Verizon may sell media businesses

Verizon is thinking of selling its media businesses including AOL and Yahoo, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Selling the Verizon Media Group division, which contains AOL and Yahoo, could earn the company somewhere between $4 billion to $5 billion, according to information supplied to the Journal from sources familiar with the deal. 

The Verizon Media Group earned $1.9 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2021, according to its corporate website.

A spokeswoman for Verizon’s media group declined to comment on the deal.

One of the bidders, the Journal said, could be private-equity firm Apollo Global Management. A spokeswoman for Apollo did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Hill.

Verizon first moved into content in 2015 when it purchased AOL for $4.4 billion. At the time, AOL owned content companies like The Huffington Post, Engadget and TechCrunch.

It purchased Yahoo two years later for $4.5 billion in 2017 and shortly thereafter began laying off staff.

In addition to AOL and Yahoo, the Verizon Media group owns several media brands including TechCrunch, Engadget, and Autoblog, among others. It is also involved in advertising and media technology platforms and other related businesses. 

Earlier in the year, the Verizon Media Group sold Huffington Post to BuzzFeed, which also began laying off HuffPost staff not long after the deal closed.

—Updated at 6:48 p.m.