It’s no secret that Yahoo hasn’t been doing great lately with all the job cuts, talks of restructuring, and everything else. The Sunnyvale-based company has apparently been looking to sell its core Internet assets for quite some time now and is allegedly currently putting together a new shortlist of bidders. Of course, the fact that a new shortlist is being created means only one thing – there have been revised offers for the company’s assets. Insider sources claim that both AT&T and the previously interested Verizon have bid for Yahoo’s Internet services and infrastructure during a recently held private auction, though it’s momentarily unclear whether these second-round bids from the two US wireless carriers are their first or revised offers.
Regardless of that, it seems like Verizon hasn’t offered a huge amount of money for what Yahoo is selling. Well, a relatively huge amount of money that is, as the US company has still reportedly bid over $3.5 million for Yahoo’s core Internet assets. However, sources claim that the US carrier was outbid by multiple parties who offered $5 or more billion during yesterday’s auction. Besides AT&T, a group with the financial backing of none other than the business magnate Warren Buffett has also allegedly submitted a formal bid for the said Yahoo assets. According to the first unofficial information, AT&T was one of the highest-bidding parties during the auction.
Both Verizon and AT&T are primarily interested in Yahoo’s advertising tech, though Verizon has also recently been assessing the possibility of integrating other Internet services such as messenger, mail, and search into their recently acquired AOL-related businesses. So, despite the fact that Verizon has potentially more to gain from purchasing these Yahoo assets than AT&T, reports claim that the latter currently stands to outbid them thanks to a bid it made in partnership with a yet unnamed investment bank. Furthermore, several interested parties allegedly gave up during the second round of bidding for Yahoo’s Internet-related operations as they didn’t believe they are self-sufficient and could survive as standalone businesses.
We should have more details on the situation as soon as Yahoo assembles its new shortlist of bidders after which the company is expected to start soliciting binding offers from interested parties. According to the aforementioned sources, that will most likely happen in the next few days.