Verizon Won’t Walk Away From Yahoo Deal, But May Want A Discount Image courtesy of Jeepers Media
Last week there were rumors swirling that Verizon was angling to get $1 billion off the $4.8 billion price it’s agreed to pay to buy Yahoo’s internet business. This week, the company’s CEO says there’s no way Verizon is going to leave Yahoo at the altar after its recent troubles, but that being said, there are some factors to consider when it comes to that final price.
Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Executive Lowell McAdam says the acquisition is still a go, despite Yahoo’s recent revelation that 500 million user accounts were breached, The Wall Street Journal reports, but that doesn’t mean Verizon won’t try to possibly renegotiate the price.
McAdam addressed a tech conference in Menlo Park, CA on Monday, saying Yahoo is still a “real value asset.” Even so, he added, “In fairness we are still understanding what was going on and defining whether it was a material impact on the business or not.”
Verizon is planning to combine the struggling Yahoo with AOL, which the company bought last year. That still sounds like a good idea to McAdam right now.
“The industrial logic to doing this merger still makes a ton of sense,” he said. “I have spent a lot of time over the past weeks with folks from Yahoo and I am very impressed by their capability.”
The hack doesn’t surprise McAdam, who says that because we all live in the world of internet, “it’s not a question of if you’re going to get hacked but when you are going to get hacked.”
He notes that the investigation into what happened isn’t even halfway complete, so no decisions will be made until everything has been thoroughly examined.
“We are looking at this in great detail, that is about all you can say until you finish the investigation,” he said, adding that the deal should still close “some time between December and February.”
“Our view is we want to get this behind us as quick as we can and move on.”
Verizon CEO Says Evaluating Whether Yahoo Hack Had ‘Material Impact’ [The Wall Street Journal]
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