Gawker To Fold After Nearly 15 Years In Business

The 14-year-old digital gossip news publisher, Gawker Media, announced today on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and Gawker.com that it plans to sell assets to Spanish-language broadcaster, Univision, for $135 million. The deal is a result of a court-administered bankruptcy auction.

Univision will acquire most of Gawker Media’s websites, including Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel and Kotaku. However, Univision opted not to acquire Gawker.com. As a result, the site will fold operations early next week.

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The decision to auction comes not long after professional wrestler Terry Bollea, better known to all as Hulk Hogan, successfully sued Gawker $140 million for invasion of privacy earlier this year. Gawker Media then filed for bankruptcy and the company’s CEO and former Financial Times journalist, Nick Denton, filed for personal bankruptcy.

Short-term plans for publishing Gawker.com’s content remain outstanding. Allegedly, the website’s archives will be preserved. As of now, it cannot be confirmed where those archives will be stored.

Denton claims that Univision guarantees jobs for Gawker Media staffers, who unionized just last year. These employees will be placed at Univision or one of its newly acquired Gawker Media sites