14 DAY TRIAL // The massive data breaches Yahoo revealed last year have not only put a dent in the company’s credibility but are also slowing down the $4.8 billion sale of its Internet operations to Verizon.
Yahoo disclosed its financial performance details, revealing that things have gone slightly better for the struggling company. The tech company earned $162 million, or 17 cents per share, in the last quarter of 2016. That is obviously a lot better than the $4.43 billion loss it reported for the same period of 2015. Of course, that number included charges for layoffs and the sliding value of the acquisitions CEO Marissa Mayer made over the past few years.
In total, Yahoo’s fourth quarter revenue reached $1.47 billion, minus the commissions paid to advertise partners, we reach $960 million.
Delay of up to three months
While this may all seem like selling points for the Yahoo - Verizon deal, things are not nearly that easy. In fact, the deal seems to have been pushed back some. Instead of closing the deal by the end of March, as it was originally planned, Yahoo now predicts all will be complete somewhere between April 1 and June 30, which is quite the delay.
This is, of course, mostly due to the hacking issues that were revealed only after Yahoo signed the deal with Verizon. Back in September 2016, Yahoo announced that in 2014 they had been hacked and 500 million accounts were compromised. Then, in December, things got worse fast after Yahoo revealed that another 1 billion accounts had been targeted by hackers back in 2013.
The SEC is currently investigating Yahoo over the delay in announcing the security breaches to investors firstly and to users secondly. This is because it was known since August that someone was selling Yahoo account information, which is when Yahoo started to investigate the issue.
Folks at Verizon were not too happy about the problems that landed on their laps, and it was even believed that they would try to push for a lower price. That, thankfully for Yahoo, didn’t happen, but it is clear that some changes have been made to the deal or it would not have been pushed back by another quarter.