When AOL Spins Off On December 9, It Will Be Worth About $3.4 Billion

It's been a long decade, but AOL will once again be an independently traded company on December 7 , when Time Warner will spin off shares. Every Time Warner shareholder (disclosure: including me, from when I was employed there) will receive shares in AOL using the following formula: one share of AOL will be distributed for every 11 shares held in Time Warner. In other words, we finally have an approximate market capitalization for AOL. The business will be valued at 1/11th the value of Time Warner. At today's market cap of $37.8 billion for Time Warner, based on a closing price of $32, that implies a $3.4 billion market cap for AOL. Unless Time Warner shares surge over the next few weeks, it will be in that ballpark.