Yahoo: Internet elder Yahoo has been sold... again

5/4/21 8:00PM

This week private equity firm Apollo acquired Yahoo, and various other media assets including what is left of early internet platform AOL, for $5bn and change from Verizon.

‍Verizon had a master plan to take on big tech when it acquired AOL in 2015 and Yahoo in 2017, paying $4.4bn and $4.5bn for each respectively, and merging them into a brand which it called "Oath". Verizon was hoping that combining its other digital assets (which included The Huffington Post and TechCrunch) with Yahoo's large audience would help reinvigorate revenue growth at Yahoo, which had gone into reverse since 2008 (as shown in the chart above). The Yahoo acquisition also came with various other digital properties, including Tumblr — the social networking site.

‍It was an ambitious plan.

‍‍It didn't work.

‍Less than 2 years later, Verizon reported a $4.6bn write-down of its "Oath" unit, citing "competitive pressures". 8 months later social networking site Tumblr was sold for peanuts (less than a 5-bed house in San Francisco) in 2019 and HuffPost was sold to Buzzfeed last year.

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JetBlue is raising its bag fees as fuel costs squeeze airlines

JetBlue will reportedly hike its bag fees, as the cost of jet fuel continues to climb amid the war in Iran. It’s the latest example of carriers finding ways to push rising costs onto travelers.

Last week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that if fuel prices remain elevated, fares would need to rise another 20% for his airline to break even this year.

As CNBC reported, when one airline raises fees, others tend to follow.

Earlier this month, JetBlue hiked its first-quarter outlook for operating revenue per seat mile to between 5% and 7%, saying that strong Q1 demand helped “partially offset additional expenses realized from operational disruptions and rising fuel costs.” Now, the carrier appears to be making moves to further boost revenue to offset those costs.

Earlier on Monday, JetBlue rival Alaska Air lowered its Q1 profit forecast. The refining margins for the carrier’s cheapest fuel option — sourced from Singapore and representing about 20% of Alaska’s overall supply — have spiked 400% since February.

JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.