More messaging news coming recently…AOL corporation has hired two investment banks to sell its division that deals with the chat service ICQ, said blog All Things Digital. Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co. will have the task of ensuring maximum revenue for AOL. ICQ is now the subject of interest by two large companies outside the United States.
AOL company acquired the ICQ software 11 years ago for the sum of 287 million dollars, It was part of an Tel Aviv, Israel, start-up called Mirabilis. Now AOL estimated $ 300 million for ICQ service.
ICQ monthly audience estimated at 40-50 million active users. Most of them are in Germany, Russia, Israel, Ukraine, Bulgaria and other small countries. Next month, AOL will be split with Time Warner. The company is a way ahead of its restructuring to reduce costs, including redundancies of large part of the staff. According to information at the time, AOL will release 2500 employees. It is also expected to sell the company and social network Bebo, bought last year for 850 million dollars.