Verizon Explores Sale of Media Assets, Including Parts of Yahoo and AOL

Verizon Communications Inc. is exploring a sale of assets including Yahoo and AOL, as the telecommunications giant looks to exit an expensive and unsuccessful bet on digital media.

The sales process, which includes private-equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc., could lead to a deal worth $4bn to $5bn, according to people familiar with the matter—assuming there is one. Other details couldn’t be learned.

Verizon splashed out billions of dollars assembling a portfolio of once-dominant websites, including AOL in 2015, and Yahoo in 2017, paying more than $9bn in total to acquire the pair.

Verizon, the country’s largest wireless carrier in terms of subscribers, bought the websites intending to resurrect brands that had lost traffic since their heyday but still counted a base of hundreds of millions of account holders.

It reorganised the businesses in 2017 under former AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong, dubbing the combined division “Oath” and signalling its intention to go head to head with digital-advertising powerhouses like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc.