To say Yahoo has had a rough go of it recently would be an understatement. While in the midst of an acquisition by Verizon, the company has faced a pair of massive data breaches, exposing the information of over 1 billion customers.
A new regulatory document filed today shows that Verizon’s acquisition of the company is moving closer to completion, while it also reveals that following the acquisition, Yahoo will change its name to Altaba and Marissa Mayer will step down.
Verizon agreed to purchase Yahoo’s assets and real estate for $4.8 billion last July. Following that acquisition, Yahoo’s investments in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan will remain, as will convertible notes and non-core patents. It’s those remaining parts, currently named RemainCo, that will operate as Altaba.
Additionally, Altaba will operate as an investment company and the board will be reduced to five members: Tor Braham, Eric Brandt, Catherine Friedman, Thomas McInerney and Jeffrey Smith. Brandt will facilitate the transition and was named chairman today.
CEO Marissa Mayer will step down from the company’s board and joins five other directors in doing so. Others leaving include Maynard Webb, Yahoo co-founder David Filo, Eddy Hartenstein, Richard Hill, and Jane Shaw. Mayer of course was named CEO in 2012, coming over from Google.
All of these changes will take place after Yahoo’s sale to Verizon is completed. It’s unclear when exactly that will be at this point though. Yahoo noted in the filing that the departures are “not due to any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies, or practices.”
Some have suggested that Verizon would back out of its acquisition of Yahoo after two high-profile data breaches. Last September, a hack exposed the personal data for 500 million Yahoo users. Three months later, the company again suffered a breach that exposed the data of 1 billion customers.
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