The greatest news of today is that US internet giant Yahoo has been to American telecoms firm Verizon Communications for $4.83 Billion (£3.8bn) in cash. The Yahoo sold To Verizon for $4.8 Billion news has shocked the whole world judging that this was once the biggest internet company in the world.
The deal of yahoo take over was announced today by Verizon stating that it has completed what it described as a long process of acquiring the world’s foremost internet portal giant. This deal marks the end of an era for yahoo which was founded 22 years age.
Verizon was able to beat other companies bidding to buy Yahoo. AT&T Inc. and Quicken Loans Inc. founder Dan Gilbert, as well as firms Vector Capital Management and TPG, were also active in bidding for Yahoo. The deal excludes Yahoo’s valuable stake in Chinese firm Alibaba. The board of the Silicon Valley company only agreed to sell Yahoo’s core internet operations and land holdings to Verizon.
Yahoo began in 1994 as “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” a list of websites curated by Stanford University students Jerry Yang and David Filo. It grew quickly as millions of Americans began turning on dial-up Internet connections and needed a home page that would direct them to all their essential destinations.
In 1996 it went public and rode the dot-com bubble to epic heights, reaching a peak of $500 a share (or $125 a share in today’s post-split calculations) in January 2000.
The company failed to take advantage of new innovations when it had the opportunities to do so. It allowed itself be beaten by by Google and Facebook and now the company has paid the ultimate price. The company saw itself fading away as the year goes by. They hired former Google CEO Marissa Mayer but she still could not save them.
Marissa Mayer is not expected to join Verizon. Marissa Mayer, will reportedly depart with severance pay worth more than $50 million.
Confirming the Yahoo Yahoo sold To Verizon for $4.8 Billion news, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wrote in an email. “Among the many entities that showed interest in Yahoo, Verizon believed most in the immense value we’ve created, and in what a combination could bring our users, our advertisers, and our partners.”
Verizon bought AOL, another faded internet giant last and will now combine the 3 companies together. This will take Verizon to world no.3 internet giant only bettered by GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK. This will spark a shift of strategy by Verizon.
Speaking on the Yahoo take over by Verizon, AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong said, “this transaction is about unleashing Yahoo’s full potential, building upon our collective synergies, and strengthening and accelerating that growth.”
“Combining Verizon, AOL and Yahoo will create a new powerful competitive rival in mobile media, and an open, scaled alternative offering for advertisers and publishers.”
Yahoo Chief executive, Marissa Mayer shared the same sentiment. “Today’s announcement not only brings us an important step toward separating Yahoo’s operating business from our Asian asset equity stakes, it also presents exciting opportunities to accelerate Yahoo’s transformation,”.
With this deal and focus on advertising, Google should be on the watch out because a power shift may be in the offing.
Yahoo sold To Verizon for $4.8 Billion: Readers, what is your take on this one?