Verizon to sell its media business, including iconic brands Yahoo and AOL, to focus on developing 5G
- The deal comes at a time when the big internet platforms have sewn up huge portions of the digital advertising market, drawing regulatory scrutiny over their practices
- Having written US$4.6 billion off the value of the businesses in 2018, Verizon will get just US$4.25 billion in cash from private equity firm Apollo Global
Verizon Communications Inc is getting rid of its media businesses that include iconic brands Yahoo and AOL for US$5 billion, ending an expensive and unsuccessful run in the media and advertising world.
Despite spending more than a decade and billions of dollars acquiring a stable of internet brands, the New York-based telecom company has struggled to make headway in a highly competitive internet advertising space dominated by Facebook Inc and Google and has focused its resources on developing 5G.
Having written US$4.6 billion off the value of the businesses in 2018, Verizon will get just US$4.25 billion in cash from private equity firm Apollo Global, along with preferred interests of US$750 million and a 10 per cent stake in the unit – about half of what it had paid for the businesses.
The move concludes a steady drip of deals that saw Verizon sell blogging platform Tumblr in 2019 for an undisclosed sum and news website Huffington Post to BuzzFeed last year.
The series of media divestitures came after Hans Vestberg, chief executive at Verizon, took the helm of the wireless provider from his predecessor Lowell McAdam, who was behind the vision of a media and telecom giant.
Vestberg has prioritised building out the telecom network as the company spent US$52.9 billion for C-band spectrum in the government auction earlier this year.