Verizon to acquire Internet activities Yahoo for 4.4 billion euros

Verizon has reached an acquisition agreement with Yahoo. The American provider pays 4.8 billion dollars, converted 4.4 billion euros for the internet company. With the acquisition, Verizon will acquire the advertising services and search engine of Yahoo, Flickr and Tumblr.

Verizon Says It Plans To Integrate Yahoo’s Services With AOL; the internet company that the American provider acquired last year for a similar amount of 4.4 billion dollars. It appears that Verizon is particularly interested in Yahoo’s advertising arm, as was the case with the acquisition of AOL.

Yahoo had been looking for a buyer for a long time. According to rumors earlier this year, Yahoo hoped for a $10 billion bid and several American providers were interested in the takeover. Verizon ends up paying less than half of the amount quoted at the time. In 2008, Microsoft wanted to pay $44.6 billion to acquire Yahoo. That offer was turned down at the time.

Yahoo claims to have over a billion monthly active users with its services. In addition to a search engine and advertising service, Flickr and Tumblr, both owned by Yahoo, are particularly popular. Only Yahoo’s core businesses are involved in the acquisition. The shares that Yahoo has in the Chinese internet company Alibaba and in Yahoo Japan will be transferred to a new investment company.

The acquisition is pending approval by investors and regulatory authorities. Verizon and Yahoo expect the deal to close in the first quarter of 2017. Until then, Yahoo will continue to operate independently.

Marissa Mayer, the current CEO of Yahoo, said in a statement that she would like to stay with the company. Verizon gives opposite CNBC notes that there is no decision yet on who will lead Yahoo after the acquisition.