Goldman Sachs on AOL-HuffPo: This Means Nothing for '11

For those of you who don’t, somehow, do your private banking with Goldman Sachs, you won’t see their just-issued report on the AOL purchase of the Huffington Post. For starters, they expect “retention compensation” to offset the Huffington Post’s earnings — that the introduction of the Huffington Post will have no impact whatsoever on AOL’s projected 2011 earnings. Although: “We view this acquisition as further solidifying AOL’s stance as an owner of valuable focused content channels, similar to cable networks….” Here comes the bonus: trashing Yahoo! “We consider this acquisition strategically valuable from the perspective of (1) brand building; (2) mobile distribution; and (3) differentiated content as it distinguishes AOL’s focused approach from Yahoo!’s ‘everything to all people’ strategy.” Yow! GS remains neutral on AOL. (Also the company “expects to receive or intends to seek compensation for investment banking services in the next 3 months” from AOL.)