This is breaking news reported by PaidContent; AOL has acquired Bebo for $850 Mn in an all cash deal. With the deal, AOL will get access to Bebo’s 40 million registered member. Bebo is the most popular social network in the U.K.

The announcement says that the Bebo president Joanne Shields will continue to run Bebo but does not mention anything site founders Michael or Xochi Birch.

This is what AOL CEO Randy Falco had to say about the deal:

“Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL’s personal communications network and puts us in a leading position in social media. What drew us to Bebo was its substantial and fast-growing worldwide user-base, its vision of a truly social web, and the monetization opportunities that leverage Platform-A (AOL’s ad system) across our combined global audience. This positions us to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers.”

It looks like a right move for AOL which is moving away from an paid access business to free content and community business.

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