engine - 1:37 pm on Apr 28, 2010 (gmt 0)

AOL Sells ICQ To DST For $187.5 Million [paidcontent.org]

As expected, Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies says it has reached an agreement with AOL (NYSE: AOL) to buy its instant messaging service ICQ for $187.5 million. DST, which has investment in Facebook and Zynga; South African media giant Naspers, which holds a 30 percent stake in China’s Tencent, had been the front-runner among a number of other eastern European companies for the past few weeks. The news comes out ahead of AOL’s Q1 earnings this morning. The $187.5 million price is well below the $200- to $250 million AOL had reportedly been asking for, not to mention the $287 million base price that AOL bought ICQ for in 1998.