Verizon Communications will announce today its intent to acquire Yahoo’s core assets, including its search, video and mobile advertising businesses in a deal valued at about $4.8 billion, according to reports. Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal report that Yahoo has signed the deal and will announce it before the stock market opens Monday. Each media outlet cited a person familiar with the matter. The price tag also includes some real estate.
Speculation began building Friday that the two companies would make an announcement early this week. The assets — which also contain Gemini, Yahoo’s programmatic native advertising business — will roll into AOL’s advertising group, run by CEO Tim Armstrong to help it compete with Google and Facebook. Yahoo still needs to determine what it will do with nearly 3,000 patents and its stakes in Yahoo Japan Corp., majority-owned by SoftBank Group Corp. and Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.