Mayer, who joined Yahoo four years ago, has failed to spark a turnaround at the Sunnyvale, California-based company, with sales showing little growth and adjusted earnings on the decline.
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According to the sources, the companies may be ready to announce a deal in the coming days. The deal is said to include Yahoo’s internet properties and patents, but not necessarily its real estate holdings.
Bloomberg News, which reported earlier that Verizon was nearing an agreement to buy the Yahoo assets, cited an anonymous source as saying the companies were discussing a price close to $5 billion.
Yahoo (YHOO) had been expected to announce the results before the end of the month.
Shares of Yahoo were trading higher by almost 1 percent.
Yahoo chose to explore strategic alternatives including a sale of its core internet assets due to pressures from activist hedge fund Starboard Value, which demanded significant changes in management, Board composition, execution and strategy.
Other players active in the bidding process included names like buyout firms Vector Capital Management and TPG, Quicken Loans Inc. founder Dan Gilbert and AT&T. Verizon and Yahoo did not immediately respond to requests for comment. And despite a dip in net revenue this year, Yahoo’s advertising division remains one of the largest and most profitable on the web: This year, it’s projected to generate $2.83 billion and command a 1.5 percent share of the online ad market.
Verizon reportedly has considered merging Yahoo’s content with its AOL unit to create a destination that would drive more engagement. Yahoo has set aside about 3,000 patents into a subsidiary called Excalibur and hired Black Stone IP, to separately auction it, said by Wall Street Journal. The great variety of fields the candidates interested in buying Yahoo belonged to, was merely mirroring the different businesses Yahoo itself operates in – perhaps not too successfully. “Verizon can also collect more user data to make its ads more relevant”.
The company spent almost $10 million on new iPhones for its employees, and more than $100 million a year on catered meals.
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Both Yahoo and Verizon shares were up slightly in early Friday trading.
