MUMBAI: AOL has sold Bebo to a private investment group for less than 2 per cent of the price that the online media major had paid to acquire the social networking site in 2008.

AOL got rid of almost all of Bebo‘s assets to a Criterion Capital Partners affiliate for "scrap" value, after having bought it in March 2008 for $850 million from a pair of British entrepreneurs.
 
It called the deal a “game-changing acquisition”. However, sites like Facebook and MySpace eventually overshadowed Bebo’s popularity to slow down its growth.

"Bebo’s young, highly active user base, revenue history, presence in countries throughout the world and solid technical infrastructure make it an attractive media platform both as a stand-alone entity and in the context of our broader investment objectives,” Criterion Capital managing partner Adam Levin said in a press release. 
 
Bebo failed to take off in the US, lagging behind sites like Facebook.
AOL was hived off from Time Warner in December and is now working on a turnaround strategy to compete against rivals like Yahoo.