I wonder how things would have gone had Microsoft been successful in its acquisition of Yahoo. The value of the Altaba assets don't make the offered price seem quite so crazy in retrospect.
Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
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Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#262Before people go all ballistic, please remember that yahoo and AOL make $700 million from Mail and a billion dollars from search. AOL sells huge number of paid dialup based email accounts(for older people though). So the sale price is approximately two years of revenue. Apollo is getting it cheap!
“AOL sells huge number of paid dialup based email accounts” Do they really? I am not being sarcastic. I cannot find a recent reference to this (everything seems to be from 2015), but given my experience getting my aunt away from AOL email: it seems horribly plausible.
Ah, and here, a source!
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/03/aol-1point5-million-people-s...
As to dialup itself…
“The number of dial-up users is now “in the low thousands,” according to a person familiar with the matter.”
…but, yeah, it seems 1.5 million discerning customers are basically paying for AOL mail.
“There are about 1.5 million monthly customers paying $9.99 or $14.99 per month for AOL Advantage, said another person, who asked not to be named because the information is private.”
Which: nice business if you can get it.
Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#263I'm really surprised that Yahoo Finance has not been spun out as an independent company at this point. I think as a stand-alone company it could easily be worth in the billions of dollars. Reportedly Yahoo Finance has revenue between $100M and $250M annually. With the increase in retail interest in investing it seems like a property that could have some growth potential behind it if they did things right and separate…
Totally agree. Thought this for years. Consider that YCharts licensing fees are around $4K per year per customer for their paid products - that could have been an amazing business for that division.
But boardrooms aren't known for their innovation. You'll score more points in that environment pointing out potential risks. Suggesting a risky, innovative approach is not a great strategy if all you care about is tenure on a board.
Most innovation happens in hungrier environments.
Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#264Before people go all ballistic, please remember that yahoo and AOL make $700 million from Mail and a billion dollars from search. AOL sells huge number of paid dialup based email accounts(for older people though). So the sale price is approximately two years of revenue. Apollo is getting it cheap!
> Apollo is getting it cheap! And Apollo will gut these entities for every dollar that they can.
That would be the best thing maybe some of them will have longer and better lives, finally escape being trapped.
Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#265From the article: …“it agreed to sell Yahoo and AOL to the private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion.” They apparently paid $4.4 billion for AOL, and Yahoo they got for $4.48 billion. I have to say: only losing $5 billion while handling the decaying corpses of AOL and Yahoo is, weirdly, kind of a triumph. These are cursed properties, and bring only despair. Though I’m surprised they didn’t try to ke…
That reminds me of the movie Frequency, in which the characters can use a ham radio to talk across time. A person from the future gives a cryptic hint to the person in the past by telling him to pay attention to "yahoo". In the ending scene of the movie, the younger man's fancy car bears a license plate with that name.
It's funny to think that Yahoo was once thought of as an amazing stock tip to give someone. The movie came out in 2000 and was presumably written/filmed 1-2 years prior.
Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#266From the article: …“it agreed to sell Yahoo and AOL to the private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion.” They apparently paid $4.4 billion for AOL, and Yahoo they got for $4.48 billion. I have to say: only losing $5 billion while handling the decaying corpses of AOL and Yahoo is, weirdly, kind of a triumph. These are cursed properties, and bring only despair. Though I’m surprised they didn’t try to ke…
I don't get how Apollo thinks they can make a profit from these zombie companies.
How long has it been since an acquisition of either one of those companies made the acquirer any money? More than a decade?
Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#267Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#268Can someone help me understand this from an investment perspective? AOL and Yahoo were worth a combined $400 billion in the 90s. Was investing in either of those companies essentially a fail? Were all those investors wrong or did they somehow recoup their investment through dividends and such over the last 25 years to justify that market cap? Currently the market is telling me that Facebook is a $900+ billion company…
The stockmarket is like a round robin thingy, putting it lightly. All those who hold shares in FB, combined, are holding paper that is worth 900B. However, if even 10% of those wanted to sell their holdings at a time, the price would fall and the total holdings would be worth less for all. Now, why are they holding the shares then? Two things come into play. Firstly, say 5 years down the line, the holders have confid…
> The stockmarket is like a round robin thingy
Or perhaps a medieval wheel of fortune.
[1]: https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/539503/view/the-wheel-of-...
Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#269Wait, AOL is still around? What do they do these days? Does anyone here work for AOL?
Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B
#270I'm really surprised that Yahoo Finance has not been spun out as an independent company at this point. I think as a stand-alone company it could easily be worth in the billions of dollars. Reportedly Yahoo Finance has revenue between $100M and $250M annually. With the increase in retail interest in investing it seems like a property that could have some growth potential behind it if they did things right and separate…
Is that revenue from ad impressions? They did $1.3bn in their last public quarter, and in that earnings report they lump it in with homepage and sports in the one place it's mentioned, so I don't think it's particularly important (to them). Also, what does it do that retail brokers don't offer better and for free now? News aggregation?
Yahoo Finance Premium is a low rent version of Bloomberg Terminal. For $35/month you can get close to Bloomberg level data. Bloomberg Terminal costs $1,900 per month.