The week seems to be ending with a deal between two major American companies.
Verizon sold HuffPost, formerly known as The Huffington Post, to BuzzFeed for an undisclosed amount. In a joint statement, the two companies announced that upon the deal, Verizon would hold a minority stake in the latter, and they will syndicate content between their platforms.
To experts, the selling of HuffPost was a logical one, given that Verizon switched focus from media properties to 5G wireless deployment. Initially, Verizon bought HuffPost when it closed a deal with AOL in 2015. Verizon’s last acquirement in the media sector was in 2017 when it bought Yahoo.
Besides the switch of focus, HuffPost will return to one of its founders – Jonah Peretti, who is now BuzzFeed’s CEO. Moreover, the deal will give both companies more room to focus on ad dollars, turning into competitors of Facebook and Twitter.
Following the news, Verizon stock price lost 0.20%.
Sources: reuters.com, theverge.com