Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo is complete
Featured
Verizon announced Tuesday that its $4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo's core operating business is complete. The telecommunications giant confirmed in a press release that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has opted to resign now that the sale is finalized.
Verizon first announced plans to buy Yahoo's core internet assets almost a year ago. At the time, Verizon agreed to pay around $4.83 billion in cash -- and Mayer was expected to stay on after the acquisition.
However, in February, Yahoo and Verizon agreed to reduce the price of the acquisition by $350 million in the wake of two massive cyberattacks that exposed more than a billion accounts.
The remaining Yahoo business is now rebranded as Altaba and will function as a publicly traded investment company. The organization retains its shares in Alibaba Group Holdings and Yahoo Japan, as well as Yahoo's non-core patents, called the Excalibur portfolio. Yahoo board member Thomas McInerney is the new Altaba CEO.
"After extraordinary effort over the past 18 months, we are pleased to complete this historic transaction and begin a new chapter," said McInerney in a statement. "We thank our Yahoo colleagues and the departing directors for their tireless efforts and dedicated service."
Over at Verizon, Yahoo is now merged with AOL -- which Verizon bought in 2015 for $4.4 billion -- and rebranded as Oath. Tim Armstrong, former CEO of AOL, is now CEO of Oath, which is part of Verizon's Media and Telematics organization.
"Now that the deal is closed, we are excited to set our focus on being the best company for consumer media, and the best partner to our advertising, content and publisher partners," said Armstrong in a prepared statement.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Armstrong confirmed reports that the company plans to lay off roughly 15 percent of its nearly 14,000-person workforce, or somewhere around 2,100 employees. The cuts are expected to impact mainly back office functions and duplicate roles and teams.