News Corp. Expected To Sell MySpace By Thursday For $20-$30 Million, $650 Million Less Than What They Paid For It

It’s looking bad, (real bad Michael Jackson) for MySpace right now y’all. While News Corp. bought the company six years ago for nearly 600 million dollars, they are now expected to unload it for $30 million or less!

Ouch! That’s got to hurt…

Here are the details:

News Corp. is about to sell Myspace for $20 million-$30 million.

The groups vying for the remains of Myspace are Golden Gate Capital, a PE firm with $9 billion under management, and Specific Media, an ad network.

News Corp.’s fiscal year ends this Thursday, so it’s looking to wrap up the sale before the end of the fiscal year, so it can get Myspace off the books for 2012.

This is quite the come down for Myspace. News Corp paid $580 million for Myspace in 2005. When it started selling Myspace this year, it was looking for $100 million.

Not good at all. And what about the poor folks still hanging on to their jobs at the website? It looks like they’re about to be the latest casualties of these tough economic times:

As part of the deal, sources said the News Corp. unit will be making significant cuts in staff and costs — up to 50 percent or more — all contingent on the purchaser. The staff cuts are, obviously, directly related to the transaction and the winning bidder.

While there were some rumors last week that News Corp. would close Myspace down, the sale to a small player and the layoffs are the likely outcome.

Poor thangs! Mark Zuckerberg, hope you are taking notes and stashing some of your chips for a rainy day.

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