Verizon reportedly closes in on a Yahoo acquisition with a $250M discount

Verizon and Yahoo are close to reaching a new acquisition deal, with a price tag that’s $250 million less than the $4.8 billion agreed upon last year, according to a Bloomberg report.

A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment on the report. Even without confirmation, the story has been good for Yahoo stock — as of 11:51am Eastern, the price is up 1.4 percent since the market opened.

Following the disclosure of two separate hacks (one affecting more than 500 million accounts, another affecting more than a billion ), Yahoo announced last month that the deal’s closing date had been pushed back until the second quarter of 2017.

The delay, however, seemed relatively minor compared to broader speculation about how the hacks (not to mention a reported SEC investigation into why the disclosures took so long) could affect the deal.

The New York Post reported that after the first disclosure, Verizon was already asking for a $1 billion discount. And after the second hack, Bloomberg said Verizon might pull out altogether. So you can see why investors would be relieved that the acquisition still appears to be happening, and with a relatively small price cut.

Verizon made the deal in the first place to grow its digital media business, following its acquisition of AOL (which owns TechCrunch).