Smooth Blog

It was just supposed to be a three-hour tour, um, quick sale process!

But, like a storm-tossed ship looking for any safe harbor, the Myspace sale is still chugging along, with a deal that continues to be tossed around amongst low-paying and new lesser known buyers who are now in the $20 million to $30 million range, said sources close to the situation.

The price, said others, could go as high as $35 million, but it’s far cry from the $100 million that News Corp. had been aiming for.

As part of the deal, sources said the News Corp. unit will be making significant cuts in staff and costs — up to 50 percent or more — all contingent on the purchaser. The staff cuts are, obviously, directly related to the transaction and the winning bidder.

The media giant might also retain a small minority stake.

The two names — Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital — that are now in the forefront for an acquisition deal that News Corp. hopes to complete by Thursday, its fiscal year end, have not been among the acquirers mentioned previously in the myriad of reports about the deal.

Specific Media — a large, if lesser known, advertising network — seems to be in the lead, said sources. It has been around for a half-decade and has been funded by Francisco Partners.

Golden Gate Capital is a private equity firm with $9 billion under management, which has mostly specialized in turning around companies. It has never invested in a consumer Internet company.

Both companies, sources said, will focus Myspace on music, although it is not clear which rights the site has with music labels will transfer to a new owner.

Until last week, the preferred deal for Myspace centered on an investor group that included Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and in which News Corp. (which also owns this Web site) would retain a large minority ownership stake.

But sources said there were some transactional and legal complexities that made it less attractive and News Corp. opened up the deal talks with others again last week.

Golden Capital and Specific Media emerged most aggressively, although there still remain other interested parties, sources close to the situation said, among them another investor group that includes Myspace co-founder Tom Anderson, one its other co-founder Chris DeWolfe is part of and also interest from the Criterion Capital Partners, which bought AOL’s Bebo social networking site on the cheap a year ago.

But it’s now come down to time constraints and an agreement that can be reached before the end of this month, which is also the end of the media giant’s fiscal year.

In other words, let’s get Myspace off the books for 2012!

Continue reading “Myspace Sale For $30 Million”

A handful of venture capital firms and other companies are expected to make News Corp offers for one of its most disappointing properties: MySpace.

News Corp declared it was ready to sell MySpace in an earnings call last February. At that time, in spite of significant layoffs and a massive redesign, the company “recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at MySpace.”

Now, The Wall Street Journal, which shares a parent company with the faltering social network, is reporting that News Corp is attempting to get at least $100 million out of the sale. It names Redscout Ventures, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Criterion Capital Partners LLC , which also owns Bebo, as potential buyers.

News Corp purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million. At that time, the year-and-a-half-old Facebook hadn’t even acquired the Facebook.com URL and recorded a net loss of $3.63 million for the year. Even as late as 2007, Facebook’s traffic was disappointing when compared to traffic on MySpace.

But all that changed quickly. MySpace users began abandoning ship for Facebook, and in late 2009, site traffic took a dive from which it never really recovered. By 2010, even relative upstart Twitter was getting more traffic than MySpace.

Even though the network has pivoted to become an entertainment destination (in a nod to the bands and filmmakers that have clung to the platform out of habit or necessity), MySpace is still losing ground in these creative industries.

Reported at Mashable:

Selling 3x Samsung P1000 for parts.

All cameras bring their cables and manuals.

The pink camera seems to work (takes photos and so on, but its a bit scratched, also some buttons dont work).

Get it Here

LG GW520 Mobile Phone for Sell.

Used only for a few months, in perfect condition.

Black Colour, on 3 Network (not sure if it works on other networks).

Reason for sell: Bought an iPhone

Link to Item

Posted on eBay, good luck with the bids!

3x Packeteer PacketShaper 4000 2000 Bandwidth Managers (£130)

A hosting company currently located in North London (Next to Hampstead Heath) is currently looking for a Credit Controller, if you think you can work for us then please go ahead and contact us and we will get back to you asap.

This is a great opportunity to work for a fast growing company.

Requirements:

Need  a good telephone voice,

Trustworthy

And ready to be office manager…all admin.

Mainly Credit Control.

Salary:

Starting at 18K depending on experience/skills

Currently selling these 3 Packeteer’s:

1x PacketShaper 4000

2x PacketShaper 2000

They are mainly used at ISP’s for managing Bandwidth for customers (indeed this is what ISP’s use to tweak their connections so you are not able to get the full potential of your service).

I have been unable to test these PacketShaper’s though, they do switch on, but I am unsure if they are working though, so please bear in mind that if you bid, returns are not accepted, a full description of the item and condition of them are on ebay:

Buy here

Now selling on the sales page, if interested contact me.

This has now been added to the selling section.

Contact me if interested in this item.

This Item has Now been SOLD.