The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Verizon, a U.S. telecommunications company, is seeking to sell its media division. Verizon media division includes Yahoo and America Online (AOL).
An anonymous source said private equity fund Apollo Global Management and others participated as buyers. And the sale price is to be between $4 billion and $5 billion.
In response to the sale, the WSJ said Verizon is trying to break free from expensive and fail bets.
Verizon bought AOL ($4.48 billion) and Yahoo ($4.8 billion) in 2015 and 2017 respectively. And launched a media group called OS, an integrated business.
Although it was planning to secure new food by combining media content. It is the strength of AOL, with online advertising, which is Yahoo’s strength, with mobile business. Yet it failed to produce significant results due to the offensive by Google and Facebook. The combination of Yahoo and AOL, both established in the early days of the Internet, was not enough to capture the attention of the market that had already moved to mobile devices.
Last year’s sales fell 5.6 percent year-on-year to $7 billion due to sluggish performance and Covid-19 strikes. Failing to reach its management target of $10 billion. In the wake of the deterioration in performance, the company has been working on restructuring the sale of Huffington Post and Tumbler. Aalong with adjusting its workforce to reduce costs.
Verizon is likely to invest its money into 5G investments. It had previously announced its plan to invest $53 billion this year in securing licenses to preoccupy the 5G market. Verizon is planning to invest $21.5 billion this year alone to secure essential equipment. Such as 5G network equipment and fiber optic cables.
