Huff Post closes deal to join AOL

The Huffington Post officially joined AOL Monday, celebrating with the announcement that it had nabbed reporters from The New York Times, Yahoo!, and even Rupert Murdoch's new iPad newspaper The Daily.

The latest hires at the fast-growing news and opinion website were unveiled as AOL's $315 million acquisition of The Huffington Post formally closed.

"One of the Huffington Post Media Group's main goals is to deliver engaging and high-impact journalism, and these hires are an exciting addition to our reporting team," The Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington said.

"These new hires, which are only the beginning, demonstrate our commitment to great journalism," AOL chairman and chief executive Tim Armstrong said in a statement.

The latest hires boost The Huffington's Post staff to around 150 reporters and editors.

With the closing of the deal, Arianna Huffington takes over as president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will preside over all AOL Media and AOL Local properties.

The acquisition of The Huffington Post was the latest high-profile media buy by Armstrong, the former Google executive who was brought in by AOL two years ago in an attempt to turn around a company whose name has become synonymous with the dotcom era's excesses.

In September, AOL purchased TechCrunch, a leading Silicon Valley technology blog. Other AOL properties include Engadget, Patch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog and StyleList.

AOL, formerly known as America Online, fused with Time Warner in 2001 at the height of the dotcom boom in what is considered one of the most disastrous mergers ever.

It was spun off by Time Warner in December into an independent company.

AOL shares were down 2.24 percent at $19.60 in early trading on Wall Street on Monday.