Verizon says it will sell Yahoo and AOL to PE firm Apollo Global Management for $5B, keeping a 10% stake in the company, which will be rebranded as just “Yahoo”
The sale gives Verizon cash and leaves it with a 10% holding, while Apollo takes control of the AOL and Yahoo brands under a single Yahoo identity.
First-order effects
Apollo becomes the controlling owner of the combined media business and must operate AOL and Yahoo under the Yahoo rebrand.
Verizon exits majority ownership of the media unit but keeps a 10% stake, preserving a direct financial interest in its post-sale performance.
Second-order effects
Yahoo's management and commercial partners move from a telecom parent to a private-equity owner, concentrating operating and capital-allocation decisions with Apollo.
The rebrand removes AOL as the umbrella identity for the combined unit, making Yahoo the customer- and partner-facing focal point for the assets Verizon assembled.
Third-order effects
The transaction marks an unwind of Verizon's earlier strategy of combining major internet-media brands inside a telecom company; if replicated, ownership of mature digital-media portfolios shifts toward financial buyers rather than network operators.
A retained minority stake offers a model for strategic sellers to relinquish control while retaining exposure to a divested business's future value.
The trend: Telecom companies are reassessing ownership of legacy internet-media assets, with private-equity buyers positioned to take control of consolidated portfolios.
No matter the owner @TechCrunch will be the go-to destination for reporting on the business and culture of entrepreneurship and the first look most people get at the tech that will make the future. @apolloglobal bought the best in the biz. https://www.verizon.com/...
Verizon: We are not a dumb pipe. We will buy data and profit gloriously from adtech. Verizon: Or not. Ok we'll be a dumb pipe if you insist. https://www.nytimes.com/...
As the Times article notes, Verizon's content play was an ill-conceived bet that media would drive wireless data usage. What's ironic is that, had VZ bothered to study AOL's disastrous TW merger, it would have learned that these anticipated synergies often fail to materialize. ht…
I'd love to be pleasantly surprised but this feels like it would be a “take the cash flow as you sell it for parts” kind of acquisition... https://twitter.com/...
When I started at Engadget, it was part of the Weblogs, Inc blog network. WIN got bought by AOL, then AOL got bought by Verizon (followed by Yahoo), and now both (plus Engadget?) may be on the block yet again. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Verizon selling Yahoo and AOL for $5B. Verizon bought AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion, and Yahoo for $4.5 billion in 2017. More via @stevekovach https://www.cnbc.com/...
My biggest hope in the filings of the Verizon Media sale to Apollo is we get an updated number of how many people still pay for dialup AOL internet. It was still 2.1 million(!) in 2015. https://www.cnbc.com/...
“...user-generated content, whether in the form of Facebook posts or YouTube videos, drove much of online activity. AOL and Yahoo, despite their big audiences, had become distant also-rans” Verizon Near Deal to Sell Yahoo and AOL https://www.nytimes.com/...