Verizon sells Yahoo and AOL for about half of what it paid. Verizon is reported to have sold AOL as well as Yahoo properties to Apollo Global Management in a deal that is said to be worth $5 billion.
And this is close to half of the nearly $9 billion that Verizon formerly paid for the pair.
Verizon will still keep up with the 10 percent stake in the company. And this is known now as “Yahoo” and is being headed by Guru Gowrappan, CEO.
The deal, which includes the ad tech business of Verizon was rumored over the last week. And is still very much subject to closing conditions.
As soon as it is complete, it will bring an end to the troubled experiment of Verizon together with advertising and media production.
Meanwhile, Apollo is a private equity firm. They own the Venetian resort in Las Vegas and crafts retailer Michaels.
Of recent, Leon Black, Apollo co-founder stepped down as Chairman, just after it was disclosed that he paid over $150 million to Jeffrey Epstein.
Reed Rayman’s Comment
Here is what Apollo partner, Reed Rayman said:
“We are thrilled to help unlock the tremendous potential of Yahoo and its unparalleled collection of brands”.
He continued:
“We have enormous respect and admiration for the great work and progress that the entire organization has made over the last several years.
And we look forward to working with Guu, his talented team, and our partners at Verizon to accelerate Yahoo’s growth in its next chapter”.
Verizon paid $4.4 billion for AOL
Originally, Verizon paid $4.4 billion for AOL in the year 2015 and two years later, the company paid another $4.5 billion for Yahoo.
The media divisions, which included TechCrunch, Yahoo Sports, and Engadget were combined under Oath. And later renamed Verizon Media Group in the year 2018. After Verizon acknowledged defeat and also wrote off close to half of its value.
Also, in the year 2019, Verizon sold Tumblr out for an unrevealed sum of money that was thought to not be up to $3 million. That is small compared to the sum of $1.1 billion that Yahoo paid in 2013 for the blogging platform.
As of last year, the wireless network operator also unpacked Huffpost to Buzzfeed. And this is a property that AOL paid $315 million for in the year 2011.
This led to a $119 million charge to its quarterly earnings “primarily related to the deposition of the HuffPost business.”
Back then, AOL was how people connected to the internet. And Yahoo was its front page. At their crest, Yahoo had a market capitalization of over $125 billion, and AOL, over $200 billion.
