On Monday, 9th of January 2016, there were reports stating that one of the early pioneers of the internet, Yahoo Inc was renaming its company to Altaba after Verizon agreed to acquire the company. However on the contrary, Yahoo isn’t renaming the company’s brand, it is simply renaming the entities that were not part of the Verizon deal.
According to a filing made by the company to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the new company Altaba will consist of Yahoo’s remaining investment in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Yahoo Japan, as well as cash and a few other assets. The company also said that its Chief Executive Officer, Marissa Mayer who failed to bring the company back from the dot-com crash in 2000 and Yahoo co-founder, David Filo will not be part of the board members. Although Tor Braham, Eric Brandt, Catherine Friedman, Thomas McInerney and Jeffrey Smith will continue as board members. They further stated that Brandt will assume the role of the chairman of the board from Monday and Mayer will continue to be the CEO of the company. It is worthy to note that the brand name Altaba will only be used if the Verizon deal pulls through.
It will be recalled that in July last year Verizon agreed to acquire a major part of yahoo which includes its blog and email services for $4.83 billion, leaving behind a significant stake in other aspects of the business to include Alibaba and yahoo Japan. According to tech experts the deal was the saddest deal in tech history.
Here is what you didn’t know about Yahoo
Yahoo stands for Yet Another Hierarchically Organised Oracle it was founded in 2000 and valued at $125bn at height of the dot-com boom.
Marissa is the sixth CEO of Yahoo after its incorporation in 1995. Other ousted CEOs include:
- Tim Koogle – Began shortly after Yahoo was incorporated in March 1995.
- Terry Semel – He was hired from Warner Brothers and stepped down under shareholder pressure.
- Jerry Yang – He is a Co-founder the company. He agreed to resign under shareholder pressure.
- Carol Bartz – She was fired after failing to revive the company.
- Scott Thompson – He left after it was disclosed his biography included a college degree he never received.
In 2015, Yahoo! made a net loss of $4.4bn.
