Verizon confirms Yahoo! buyout worth $4.83bn

The deal marks the end of the six-month sale process and the end of an era for a company that once defined the internet

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO, described the deal as 'an important step in unlocking shareholder value for Yahoo'

Verizon has confirmed that it will buyout Yahoo! for $4.83bn (£3.6bn) in cash, marking the end of the six-month sale process and the end of an era for a company that once defined the internet.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo! chief executive, described the deal as "an important step in unlocking shareholder value for Yahoo!".

“Yahoo! and AOL popularised 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," she added.

Analysts have said the deal could mark the end of Mayer's four-year tenure as CEO of the company. She is considered to have failed to turn around Yahoo! despite a booming market for digital advertising that could have benefitted the company.

Instead Google and Facebook have grown more dominant as Yahoo! has continued to decline. Yahoo! has nearly 1 billion monthly active users, including 600 million mobile users.

The sale ends months of speculation over a possible buyer for Yahoo!.

In April, the Daily Mail and General Trust, which owns the Daily Mail and several other publications, was rumoured to have been considering a bid. At the time, analysts said that the Daily Mail could have benefitted from Yahoo!'s big US audience as it looked to make headway in the country. While Yahoo! could have made use of the Daily Mail's knowledge of monetising content online.

But the deal never got off the ground.

Verizon, which had already acquired AOL for £4.4bn in 2015, will now benefit from Yahoo!'s advertising technology tools, as well as other assets such as search, mail and messenger.

Yahoo! is left with a 15 per cent stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and a 35.5 per cent interest in Yahoo! Japan. Those investments are reported to be worth around $40bn.