Dive Brief:
- The Washington Post reports that Verizon, AT&T and a consortium led by Quicken Loans Founder Dan Gilbert and backed by Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett are among the groups heading into the third and final round of bidding for Yahoo’s internet assets.
- Yahoo was pushed into the sale by activist hedge fund Starboard Value and hopes to conclude the sale by next month, according to insiders who spoke to the Post.
- The bids are not all apples-to-apples with some not including the intellectual property and real estate assets that Yahoo has put up for auction.
Dive Insight:
Yahoo's online business has been struggling for years now, with the bulk of its market value coming from its stake in Alibaba. CEO Marissa Mayer unable to revive the flagging internet company's fortunes, leading to the bidding process currently underway.
Verizon is viewed by many as the strongest contender for Yahoo's online assets, according to the Wall Street Journal. AT&T's move for Yahoo's internet business is fueled by its interest in catching up to Verizon in the online ads business.
If it ultimately acquires Yahoo's internet business, Verizon would further bolster its burgeoning stake in the online ads business after its $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL last year. Verizon's interest in Yahoo stems from its ad technology, according to Reuters, and has been assessing how it could combine Yahoo's other online assets with AOL's.
Insiders told the Post that Yahoo had completed a board meeting to review the second round of bids and the winning groups were to being reached out to yesterday.
For its part, Yahoo has been actively making moves within its advertising unit, including the announcement of a major emphasis on video at the NewFront event last month, particularly native and programmatic video advertising through its BrightRoll and Yahoo Gemini ad tech platforms. It also added retargeting capabilities to its Gemini search and native ads platform last October, and recently engaged in talks with Facebook to use Facebook’s Audience Network to sell mobile ads on Tumblr.
