It’s no secret that Yahoo has been shopping for potential purchasers of its core business services, and recent reports are indicating that bids on a Yahoo acquisition by Verizon or Google might be coming soon.
According to “people familiar with the matter,” Verizon is preparing a bid for Yahoo’s web business as early as next week, while other sources indicate that Google is also toying with the idea of a bid for Yahoo’s core business. While Time Inc., Bain, and TPG are also reportedly considering bids, companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Microsoft — who failed to acquire Yahoo in 2008 — have decided against trying to acquire the failing company.
Yahoo has been struggling lately under CEO Marissa Mayer, and with stock that has dropped roughly 20 percent in the past 12 months and projected revenue dropping by 15 percent and projected earnings by more than 20 percent, there have been recent calls for the entire Yahoo board to be replaced. According to Business Insider’s sources, Verizon would more or less combine Yahoo with AOL and put AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and Verizon’s executive VP Marni Walden at the helm if successful on acquiring Yahoo. One of the sources also indicated that Verizon has currently valued Yahoo’s core business at under $8 billion.
No further information was provided to elaborate on a Google bid, but with Yahoo reportedly extending the deadline for first-round bids to April 18th we should have a more concrete answer soon on who’s interested.
Who do you think should pick up Yahoo’s core business services? Verizon? Google? Someone else? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-07/verizon-said-to-proceed-with-yahoo-bid-as-google-weighs-offer” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Bloomberg[/button]
