The CEO of AOL, Tim Armstrong, told CNBC on Monday that Starboard Values’ pressure on the merger exploration between Yahoo and AOL is nothing to do with him. He said he thinks that the circumstances between Yahoo and Starboard are not in any way related to that of AOL’s business.
According to Armstrong ‘scale matters’ when talking about internet properties. He added that the surrounding rumors on Yahoo online highlighted the success of AOL. He added that Yahoo went 4th in U.S. internet users’ traffic this year.
Last Friday, Starboard stated that it has bought a major stake of Yahoo and encouraged the company to monetize its billions of dollars quickly from the sale of Alibaba shares worth $140 million from Starboard’s opening public offering early September.
Starboard, a former AOL activist investor, said that the union of Yahoo and AOL can possibly create $1 billion in ‘synergies’ by dropping overhead costs like online display advertising for one.
Armstrong made it clear that AOL’s relationship with Starboard in the past was about shareholder alignment which has been effective after the company went through its own proxy situation. Everything has been successful and since then, the focus of AOL has been more about driving the company’s strategy.
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