A fairly large group of organizations is said to be in the running for a yard-sale auction of challenged social networking website MySpace, the ill-fated acquisition of media giant News Corporation. It paid $580M for the property back in 2005; now it’s hoping to attract a bid of at least $100M.
News Corporation execs talked up the site during its conference call to discuss its results from October-December 2010, the company’s fiscal Q2. At that time, Chase Carey said, “With a new content focus and structure in place, we believe now is the right time for News Corp. to consider its strategic options for this business. The new MySpace experience has been very well received by the market and we’ve had some encouraging traffic metrics in the last several weeks. However, we recognize that the plan to allow MySpace to reach its full potential may be best developed under a new ownership structure and we’re evaluating those strategic alternatives.”
Among the potential bidders named by Wall Street Journal are Thomas H. Lee Partners, Redscout Ventures, Criterions Capital and Tencent. The site’s co-founder, Chris De Wolfe, has also been mentioned as a potential bidder.
