Verizon agrees to buy core of Yahoo for reduced $4.48B price tag following hacks

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Verizon on Tuesday announced a deal to buy the core business of Yahoo for $4.48 billion -- managing to secure a $350 million discount it was pursuing because of two major security breaches, the last of which affected over 1 billion accounts.




Under the terms of the deal Yahoo and Verizon will share some liabilities surrounding the hacks, which took place in 2013 and 2014, according to Reuters. Specifically, the companies will split cash liabilities linked to some lawsuits and government investigations, but Yahoo alone will be saddled with some liabilities from shareholder lawsuits and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigations.

The acquistion should close in the second quarter, pending government approval.

Though best known as a wireless provider, Verizon also owns AOL, and taking over Yahoo will not only give it a new userbase but data it can apply for targeted ads. The company is expected to merge Yahoo's ad tech, email, search, and messenger assets with AOL.

Once a giant in the internet world, in recent years Yahoo has been beleaguered not just by security issues but by difficulty remaining relevant in an industry populated by the likes of Apple, Google, and Facebook.

Last year Verizon's main rival in the wireless space, AT&T, announced plans to merge with Time Warner in a deal worth over $85 billion. That has yet to be approved, and faces some opposition given worries about dwindling competition in U.S. media and communications.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    "I'd buy (Yahoo!) for a dollar!"
  • Reply 2 of 16
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    Stifle it, Edith!
    ireland
  • Reply 3 of 16
    sog35 said:
    lkrupp said:
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    Stifle it, Edith!
    but it is a piece of crap
    The only thing of value they hold is their Alibaba stock, which their new holding company will keep. The rest of Yahoo has no value for Yahoo, but as add-on services for Verizon, they could represent significant service additions. For example, Yahoo Sports has significant daily traffic.
  • Reply 4 of 16
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    My guess is Verizon wants Yahoo for Tumblr, Flickr, and all the news and fantasy sports sites. Yahoo is pretty good with fantasy football and other sports. I'm sure Verizon wants a piece of the digital advertising pie generated from those sites. 
    SpamSandwichcali
  • Reply 5 of 16
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    My guess is Verizon wants Yahoo for Tumblr, Flickr, and all the news and fantasy sports sites. Yahoo is pretty good with fantasy football and other sports. I'm sure Verizon wants a piece of the digital advertising pie generated from those sites. 

    Yeah, the web email part (the original part) is worth peanuts, it's their other properties that are of interest. BTW, my main email is still yahoo and I've had it since 1998... Eventually this will likely be resold for peanuts to MS, Google or Facebook or whatever.
    cali
  • Reply 6 of 16
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    My guess is Verizon wants Yahoo for Tumblr, Flickr, and all the news and fantasy sports sites. Yahoo is pretty good with fantasy football and other sports. I'm sure Verizon wants a piece of the digital advertising pie generated from those sites. 
    Agreed.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    NemWanNemWan Posts: 118member
    Yahoo is worth as much as the Star Wars franchise? Huh.
    [Deleted User]
  • Reply 8 of 16
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    I have Verizon and I just hope they totally trash Yahoo's computer systems so the same thing that's happened multiple times to Yahoo doesn't happen to Verizon.

    My father-in-law is still upset Yahoo Finance stopped accepting new Portfolio input. He used it all the time and I have had to find a new way and teach him (not an easy task for a 90 year old retired stock broker).

    calijonagold
  • Reply 9 of 16
    williamhwilliamh Posts: 1,032member
    sog35 said:
    lkrupp said:
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    Stifle it, Edith!
    but it is a piece of crap
    The only thing of value they hold is their Alibaba stock, which their new holding company will keep. The rest of Yahoo has no value for Yahoo, but as add-on services for Verizon, they could represent significant service additions. For example, Yahoo Sports has significant daily traffic.
    As I recall, Yahoo receives a substantial royalty, somewhere in the hundreds of millions annually, for allowing their name to be used  by Yahoo  Japan.  In Japan, Yahoo Japan is a big thing, subsidiary of Softbank, selling cell phones and service.  My Japanese sucks so I may have misunderstood while I was there, but you see it a lot on the street.
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 10 of 16
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member
    That has yet to be approved, and faces some opposition given worries about dwindling competition in U.S. media and communications.
    I suspect that making America great again will involve the end of anti-trust enforcement, so the merger will probably go through. 
  • Reply 11 of 16
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    blastdoor said:
    That has yet to be approved, and faces some opposition given worries about dwindling competition in U.S. media and communications.
    I suspect that making America great again will involve the end of anti-trust enforcement, so the merger will probably go through. 
    Changing Anti-trust laws needs congress and the senate and even the current GOP won't want to touch it directly because be hard to defend removing it.

    They'll approve the merger within the current framework and find a bullshit reasoning for it.
  • Reply 12 of 16
    williamh said:
    sog35 said:
    lkrupp said:
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    Stifle it, Edith!
    but it is a piece of crap
    The only thing of value they hold is their Alibaba stock, which their new holding company will keep. The rest of Yahoo has no value for Yahoo, but as add-on services for Verizon, they could represent significant service additions. For example, Yahoo Sports has significant daily traffic.
    As I recall, Yahoo receives a substantial royalty, somewhere in the hundreds of millions annually, for allowing their name to be used  by Yahoo  Japan.  In Japan, Yahoo Japan is a big thing, subsidiary of Softbank, selling cell phones and service.  My Japanese sucks so I may have misunderstood while I was there, but you see it a lot on the street.
    Yahoo used to be very big in China also. I've no idea if that's still the case.
  • Reply 13 of 16
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
    Verizon couldn't make it in the fiber and TV business, so they might as well try search and advertising. Makes perfect sense...Right?

    If you are going to buy a company, perhaps you should consider buying one that makes money. If Yahoo can't make money with their core business, what makes a completely unrelated business think they can turn a profit with it. As I always say, when any company, not sports related, puts their name on a stadium, it is time to sell the stock. They have two of them and the stock is down close to a one year low when the rest of the market is at all time highs.

    This Yahoo deal looks like an ego driven transaction. They want to be in the search business because, well, it's cool to be like Google.
    edited February 2017
  • Reply 14 of 16
    $4.8b for Yahoo!, $4.4b for AOL. Where can I buy shares in Netscape Navigator, they might want to buy that 90s internet gem next.

    edit* nevermind, I see AOL bought it for $4.8b way back when, so Verizon already have it!
    edited February 2017
  • Reply 15 of 16
    sog35 said:
    lkrupp said:
    sog35 said:
    $4.5 billion for that piece of crap? 
    Stifle it, Edith!
    but it is a piece of crap
    So does this mean that Google will be paying Verizon as it was paying Yahoo! ? Will GG and VZ eventually form a direct partnership? A complete clusterfk of shite, I'd say! ;)
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