Verizon Is Exploring Sale of Yahoo, AOL (Report)

J. Clara Chan

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Verizon is exploring a potential sale of its media assets, including Yahoo and AOL, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Verizon declined to comment.

The sale, should it go through, could be worth $4 billion to $5 billion and would include the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, according to the Journal.

Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion and added Yahoo’s core assets to its portfolio in 2016 for $4.8 billion.In 2017, after officially closing its deal to acquire Yahoo, Verizon sought to merge the two brands under the Oath umbrella, which was later rebranded to Verizon Media Group alongside other Verizon-owned media outlets like TechCrunch and HuffPost. But the telecom giant has struggled to turn a profit on its media assets and, in 2019, Verizon cut 800 jobs as it turned its focus on video and mobile.

The telecom giant most recently sold HuffPost, which it acquired through the AOL acquisition, to BuzzFeed last November in a stock deal. The deal formally went through this past February but resulted in the loss of at least 47 positions at HuffPost.

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