Verizon is buying Yahoo for $4.83 billion, marking the end of an era for a company that once defined the internet.
The sale announced Monday marks the second time in two years that Verizon has snapped up the remains of a fallen internet star as it broadens its digital reach. The nation’s largest wireless carrier paid $4.4 billion for AOL last year.
Verizon won the Yahoo bidding after a five-month auction.
Yahoo Inc. is parting with its email service and websites devoted to news, finance and sports in addition to its advertising tools under pressure from shareholders fed up with a steep downturn in the company’s revenue during the past eight years.
Through the transaction, Verizon will get access to technology assets in the advertising space such as Brightroll, a programmatic demand-side platform; Flurry, an independent mobile apps analytics service; and Gemini, a native and search advertising solution.
Verizon already owns AOL, which it bought last year. In a release, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said the addition of Yahoo would offer “an open, scaled alternative offering for advertisers and publishers.”
In a post to employees published to its Tumblr blogging service, Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer said she would not be stepping down as some had speculated.
“For me personally, I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter,” she wrote. “Imagine the distribution challenges we will solve, the scale we will achieve, the products we will build, and the advertisers we will reach now.”
The deal is expected to close in 2017’s first quarter.
– with files from Marketing staff
