Time Inc exploring bid to acquire Yahoo's core internet business: Report

Time Inc, publisher of Sports Illustrated, People and Time magazines, has been exploring a bid to acquire Yahoo Inc's core internet business for several weeks, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Tuesday.

Time Inc has been reaching out to bankers on pursuing a deal with Yahoo, according to the source, who wished to remain anonymous, not being permitted to speak to media.

Time Inc, which has seen print advertising dollars dry up in recent quarters, has been trying to boost its digital presence through acquisitions of online properties, saying this month it would buy social networking pioneer MySpace.

Verizon Communications Inc, which owns internet pioneer AOL, has expressed interest in Yahoo's core business, which includes Mail, its news and sports sites and advertising technology.

Analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey have valued the core business at $6 billion to $8 billion.

It is unclear if the company has retained an investment bank as financial advisor on the potential bid. Yahoo officially launched the sale of its core business on Friday.

Time Inc could pursue a Reverse Morris Trust transaction with Yahoo, a tax-free deal in which one company merges with a spun-off unit, Bloomberg reported earlier on Tuesday. Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer would not be part of the company under such a deal, Bloomberg reported, citing one of its sources.

Time Inc has heard a presentation from Citigroup Inc bankers on pursuing a deal with Yahoo, the Bloomberg report said, adding that Time had not retained Citigroup.

Time Inc and Yahoo declined to comment on the report while Citigroup could not immediately be reached for comment.

Earlier this month, the magazine publisher reported a bigger-than-expected drop in fourth-quarter profit, hobbled by a strong dollar and a drop in income from print ads, and said ad revenue would likely be flat or fall in the current quarter.

Time Inc's US beauty, fashion, retail and financial magazines have all experienced a drop in ad sales as more people go online for news and information. The company said this month it would buy advertising company Viant as it seeks to boost revenue from digital properties.

Time Warner Inc spun off its publishing business Time Inc in 2014 to focus on its more profitable broadcasting businesses.

Time Inc shares were down 2 per cent at $14.04 in afternoon trading on Tuesday. Yahoo shares dipped about 1.4 per cent to $30.73.

Virtual reality set to transform filmmaking

Chris Milk stepped onto a TED Conference stage and took the audience on an awe-inducing trip into the future of movies. While much of the early attention on virtual reality has focused on use of the immersive technology in video games, Milk and his US startup Vrse are using it to transform storytelling and filmgoing. "We have just started to scratch the surface of the true power of virtual reality," Milk said. "It's not a video game peripheral. It connects humans to other humans in a profound way... I think virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world." He had everyone in the Vancouver audience at TED , which ended Friday, hold Google Cardboard viewers to their eyes for what was billed as the world's collective virtual reality experience. Google Cardboard gear is literally that -- cardboard

Explained: Camera Improvements in the New HTC 10

With the HTC 10, the Taiwanese company is promising to undo the past wrongs in the cameras of its previous flagship phones. The camera has long a weak point in HTC devices. At first, HTC sacrificed image resolution in the M8 and made the size of individual pixels larger to capture more light (what HTC called Ultrapixel). But the resulting 4 megapixel images were often fuzzy, especially when cropped or enlarged. To fix the issue, in its next flagship - the M9 - HTC went with smaller individual pixels in a 20-megapixel camera last year, but it still underperformed in extreme situations, such as indoors and close-ups. In the HTC 10, the company attempts to strike a balance with larger individual pixels (1.55µm), but not as large as before and a 12 megapixel sensor in its camera coupled with a ƒ/1.8 lens. HTC accepts that in the imaging performance in the M9 was not up to the kind of spec of what they really like to see in a flagship. HTC is giving a slight boost to the selfi...

10 Smartphones with Features that You Won't Find in Any Other Phone

Here’s a list of phones which are first-of-their-kind. From feature phones to smartphones, flat screen to curved, fragile to shatterproof, mobile phones have evolved over the years. Although many industry analysts would like to call the current level of innovation reaching a stagnation point, there still are some manufacturers which have been able to surprise consumers by truly packing something different in their smartphones. We have compiled a list of phones which offer first-of-its-kind features, and they are not merely concepts. 1. Motorola X force - Shatterproof display Display today is the most vulnerable yet the most neglected element in modern smartphones. But Motorola finally paid heed to the fragile screen with the launch of the the Motorola X Force – the world’s first smartphone with a shatterproof display. The phone uses the Moto ShatterShield display technology, which is said to be an integrated system consisting of five layers designed from material...

IntellectBeat

Search This Blog