AOL Value Has Dropped By $101.8B Since 2000

AOL Inc. (AOL), considered just months ago to be worth $5.7 billion, now is valued at only about $4 billion.

The price comes from two different analysts today, as AOL prepares to spin off from Time Warner Inc.

A JPMorgan analyst puts AOL’s worth at $4.2 billion while Pali Research has lowered that number to an even $4 billion.

That’s quite a fall from financial grace when you consider that AOL was valued at $106 billion when Time Warner (TWX) bought it nine years ago. Of course, that total went down by 2005 – that’s when Google Inc. bought a 5 percent stake in AOL, which then was estimated at $20 billion.

The lower valuations this week appear to stem from AOL’s continued loss of Internet access subscribers (no surprise in a broadband world); as the company’s content strategy is outshined by others’; and as investors fear AOL’s earnings will fall after the pending spinoff.