After much speculation and discussion, Yahoo now has a buyer at its doorstep. Verizon today announced that it will acquire Yahoo! Inc’s operating business for approximately $4.83 billion in case. The amount is subject to customary closing adjustments. According to Verizon, the transaction will create a new rival in mobile media technology. Yahoo will be integrated with AOL under Marni Walden, EVP and President of the Product Innovation and New Businesses organization at Verizon. However, Yahoo’s stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan will not be a part of this acquisition.
The addition of Yahoo to Verizon and AOL will create one of the largest portfolios of owned and partnered global brands with extensive distribution capabilities, said a Verizon press release. Combined, AOL and Yahoo will now have more than 25 brands. In 2015, Verizon acquired AOL for $4.4 billion to give a boost its media and advertising businesses.
Here are a few things you should know about the respective companies:
1. Verizon, one of the nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, plans to combine Yahoo’s operations with AOL, a longtime Yahoo competitor that Verizon acquired last year.
2. The deal of $US4.8 billion, according to a report by BLOOMBERG is just the sale of Yahoo’s core assets, while its Alibaba stake and Yahoo Japan Corp remains.
3. Yahoo had once rejected Microsoft’s $ 44 billion offer to buy it in 2008.
4. In 2006, Yahoo had an opportunity to buy out Facebook for $ 1 billion, whose revenue itself last year was almost $ 18 billion. One of the mistakes also included, not taking up the opportunity to buy Google (now valued more than $ 500 billion) for a meagre sum of $ 1 million in the year 1997 and wasted the opportunity again in 2002.
5. The biggest mistakes that Yahoo made recently, were made by its CEO, Marissa Mayer, when she acquired 53 companies during her tenure but also shut down 41 of them, which included Tumblr, although a popular blogging website, could not generate revenues.