In this photo illustration, a Verizon Media logo is shown on a smartphone.
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Apollo Global Management is preparing to close its $ 5 billion acquisition of Verizon Media on September 1, and the privately held firm is already causing consternation among existing executives of the company that will soon be known as Yahoo.
Apollo has not informed Verizon Media leadership, including chief executive Guru Gowrappan, of its new roles in the company once the private equity firm takes office, according to people familiar with the matter. The lack of information has irritated current Verizon employees, who do not know if they have a long-term future with the company, people said, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.
Private equity acquisitions often lead to significant changes in leadership. Strategic changes are often the basic foundation of transactions, and Verizon Media, which will formally rename Yahoo after closing, is unlikely to be an exception. Apollo has been working with Egon Zehnder, an executive research firm, to look for new leaders. This search includes former Bleacher Report CEO Howard Mittman for a role as “sports chief,” two of the people said. Mittman, who left Bleacher Report last year amid concerns about the company’s lack of diversity, declined to comment.
Apollo’s failure to communicate future roles for existing leadership has clashed with the public claim of the private equity firm that it is committed to working with the established management team.
“We have tremendous respect and admiration for the great work and progress the entire organization has made in recent years and look forward to working with Guru, his talented team and our Verizon partners to accelerate Yahoo’s growth in the coming years chapter “said Reed Rayman, Apollo’s private equity partner, in a statement when the deal was announced in May.
Verizon will have a 10% stake in the new Yahoo and came to an agreement on the assumption that Gowrappan and his team will continue to run the company, two of the people said. While Apollo has incentives to wait until the deal is closed to begin strategic planning to avoid fines for gunfire, the lack of clarity and conversations with outsiders about possible roles in the company have several Verizon executives Media worried about his tenures in the company being short, people said.
A Verizon spokesman declined to comment. An Apollo spokesman could not be reached for comment immediately.
Apollo’s Yahoo Strategy
Apollo’s plan is to maximize Yahoo’s value by preparing different business units for eventual sales or mergers, such as Sports, Finance and advertising technology, two of the people said. Several special-purpose acquisition vehicles, or SPACs, have already held preliminary talks with Apollo to show interest in parts of the business, they said.
Verizon Media is a combination of Yahoo, AOL, advertising technology and some small media companies. He had owned HuffPost before selling it to Buzzfeed in a deal announced last year. The new Yahoo has about 10,000 employees. Yahoo Mail still gets about 200 million unique global visitors a month. Yahoo.com remains one of the most viewed websites in the world, according to Alexa Internet, a web traffic analysis company.
Troy Young, the former president of Hearst’s magazine division, who resigned last year after The New York Times reported his history of sexist comments in the workplace, has been Apollo’s chief consultant on agreement and Yahoo’s future prospects, four of the people said. List Apollo Global’s advisor on his LinkedIn page since March 2021.
Business Insider first reported on Young’s role with Yahoo on Tuesday, adding that it has sparked speculation about the possibility of a larger role in the company.
Young is not a candidate to be Yahoo’s new CEO if Gowrappan finally leaves, two of the people said. Still, his constant presence at internal meetings since the announcement of the deal has led some Verizon Media executives to assume he was in line with a major strategic role in the new company, even if it has no operational executive capacity, two of the people said. Young did not respond immediately to comment.