UPDATED 9/4: Verizon Communications will bid for Yahoo’s web business next week, and may even acquire a stake in Yahoo Japan “to help sweeten the offer”, Bloomberg reported.

Last month, Yahoo gave interested parties a deadline of 11 April to make preliminary bids for assets it has put up for sale (according to a Re/code report yesterday, Yahoo has now extended the deadline to bid for its businesses by a week to 18 April).

Verizon and its subsidiary AOL are working with at least three financial advisers on the bid, indicative that it is serious about takeover plans.

Verizon could give the Yahoo Japan stake to its shareholders or sell it, Bloomberg’s sources said, and would replace CEO Marissa Mayer with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and Marni Walden, Verizon’s executive vice president, who would run a combined Yahoo and AOL.

Back in February, when Verizon chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam confirmed the company is considering a bid for Yahoo, he said: “At the right price I think marrying up some of their assets with AOL under [CEO] Tim Armstrong’s leadership would be good.”

The operator values Yahoo’s core business at less than $8 billion and met with Microsoft last month, along with some private equity firms, to talk about funding for a bid.

Last month it was reported that Microsoft may be willing to provide “significant” financing but the Bloomberg report said it is unlikely to provide anything more than a token investment to the winning bidder.

Yahoo’s projected revenue will drop almost 15 per cent and earnings by more than 20 per cent for 2016, Re/code recently reported.

Meanwhile, Google is also considering bidding for Yahoo’s core business, while AT&T and Comcast have decided against doing so.

Time is still considering a bid, while private equity funds Bain and TPG are planning to get involved, either alone or by backing a “strategic acquirer”.