Verizon deal to accelerate Yahoo's transformation: CEO Mayer

Making official the $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo's core internet business by US wireless company Verizon, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said on Tuesday that the deal "presents exciting opportunities to accelerate Yahoo's transformation" and that she plans to stay to "see Yahoo into its next chapter".

"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," said Mayer, who was appointed CEO in 2012, in a mail to Yahoo employees.

Terming the acquisition talks "rigorous" and "thorough", the Stanford graduate said that 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".

Spelling out what the deal would mean to Verizon, Mayer said that Yahoo's products and brand will be central to achieving the goals set by the largest US wireless communications service provider.

"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," she wrote.

Reflecting back on Yahoo's journey, Mayer said: "Before Yahoo, the internet was a government research project. Yahoo humanised and popularised the web, email, search, real-time media and more."

Referring to the struggle to reposition the company as a "mobile" company, the Yahoo CEO complimented the company's "loyal and dedicated employee base".

"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 modernised every aspect of our consumer products, and, with Gemini and BrightRoll, we dramatically improved our advertiser products," she further wrote.

Hinting what future may hold for the company, Mayer said the 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," she added.

--IANS

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