Verizon buying Yahoo for $4.8 billion, announcement coming Monday

Verizon and Yahoo are reportedly set to announce a $4.8 billion deal Monday to buy Yahoo’s core Internet business, ending a tough four years for CEO Marissa Mayer during which she tried and largely failed to breathe life into Sunnyvale’s ailing Internet giant. Adding fuel to the fire is that Armstrong proposed an AOL-Yahoo merger to Meyer years ago, with Meyer denying the deal.

The agreement is expected to be announced on Monday morning, per the Journal.

The sale is said to include Yahoo’s Internet properties and real estate holdings.

The deal, which could come as early as next week, would conclude a months-long process to find a buyer of Yahoo’s core Internet business and end its status as an independent company. According to Kara Swisher, from Re/code, Yahoo will be absorbed into Verizon’s AOL division – which the company purchased past year for the massive sum of $4.4 billion in an effort to improve its digital media and mobile video product offerings.

On a conference call with shareholders last week after reporting earnings, Mayer made what may have been her final case to investors and the public that she worked to “create a better Yahoo“.

“It makes more sense for Verizon than anybody else”, said Randy Giusto, vice president and lead analyst at Outsell Inc., a marketing consultancy.

Insiders and people close to the deal are leaking information that Verizon Communications Inc. Yahoo will hold on to its stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.

AT&T Inc. and Quicken Loans Inc. founder Dan Gilbert, as well as firms Vector Capital Management and TPG, were also active in bidding for Yahoo. Younger, fresher competition – like Google and Facebook – arrived on the scene and appealed to more consumers and advertisers, eventually stealing much of the market share from Yahoo as time went on.

Tim Armstrong, who joined Verizon after last year’s deal, would run the combined unit and report to Marni Walden, an executive vice-president in charge of new businesses.