Gadget blog Gizmodo, or should that be Gizmeaudeaux, is now in Swiss hands. The private equity abyss it fell into after Gawker's liquidation (and Univision's mismanagement of the corpse) has sold it on to Keleops, owner of various French-language media outlets. It's the latest of the Gawker blogs to be bought by relatively obscure interests, but Keleops is at least in the trade: Deadspin ended up as a Maltese gambling site's backlink bucket. G/O Media sold The Onion last month to Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, and Gawker was sold to Bryan Goldberg, who briefly rebooted it, and lately to Singaporean music mogul Meng Ru Kuok.
In a company-wide email obtained and reviewed by The Daily Beast, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller wrote: "A short time ago we were approached by European based Keleops Media expressing interest in purchasing Gizmodo to add to their growing tech media holdings. After serious consideration, G/O Media's board of directors have decided to accept their offer for a variety of reasons which include Keleops' agreement to keep Gizmodo's entire staff intact and a sale valuation that represents a substantial premium from our original purchase price for the site."
Claiming that the increased valuation of the site was a "strong testament to the work of not only our editorial teams but also the core other areas of our operations," Spanfeller praised the company's sales and marketing teams as well as the development group for the "wonderful work" they've done to improve the site's features and marketing.
Everyone getting to keep their jobs is a good sign!
Gizmodo was the original great gadget blog of the 2000s and a top revenue-generator for Gawker, unlike Gawker itself, which was… not.
Correction: Keleops is based in Switzerland, with outlets in France.
