Apollo’s Yahoo Playbook, 5 Years After the $5B Deal

Apollo's $4.8B Yahoo carve-out has already returned its capital, driven by divestitures, a GM-led reorg, and a new proprietary search engine.

• Fast-returning deal: Apollo bought Yahoo/AOL from Verizon in Sept 2021 for ~$4.8B (vs Verizon's ~$9B cost), structured with cash, $750M preferred, and Verizon retaining 10%; Yahoo has already returned Apollo's capital, making it one of the firm's fastest-returning deals ever.
• Divestiture wave: Yahoo shut or sold EdgeCast, a money-losing three-part ad tech stack (costing hundreds of millions/year), TechCrunch, and sold AOL to Bending Spoons for a reported $1.4-1.5B; also cut 2,000+ jobs in Feb 2023.

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