Whenever a huge business deal like the current sale of Yahoo’s core assets is going on, it’s a pretty safe bet that insiders close to the matter will come forward at some point to leak just a bit of confidential information about the inner workings of the transaction. That has already happened once with Yahoo’s auctioning off of its core business, and it seems that insiders have come forward again to let the public in on how things are going. According to these anonymous insiders, it would seem that Verizon is the most likely candidate for the buyout, and that Yahoo is already in talks with Verizon about how the whole thing is going to work and how much money is going to change hands.
Due to the sensitive nature of some of the more confidential information about the deal, like how much Verizon’s bid was, amounts of other bids, or what other offers Yahoo may be considering, the insiders were unable to tell us much beyond the fact that Verizon is the favored candidate at this point. This move would bolster the media empire that Verizon started building with their acquisition of AOL, leaving fellow bidder and wireless carrier AT&T at a dire disadvantage when it comes to rights to exclusive media, as well as ad and search technologies. Given their competition, the stakes were somewhat higher for these two bidders than for others, and if Verizon is indeed set to win the day, it will mean a clear victory for them in media and spectrum of services, leaving AT&T to compete almost exclusively on grounds of network, plan, and price.
It’s unclear at the moment exactly how the deal will play out, if it is Verizon that ends up as the buyer, or how they plan to leverage their acquisition. While Yahoo is only selling their core business assets, this does include their search technology, their advertising technology, and rights to all relevant media and Yahoo properties. Contracts, like management of a part of AT&T’s email service, will be included in the buyout, as will stock and holdings, such as Yahoo’s stake in Yahoo Japan and worldwide trading website Alibaba. Whether Verizon will incorporate these properties and technologies into their own services, such as Go90, or simply take on the Yahoo branding and manage the properties their own way, only time will tell.