There was a time when Yahoo! it was one of the most successful companies on the Internet landscape. Things are very different today, and, after multiple setbacks and some rumors of its release, finally the eternal indecision has passed into the hands of the American Verizon, which has already had control of AOL for some time , another popular firm in the early days of the Internet. The operator will pay nothing more and nothing less than 4.8 billion dollars (more than 4.3 billion euros) to control the heart of the business of the firm founded by Jerry Yang and Dave Filo. Apparently, among Verizon's intentions would be to merge the online activities of Yahoo!with those of AOL , placing the new group under the command of Tim Armstrong, current director of AOL. For her part, the current CEO of Yahoo !, Marissa Mayer, will leave the company in the coming months, after receiving numerous criticisms for the failure of her management.
The tech news of the day is without a doubt that Yahoo! will become part of Verizon . As reported by international media, the bid for the assets of Yahoo! it opened about four months ago. Up to three rounds were held, the last one last Monday, and among the five candidates were the telephone operators Verizon and AT&T, the big favorites. Also participating was a consortium of investors led by Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans and patron of the Cavaliers , along with Warren Buffett, in addition to venture capital funds TPG and Capital Vector.
When the transaction concludes, Yahoo! It will only retain its patent portfolio and stakes in Chinese giant Alibaba , as well as Yahoo Japan. It is precisely these stakes that will account for most of the company's market capitalization, which amounts to $ 36 billion, and not the core Internet business. Remember that Yahoo! It had a market valuation of more than $ 100 billion before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. In addition, in 2008 it rejected a purchase offer from Microsoft for $ 44 billion.
The truth is that the news was the chronicle of an announced death, especially if we take into account that Yahoo! it was not going through its best economic moments. The company recently announced losses of $ 536 million (about € 488 million) in the first half, after earning $ 2.9 million in the same period last year. With this in mind, we cannot help but ask ourselves the following question: what future awaits Marissa Mayer, CEO of the company? The executive became the most popular in Silicon Valley when in 2012 she took over at Yahoo!In any case, his efforts to resuscitate the company by promoting video, social networks or mobile have not borne fruit. Mayer will definitely leave the firm once the operation is concluded.