Yahoo To Buy Minority Stake In Taboola To Gain More Ads

Yahoo Inc will buy nearly 25% of Taboola.com Ltd and become its largest shareholder in a deal allowing the online advertising company to exhibit paid content on the web portal's many sites, Yuvraj Malik reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: The Yahoo-Taboola partnership is expected to generate $1 billion in annual revenue, but the companies did not provide any other financial details.

The 30-year contract, announced on Monday, marks a big bet by internet pioneer Yahoo on digital advertising at a time when industry giants from Alphabet-owned Google to Meta Platforms Inc are struggling with an inflation-driven downturn in ad spending.

The Yahoo-Taboola partnership is expected to generate $1 billion in annual revenue, but the companies did not provide any other financial details. Yahoo will also get a seat on Taboola's board.

Yahoo, owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management since a $5 billion buyout last year, has over the years been overtaken by Google and Facebook, but it still has nearly 900 million monthly active users thanks to a collection of sites such as Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports and TechCrunch.

Taboola, whose shares rose 60% on the news, pushes links to articles paid by advertisers - known as native advertising - on many websites such as CNBC and NBC News.

The deal will hand Taboola exclusive rights to sell native ads on Yahoo's sites. Taboola, which went public through an about $2.6 billion blank-check merger in 2021, has lost 75% of its market value this year, as of last close.

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