The Verizon-Yahoo deal is still on — for now
Verizon and Yahoo may still make a deal.
Verizon announced plans to acquire Yahoo in July for $4.8 billion. Since then, however, news of two data breaches affecting up to 1.5 billion Yahoo users have put the deal in murky waters. Yahoo has said news of the leaks hasn't affected user activity levels.
"Our pending Yahoo acquisition would further increase our opportunity to scale in the digital media space, with its 1 billion-plus monthly average unique viewers," Verizon Executive Vice President and CFO Matt Ellis said during an earnings call Tuesday. "We are still working with Yahoo to assess the impact of the breaches, and we have not reached any final conclusions yet."
Earlier Tuesday, Verizon reported fourth-quarter earnings per share of 86 cents, slightly lower than the consensus estimate of 89 cents. It beat on revenue, posting $32.34 billion, versus the estimate of $32.09 billion. Shares of Verizon were down more than 4 percent after the earnings report.
Yahoo, which reported fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Monday, said the Verizon acquisition would close "as soon as practicable" in the second quarter. The timeline was slightly longer than Verizon's initial predictions in July that the deal would close in the first quarter of this year. Yahoo attributed the delay to "work required to meet closing conditions."