14 DAY TRIAL // There seems to be a lot of activity from Russia lately when it comes to internet services and companies. The Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies has already made a name for itself with after the investments in Facebook and Zynga, but there are plenty of others who are looking to venture out of the home market. The latest looks to be Rambler Media who owns the Rambler.ru portal, among other media proprieties, which is now apparently in the race to acquire the ICQ instant messenger from AOL.
Rambler joins the four remaining main competitors for the IM service popular in Russia and several other countries. ICQ has been on sale for a while now as AOL tries to shed its non-core products. AOL is asking for somewhere around $200 to $250 million, or at least that's what others are willing to pay. The other interested parties may be the previously mentioned DST, Naspers through China's Tencent, Senzam a popular web portal in the Czech Republic and Yandex, Russia's leading search engine.
Rambler already has several online holdings in Russia and its parent company is said to be aiming at an IPO soon this year, a possible reason for this sudden bid for ICQ. Rambler already has a business relationship with AOL as it has handled the advertising within the IM in Russia since 2008 and had other agreements as far back as 2005.
AOL acquired ICQ in 1998 when it was one of the most powerful web companies in the world and ended up paying $287 million plus another $120 million in earnouts. At the current selling price, it's definitely taking a hit but AOL can't really be too picky at the moment. It already has a very popular instant messenger in AIM, at least in the US, and its ICQ never really paid off in either growth or revenue. The Israeli-based IM is said to be profitable but only marginally so.