending Spoons’ portfolio of mobile applications. AOL generates revenue from advertising and through its subscription services, including LifeLock identity theft protection, LastPass password management, and McAfee Multi Access malware protection.
More recently, AOL’s website traffic has grown 20% year-over-year among the users aged 25 and 54, outpacing the growth in the category of users aged 55-plus, a source familiar with AOL’s performance said.
The growth was driven by the introduction of multiple new content categories to AOL.com, including Health, Fitness, Animals, Science & Tech, Home & Garden, Lighter Side, True Crime, Local, amongst others, the source said.
Bending Spoons, whose products count 300 million monthly users, has done several acquisitions recently, including file-sharing service WeTransfer. Last month it agreed a deal to take private video platform company Vimeo for $1.38 billion, its largest acquisition to date.
Bankers see the firm as a candidate for an initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S. Chief Executive Officer Luca Ferrari, who co-founded Bending Spoons in 2013, told Reuters last year that there were no firm plans for an IPO but that the firm was working to be ready for it, and looking beyond Europe.
(Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York and Elvira Pollina in Milan. Additional reporting by Echo Wang. Editing by Anousha Sakoui and Alistair Bell)
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