After months of speculation and a relatively public bidding process, Verizon Communications Inc. on Monday confirmed that it was buying Yahoo’s core properties for $4.83 billion in cash.

Once Verizon closes the Yahoo acquisition, it will represent a combination of three major technology companies: Verizon, Yahoo, and AOL, which it bought last year for $4.4 billion. Verizon hopes that building the company in this way will help it better compete in the burgeoning mobile video market, especially because wireless phone service is now mostly a commodity with very little profit margin.

Analysts expect Verizon to invest more actively in content going forward, reports Reuters. Both Yahoo and AOL owned prominent content, including AOL’s Huffington Post, Yahoo Finance, Sports and News and much more.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, although embattled, says she plans to stay at the company, at least through the deal’s closing. Ultimately, most analysts expect AOL CEO Tim Armstrong to run the combined companies.

Verizon is expected to provide more detail on the deal when it announces its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Some of the new company’s financial challenges are already known, however: Yahoo reported a net loss in the second quarter of $440 million, and it’s having to write down its acquisition of micro-blogging site, Tumblr, which it acquired in 2013 for $1.1 billion.

The new combination of Yahoo, AOL and Verizon will still lag behind such internet giants as Google and Facebook. According to eMarketer via Reuters, Yahoo is expected to net $2.32 billion in U.S. digital ad sales in 2016, while AOL will make $1.3 billion. That falls short when compared to Facebook’s predicted $10.3 billion and Google’s nearly $25 billion.

READ MORE: Reuters, The New York Times, Recode

[Video courtesy of CNBC via The New York Times. Image courtesy of Bidness Etc.]

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