Yahoo’s sale to Verizon is not progressing apace. Indeed, you really have to give it to Verizon for staying by the deal at all, despite various events that could have given it reason enough to break its end of the transaction — although it did end up knocking a few hundred million dollars off of the price the two parties had initially agreed upon.
Interestingly, Verizon is also getting a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free [and] fully paid-up license to a whole sackful of Yahoo patents. In an 8-K update with the Securities Exchange Commission, Yahoo today put a value upon the patents.
Apparently, the official value of Excalibur IP is $740 million as of December 31. In case you are wondering about what they are in the first place, Excalibur IP refers to thousands of non-core patents held by Yahoo. Verizon refused to buy them and as such, they now form a part of Altaba, the company that comprises of the parts not being acquired by Verizon. However, the latter is getting permission to use them indefinitely.
Meanwhile, these assets form part of Altaba — the $50 Billion plus entity that has Yahoo’s Alibaba stakes (which some say were purchased almost as an afterthought) at its center. The Alibaba stakes are worth around 62 percent of Altaba’s total assets while the Excalibur IP group of patents are worth around 1 percent or so.
The Excalibur group of patents was earlier valued at $1 Billion and Yahoo had hoped to find buyers willing to pay that price in order to take the company out of its financial troubles. That did not happen of course, and the company ended up spinning off its core business. However, now that the Excalibur IP group is part of Altaba, Yahoo will continue attempting to monetize it bu either selling it, or licensing it.
Yahoo will retain the Excalibur IP Assets and will be able to seek to monetize the Excalibur IP Assets before or after completion of the Sale Transaction.
The sale transaction here refers to Yahoo’s sale to Verizon, which the company hopes to complete by the second quarter of 2017.
