Verizon has announced that it will be acquiring AOL for $50 per share (or $4.4 billion).
The deal brings a massive digital media platform that includes Huffington Post, Engadget, Techcrunch and many others, as well as its programmatic advertising capabilities, to Verizon.
Lowell McAdam, Verizon chairman and CEO, said: "Verizon's vision is to provide customers with a premium digital experience based on a global multiscreen network platform. This acquisition supports our strategy to provide a cross-screen connection for consumers, creators and advertisers to deliver that premium customer experience."
Tim Armstrong, AOL's chairman and CEO, will remain at his position once the deal is finalized.
"We turned the company around. We outperformed the S&P 500 for the last five years, and when you look at where we are today and where we're going, we've made AOL as big as it can possibly be in today's landscape, but if you look forward five years, you're going to be in a space where there are going to be massive, global-scale networks, and there's no better partner for us to go forward with than Verizon," Armstrong told CNBC's "Squawk Box."
