Snippet: Investor Urges AOL to Sell MapQuest and Moviefone ☇

I know Apple has purchased mapping companies already, but wouldn’t MapQuest be a great addition in the transition away from Google-provided maps? They certainly look better than what they’re using in iPhoto on iOS:

Activist investor Jeffrey Smith put another hot coal under AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong’s feet yesterday, this time urging him to divest the Moviefone and MapQuest businesses. Smith’s Starboard Capital, which owns a significant 5.2 percent stake in AOL, insists the prices paid originally for Moviefone and MapQuest are both “well in excess of the current market value.”

Starboard’s theory is that because AOL already appears to be scouting buyers for its patent portfolio and access business, sales that would result in big tax hits, the company should pair those transactions with a sale of underwater assets, like Moviefone, to help offset big taxes.