For months, Yahoo looked for a merger. Well, let’s face it, they looked for someone…anyone to buy them out. But Verizon answered that call. However, that call will be less. Let’s look at the Verizon and Yahoo merger; it’s worth less than you think.
So, Verizon will acquire Yahoo for $350 million less than the original agreement. Maybe it’s because of the Yahoo email breaches. But the Verizon and Yahoo merger is still happening. Verizon even takes some blame for the breaches. Verizon said they’ll pay half of government fines and private lawsuits the breaches caused. But Yahoo will be financially responsible for shareholder lawsuits. Something tells me there will be all of the above.
Yahoo’s security problems didn’t just start. This goes back to August 2013. Hackers stole over 1 million email accounts. But wait. It gets worse. In September 2016, we learn hackers got 500 million more email accounts. I almost forgot…these attacks go all the way back to 2014. So that shows lapse on Yahoo’s part to let the public know what’s going on. But the Verizon and Yahoo merger shouldn’t be too much longer. Some speculate it should be official by summer 2017. The merger’s cost now stands at 4.48 billion dollars. It was at 4.83 billion dollars.
Hacking and bad communication aren’t the only problems plaguing Yahoo over the last several years. Yahoo leaders by the handful quit their positions to go elsewhere. It reminds me of people leaving the ship before it sinks. Stocks are slipping. They’re billions in debt. Current CEO Marissa Meyer was supposed to save Yahoo, but that didn’t happen. It’s a sad situation. Needless to say, in our Boston computer service shop, we depend on email daily. And Yahoo led the email and ?Internet revolution of the 1990s. For those of us old enough to remember, Yahoo was the first website we encountered. Even before Google. Now, they’ve fallen so fast and short they have to depend on a corporate merger just to survive. And the buyer shaves off the price. That’s not a good start. Can Verizon save Yahoo? Can anybody save Yahoo?