back to article Yahoo! She said yes. Verizon confirms $4.8bn acquisition

Verizon has today confirmed it will splash out $4.83bn (£3.7bn) buying Yahoo, with the deal expected to close in the first financial quarter of next year. The telco was one of 40 suitors rumoured earlier this year to be interested, including Google parent Alphabet, Time and even Daily Mail parent DMG. Yahoo! has been on a …

  1. cmannett85

    So Marissa Mayer's exit package is worth over 1% of the entire company's value? Nice work.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Marissa, the new Meg?

      Seems to be following the same pattern. Decimate the company and get rich.

      Nice work if you can get it?

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Marissa, the new Meg?

        To be fair, Yahoo was already a basket case before her, but she certainly didn't make it profitable.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not 1%

      Check their market cap, they are WAY more valuable than what Verizon is paying, because Verizon is only buying Yahoo's business, not their huge holding of Alibaba stock.

      This whole deal is about Yahoo shareholders not wanting its business anymore, but Yahoo was unable to sell the Alibaba holdings without a big tax bill. Thus they are selling everything else, keeping the Alibaba stock, and basically Yahoo becomes an Alibaba tracking stock trading on the NASDAQ.

  2. Hollerithevo

    Rat hole

    Money down a...

  3. GrumpenKraut
    Facepalm

    "It’s poetic to be joining forces with AOL ..."

    Can't argue that.

    1. TitterYeNot
      Coat

      Re: "It’s poetic to be joining forces with AOL ..."

      The only level of poetry appropriate for Yahoo right now is something along these lines:-

      There was a CEO called Marrissa,

      When Yahoo was going down the pisser.

      She emptied the bank,

      Coz she knew it was all wank,

      And soon the investors won't miss her.

      (With grovelling apologies to proper poets everywhere.)

  4. thomas k

    Thank my lucky stars!

    That I'm no longer a Verizon customer and will avoid the coming price increase to pay for this.

  5. Spacedinvader
    Happy

    There! Appears! To! Be! Something! Wrong! With! The! Headline!

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Trollface

      There! also! appears! to! be! something! wrong! with! reality! and! common! sense!

  6. wolfetone Silver badge

    You have to wonder whether a squirrel with half a Coke bottle as a hat would've done a better job at Yahoo than Meyer.

    Answers on a Yahoo! Geocities website please.

    1. JLV
      Happy

      To be fair, it could hardly be worse than Yang turning down 44.6B 8 years ago. Even if a MS acquisition seems to be the kiss of death.

      Though... if she burned 2.3B buying stuff recently then that should also be considered in assessments of how good a deal she got for Y.

  7. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    The letters "b" and "n" seem to have crept into the figure there. A mistake surely?

  8. hattivat

    Dinosaur breeding

    Verizon needed a breeding drake* for the prehistoric specimen it already owns, and now it has found one. I shudder to thing what will happen if an egg hatches.

    *As in male duck, at first I wanted to use 'hog' but somehow it feels inappropriate in this eggy context.

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Dinosaur breeding

      > Verizon needed a breeding drake* for the prehistoric specimen

      I'll admit that my first thought was "they have a dragon?". I'll also admit I'm very slightly odd..

  9. GrumpenKraut

    > I shudder to thing what will happen if an egg hatches.

    Free exclamation marks sent to every home, every bloody week?

  10. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    @Marissa

    When it all goes titsup, my offer for Yahoo! still stands: One steaming 6 inch turd*.

    * Actually, you might have to wait a day or two. It rather depends on what I have had to eat the night before, unless you accept "loose change"

    1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

      Re: @Marissa

      I see a downvoter! Do you think I have maybe offered too much?

      1. GrumpenKraut
        Thumb Up

        Re: @Marissa

        I actually laughed out loud (a rare thing for me). That downvote is disturbing.

        1. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: @Marissa

          Now 2 down votes. Very disturbing.

      2. a_yank_lurker

        Re: @Marissa

        Definitely offered too much. lol.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: @Marissa

      Sorry but I beat you to it with myspace and half a kitkat.

    3. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

      Re: @Marissa

      Well, I didn't have a curry tonight so the small change thing is just academic now. I can do you a fresh 6" turd more or less any time you like, Marissa. Are we good - to - go?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Dear Ms Marissa Meyer

    , other than enlarging your pay packet, what EXACTLY have you achieved that has benefited the company and your consumers?

    1. Natalie Gritpants

      Re: Dear Ms Marissa Meyer

      Think she changed the font, or the angle of the !

      Either way a fine piece of work and worth every penny to Verizon.

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: Dear Ms Marissa Meyer

        "Think she changed the font, or the angle of the !"

        And don't forget the weekend (She worked the whole weekend, for chrissakes!) of labour spent choosing just the shade of purple, as well as the font and angled "!" for the logo!

        Truly worth the rumoured $150 million severance package!

  12. Florida1920
    Facepalm

    Verizon only needs to buy Twitter

    And they'll have the trifecta of losing .com entities. Too bad they missed out on pets.com.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    She added: “Yahoo! and AOL popularized the internet, email, search and real-time media. It’s poetic to be joining forces with AOL and Verizon as we enter our next chapter focused on achieving scale on mobile.

    Thanks Marissa! my turd polishing detector just exploded.

    Edit: It also has a rolling it in glitter safeguard, sadly this did not help in its demise.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Your's has a glitter safety? I am so jealous.

  14. arctic_haze
    Pint

    Drinking to the deal

    Just one question. Isn't the price about $5.0bn too high?

  15. Nixinkome

    War of the Megaliths

    I'm not sure if "megalith" is the correct word for infrastructure giants but I am interested in how megabillion dollar telcos are growing and integrating content provision into their delivery models. They are essential to the workings of all other businesses [and governments] nowadays and, as such, cannot cede supremacy to the other giants nor secede from the interplay. There may be balloons and gliders and satellites trying to deliver communications to other parts of the world but these will be bought or competed against.

    It did seem that Yahoo was going downwards so I suppose that Marissa Mayer [note correct spelling of her surname] has done well to increase her net worth so much and retain her position for a while and give birth. Some may say that she could have got even more.

    I'm glad that Yahoo!'s pensioners are adequately catered for by Verizon.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: War of the Megaliths

      I'm glad too. My Yahoo! account is older than Google.

  16. Howard Hanek
    Terminator

    Mayer a Reincarnated Egyptian Princess?

    ....trying to revive her Mummy Prince? And Failing again?

  17. AliSnackbar

    Mayer In Leaving Fail

    "As we work to close this agreement in Q1 2017"........"It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter. "......

    cos thats when my pay off hits the bank..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mayer In Leaving Fail

      Well, next chapter could have been Chapter 11 (or worse).

      Anyway a well paid CEO position in a company were you can't be blamed for all the failures, is one of the bwst ones... especially if the golden parachute is even better.

  18. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    "The deal does not involve Yahoo!'s Alibaba Group holdings, its shares in Yahoo! Japan, Yahoo!’s convertible notes, certain minority investments, or Yahoo!’s non-core patents.

    Erm... so what exactly is Verizon buying?

    1. Florida1920

      Erm... so what exactly is Verizon buying?

      [ ]

    2. Gordon 10

      what's the betting

      That Marissa remains CEO of the holding company that keeps the investments then trousers 2 salaries and a honking great bonus when they finally cash those Alibaba shares in.

      We need a SWAG icon.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: what's the betting

        We need a "It's good to be the King" icon.

        A Marie Antoinette one would work just as well.

    3. Captain DaFt

      Erm... so what exactly is Verizon buying?

      A full suite of out of date and poorly run websites, of course.

    4. Mage Silver badge

      what exactly is Verizon buying?

      Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Mail and any other user email addresses and IP addresses and "client" usages, for Verizon's targeted ad business.

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: what exactly is Verizon buying?

        > Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Mail and any other user email addresses

        I'm sure it's only coincidence that I've recently had several panicked messages from Yahoo along the lines of: "we notice you haven't used your Yahoo email in a while. If you don't use it soon, we'll take it away and then you'll miss all our wonderful stuffs!".

        I deleted the email without taking any other action..

    5. jonathanb Silver badge

      Yahoo! Mail. It is still one of the top three email providers.

  19. ecofeco Silver badge

    Proud?

    Who wouldn't be proud to profit from failure?

    I wish I could get a big payday for failure. But I'm not part of the right club.

  20. Hstubbe

    yawho?

    yawho?

  21. zen1

    Uhhh....

    Isn't Yahoo also in bed with AT&T? Because I know they had a lot of integrated stuff with their DSL subscriptions...

    1. JoeF

      Re: Uhhh....

      Yup.

      Account inflation. I technically have 3 Yahoo accounts:

      - my "normal" account which nowadays only gets spam

      - an account from AT&T DSL

      - an account from AT&T U-Verse (they were so bad they couldn't reuse the existing account.)

      I don't use the AT&T accounts, but every couple of years they send something to the accounts.

  22. AliSnackbar

    Mayer In Leaving Fail...

    "As we work to close this agreement in Q1 2017, It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter..."

    mmm...

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Mayer In Leaving Fail...

      Are we on Chapter 10 at the moment?

  23. Mark 85

    Confused, I am...

    So from the article and the email... is she going with the dinosaur? Or with the holding company? It appears that she's in the group going to Verizon which would leave more dosh for the shareholders. Maybe she is the poison pill we here about in the world of mergers and acquisitions?

    1. ghettomaster

      Re: Confused, I am...

      The dinosaur/ The background is clearly an enormous Barney.

  24. Howard Hanek
    Childcatcher

    One Last Economic Benefit

    Her payout will give one last shot to Haut Couture, mega-party planners and personal groomers before she's swallowed up into a well deserved final obscurity.

  25. Milton

    Why?

    "Marissa Meyer says she's proud of what she's done"

    I wonder why?

    Perhaps with statements like this, Mayer is planning a career in politics next? Given her performance at Yahoo once can only boggle at the damage she might do in Congress ....

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, this incompetent harridan has been sacked?

    Yahoo was THE web portal back in the 1990s (and maybe early 2000s). Then Google ate its lunch, and Microsoft slurped up the leftovers.

    Fav Yahoo moments: Yahoo Games (e.g. Literati, the Scrabble clone) and Geocities (until previous female Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz disgustingly put it to the sword).

    Marissa Mayer's noteworthy achievements at Yahoo: ruining Yahoo Mail, spending a fortune revamping the Yahoo corporate logo, and overall general incompetence.

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