AOL CEO Armstrong Explains Pros of Verizon (VZ), Yahoo Deal on CNBC
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said the Verizon Communications (VZ) - Get Report and Yahoo (YHOO) merger will allow the telecommunications giant to better compete in the digital advertising space on CNBC's "Closing Bell" Monday.
"For us, the Yahoo deal and the Yahoo relationship is exactly what you guys have been asking us about for years which is how do you get more scale? I think between the team at Verizon, the team at AOL and the team at Yahoo, we will set the business up to compete at a completely different level than any of our businesses have been able to do alone in the past," Armstrong explained.
Verizon announced its $4.83 billion all-cash acquisition of Yahoo earlier today. Verizon merged with AOL in June 2015 in a $4.4 billion deal.
Armstrong did not comment on what Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's role will be within the merged company but she said earlier on CNBC that she intends to stay.
"I certainly plan to stay, I love Yahoo and I want to see Yahoo into the next chapter," Mayer stated.
If Armstrong does not keep Mayer on, she will get a $57 million payout to leave, CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin noted.
Shares of Verizon ended trading lower by 0.38% to $55.87 and shares of Yahoo closed down by 2.69% to $38.32 today.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings rated Verizon as a "buy" with a score of A.
The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, revenue growth, expanding profit margins, growth in earnings per share and increase in net income. TheStreet Ratings feels its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: VZ
TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.