Verizon close to Yahoo deal, price cut of US$250-350 million: sources

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Verizon Communications Inc is close to a revised deal to buy Yahoo Inc's core internet business for 250 million to 350 million US dollars less than the original agreed price of 4.83 billion US dollars, according to a source briefed on the matter.

Since last year, Verizon has been trying to persuade Yahoo to amend the terms of the acquisition agreement to reflect the economic damage from two cyber attacks. A source told Reuters that the deal, which could come as soon as this week, will entail Verizon and Yahoo sharing the liability from potential lawsuits related to the data breaches.

Yahoo's headquarter in Sunnyvale, California, US /CFP Photo

Another person familiar with the situation said the price cut was likely to be around 250 million US dollars, a figure that Bloomberg reported earlier on Wednesday.

"Maybe this isn't quite as much of a discount as initially thought, but it's at least something," said Dave Heger, senior equity analyst at Edward Jones.

Verizon hopes to combine Yahoo's search, email and messenger assets, as well as advertising technology tools, with its AOL unit, which Verizon bought in 2015 for 4.4 billion US dollars. Verizon has been looking to mobile video and advertising for new sources of revenue outside an oversaturated wireless market.

(Source: Reuters)