Internet Giant Yahoo To Be Renamed Altaba After $4.8bn Acquisition
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Yahoo will be renamed Altaba after the sale of its web assets to Verizon for $4.83 billion, the company said in a SEC regulatory filing, adding that its chief executive officer, Marissa Mayer, and five other directors will step down.
Altaba will be a holding company with as primary assets, a 15 per cent stake in China’s Alibaba Group Holding and 35.5 per cent share in Yahoo Japan.
Reuters said the new company named Eric Brandt its chairman of board, from January 9, 2017. The board of the new business will be reduced from 11 members to five, and will be led by Brandt.
Verizon confirmed its intention to buy Yahoo’s web assets for $4.8 billion in July. The transaction is still not final and could be amended or even cancelled in the wake of data breaches Verizon is still investigating.
On completion of the proposed sale of its core internet and media business units, Yahoo will become an investment company with significant holdings in Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. It will also retain a range of other small shareholdings and proceeds from the sale of its Excalibur portfolio, which contains a number of patents unrelated to the units being sold to Verizon.
Yahoo’s future business plan relies on the completion of the Verizon deal – a task recently thrown into doubt by revelations of two key security breaches. Indeed, Verizon EVP and president of product innovation and new business, Marni Walden, said she was unable to confirm if the planned $4.83 billion deal would be completed following the breaches.
Verizon reportedly sought a $1 billion discount on the sale price after Yahoo revealed details of a security breach in October. A second breach, which at the time was dubbed the world’s largest hack, was reported in December and, according to Walden, resulted in an ongoing investigation being undertaken by Verizon before the deal is progressed.
In early January, Tim Armstrong, CEO of Verizon-owned AOL, told CNBC he was “hopeful” the deal with Yahoo would still go ahead. If it does, Verizon will seek to create synergies between its AOL and Yahoo platforms.
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