Fall from grace
When AOL’s plan to merge with Time Warner was announced in January 2000, the Internet company was valued at $163 billion.
The December spin-off is expected to effectively value AOL’s market capitalization at around $3 billion.
Published 01:06, November the 20th, 2009
AOL plans to lay off a third of employees
AOL plans to cut one-third of its work force, or about 2,500 jobs, in an effort to trim some $300 million in costs as part of the Web company’s planned spin-off from Time Warner Inc.
The struggling Web pioneer, which is now focused primarily on advertising-supported content, said on Thursday that it would start with a volunteer buyout program and move on to involuntary layoffs if enough workers do not step up.
AOL said the layoffs would result in restructuring charges of up to $200 million. It said that substantially all the charges would be incurred from the date of the spin-off through the first half of 2010.
