American telecommunications company Verizon closed its $4.48bn purchase of Yahoo’s core business on Tuesday.
The original purchase price of $4.8bn announced last summer was slashed by $350m after a series of serious data breaches at Yahoo significantly reduced the company’s value.
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Yahoo’s chief executive Marissa Mayer’s resignation after five years at the company’s helm coincides with the Verizon acquisition.
Verizon said in a statement on Tuesday:
Given the inherent changes to Marissa Mayer’s role with Yahoo resulting from the closing of the transaction, Mayer has chosen to resign from Yahoo. Verizon wishes Mayer well in her future endeavours.”
As per Yahoo’s previous filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) it is estimated that Mayer’s golden parachute payout will amount to more than $23m.
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By GlobalDataThe deal firmly establishes Verizon as a global digital-media powerhouse, and Yahoo’s struggle to compete with web giants such as Google and Facebook.
“Yahoo’s imprint and impact on the valley will long outlive its own history,” said Carl Guardino, chief executive of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group,which represents more than 400 of Silicon Valley’s employers. “For so many years, [its] creative culture and the individual leaders left an indelible mark on the valley.”
Some of Yahoo’s online offerings were reasonably successful, particularly Yahoo Finance, the provider of market data. Yahoo Sports also attracted a high level of online traffic.
“They were a major provider of job creation in their heyday,” said San Jose analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies.
What next for Verizon?
AOL, acquired by Verizon in June 2015 for $4.4bn, will combine with Yahoo as part of the New Jersey-based company’s new media and technology unit called Oath. HuffPost and TechCrunch are both under the AOL brand.
Oath’s will focus on targeting advertisers, with a strong emphasis on tailoring ads to specific users.
Tim Armstrong, the former chief executive of AOL, will head up the Oath team.
“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.
More than 2,000 employees will be fired as a result of the restructuring under Verizon’s management, the Washington Post reported.
