I’m beginning to think Marissa Mayer’s company card is actually a black card. Yahoo! announced today that it will be throwing its name into the ring of buyers looking to acquire entertainment streaming website Hulu. Yahoo! has made aggressive moves this week alone, buying the popular social sharing site Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion in cash as well as the cross-platform gaming provider PlayerScale for an undisclosed amount.
Mayer and Yahoo! are up against some stiff competition, however, as AllThingsD notes there is a collection of undisputed media powerhouses looking to buy the same property including Directv, Time Warner Cable, William Morris Endeavor along with with PE backer Silverlake, KKR, Guggenheim Digital, and The Chernin Group.
The same source noted earlier this month that “Mayer and COO Henrique De Castro have met with Hulu’s team recently for a get-to-know-you.” The only road block for Yahoo! is whether the owners of Hulu (News Corp., Disney and Comcast) are actually willing to sell as they haven’t submitted given the the video site a price tag yet.
Both AllThings D and Reuters have reached out to Yahoo! but the site has yet to respond.
You’ve got to admire Marissa Mayer’s moxie. Here’s a woman that upon taking the helm of a flailing company was criticized by many for revoking working at home privileges because she recognized that things weren’t getting done. Yahoo! was, after all, in its heyday when the internet was still a babe in the woods, the predominant go-to for search and news. Mayer with her no-nonsense approach and gung-ho demeanor is slowly turning the site around. Kudos to you, Marissa.
And if Mayer does end up snagging Hulu right out from under the noses of Directv and Time Warner Cable, it only bolsters the fact that New York, a metropolis commonly known as one of the preeminent financial hubs of the entire world, is changing its economic landscape. My colleague Walt Frick wrote earlier this week that, of the Tumblr deal alone,
“It’s a big moment for the New York startup community. Investors and entrepreneurs working in New York agree that Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr marks a moment of maturation for the city’s startup ecosystem. More than that, it legitimizes a career in tech and startups in a city known for finance.”
Keep checking back with BostInno for the latest developments on this deal. Yahoo! moved with a swift conviction on its acquisition with Tumblr and PlayerScale, so should it get the green light for Hulu it could happen sooner than we all expect.
