Yahoo to be renamed ‘Altaba’

Yahoo will have a name change to Altaba Inc, following a $4.83bn buy in by in of it operating business by US major telco Verizon. Verizon isn’t buying the entire Yahoo business, it will leave behind Yahoo Japan and 15% of eCommerce giant Alibaba. However, we should still expect to see the brand name online, the holding company will now be known as Altaba. You can see more details in this file shared by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The file also shared: ‘Tor Braham, Eric Brandt, Catherine Friedman, Thomas McInerney and Jeffrey Smith will continue to serve as directors of the Company following the Closing, and Mr. Brandt will serve as Chairman of the Board. Each of David Filo, Eddy Hartenstein, Richard Hill, Marissa Mayer, Jane Shaw and Maynard Webb has indicated that he or she intends to resign from the Board effective upon the Closing, and that his or her intention to resign is not due to any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies or practices.’

The Verge has summed up this move into these bullet points:

1. Verizon is splitting Yahoo in two
2. It’s buying the Yahoo we all know
3. Yahoo (and likely Mayer) will still exist at Verizon
4. The remaining portion of Yahoo is a holding company
5. The holding company is being renamed Altaba
6. Mayer will not sit on Altaba’s board of directors

“The acquisition of Yahoo will put Verizon in a highly competitive position as a top global mobile media company, and help accelerate our revenue stream in digital advertising,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon chairman and CEO.

Yahoo has long been a friend of the email space, founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo. The name Yahoo is an acronym for ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle’, to describe how challenging it was to set up the business back then.