SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Verizon is buying Yahoo for $4.83 billion, marking the end of an era for a company that once defined the internet.
It is the second time in as many years that Verizon has snapped up the remnants of a fallen internet star as it broadens its digital reach. The nation’s largest wireless carrier paid $4.4 billion for AOL last year.
Yahoo will be rolled into Verizon’s AOL operations and CEO Marissa Mayer may be reunited with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who worked with her as executives at Google for years and tried unsuccessfully to convince her to combine the two companies when they both remained independent.
“We have enormous respect for what Yahoo has accomplished: this transaction is about unleashing Yahoo’s full potential,” Armstrong said in a statement.
Most analysts expect the deal to end the four-year reign of Yahoo’s Mayer, a former Google executive who flopped in her attempts to turn around the Sunnyvale, California, company.