Verizon to acquire Yahoo for $4.8bn; CEO Mayer to stay on

Verizon Communications will purchase Yahoo’s core internet operation for $4.8bn, doubling the size of Verizon’s digital-advertising business to third place by market share behind Google and Facebook. Yahoo shareholders will be left with around $41bn of investments in Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba. While it had been reported that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer would receive a $57m severance package, she has stated that she will be staying on.

Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.

As Verizon confirmed its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo earlier today, speculation promptly turned to Marissa Mayer and what would happen next to the Yahoo CEO.

The official acquisition announcement didn’t come as a major surprise, given the mounting speculation in recent days, and made little mention of Mayer beyond a fairly generic hyperbolic quote touting the merits of the new unit that brings AOL and Yahoo under one roof.

But in a separate statement, Mayer has now confirmed that she will be staying on. This runs in stark contrast to a report yesterday that claimed Mayer would be given a $57 million exit package.

“I’m incredibly proud of everything that we’ve achieved, and I’m incredibly proud of our team,” said Mayer. “For me, personally, I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter.”

This sounds like Mayer is not only staying, but staying for the long haul, though it could also be interpreted to mean that she’s planning on sticking around only until the acquisition is concluded in early 2017. In other words, there’s wiggle room in there, and it’s not yet 100 percent clear whether she’ll join Verizon next year.

At any rate, here you can read the full statement from the Yahoo CEO, in which she strives to paint her tenure at Yahoo in a positive light:

Dear Yahoos, Moments ago, we announced an agreement with Verizon to acquire Yahoo’s operating business. This culminates a rigorous, thorough process over many months, and yields a great outcome for the company. Today’s announcement not only brings us an important step toward separating Yahoo’s operating business from our Asian asset equity stakes, it also presents exciting opportunities to accelerate Yahoo’s transformation. Among the many entities that showed interest in Yahoo, Verizon believed most in the immense value we’ve created, and in what a combination could bring our users, our advertisers, and our partners. This is a good moment to reflect on Yahoo’s journey to date. Yahoo is a company that changed the world. Before Yahoo, the Internet was a government research project. Yahoo humanized and popularized the web, email, search, real-time media, and more. What really sets Yahoo apart is the shared passion to create great products for our 1B+ users, and in doing so, transforming the world for the better. You can clearly see that spirit, that commitment, that fight in the work we’ve done together over the past few years. We set out to transform this company – and we’ve made incredible progress. We counteracted many of the tectonic shifts of declining legacy businesses, and built a Yahoo that is unequivocally stronger, nimbler, and more modern. We tripled our mobile base to over 600 million monthly users, we invested in and built Mavens from basically zero in 2011 into $1.6B of GAAP Revenue in 2015, we streamlined and modernized every aspect of our consumer products, and, with Gemini and BrightRoll, we dramatically improved our advertiser products. This only scratches the surface of what we’ve achieved… and we all know how much hard work it took to get here. It’s because of that hard work and resilience, that Yahoo will realize amazing opportunities in its next chapter. This sale is not only an important step in our plan to unlock shareholder value for Yahoo, it is also a great opportunity for Yahoo to build further distribution and accelerate our work in mobile, video, native advertising, and social. As one of the largest wireless and cable companies in the world, Verizon opens the door to extensive distribution opportunities. With more than 100 million wireless customers, a shared view of the importance of mobile and video ad tech, a deep content focus through AOL, Verizon brings clear synergies to the table. And with their aggressive aims to grow global audience to 2B users and $20B in revenue within the mobile-media business by 2020, Yahoo’s products and brand will be central to achieving these goals. Joining forces with AOL and Verizon will help us achieve tremendous scale on mobile. Imagine the distribution challenges we will solve, the scale we will achieve, the products we will build, and the advertisers we will reach now with Mavens – it’s incredibly compelling. The strategic process has created a lot of uncertainty, but our incredibly loyal and dedicated employee base has stepped up to every challenge along the way. Through the first half of the year, we met our operational goals and overachieved on plan. But, further, there are things that you cannot measure, like the passion of the people behind the products. The teams here have not only built incredible products and technologies, but have built Yahoo into one of the most iconic, and universally well-liked companies in the world. One that continues to impact the lives of more than a billion people. I’m incredibly proud of everything that we’ve achieved, and I’m incredibly proud of our team. For me personally, I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter. As we work to close this agreement in Q1 2017, it’s more important than ever that we come together as one global team to continue executing on our strategic plan through the remainder of the year. We have delivered the first half of the year with pride, achieving our goals. Now, it is up to us to make Yahoo’s final quarters as an independent company count. Yahoo is a company that changed the world. Now, we will continue to, with even greater scale, in combination with Verizon and AOL. Thanks, Marissa