Verizon’s announcement that it was planning to buy most of Yahoo’s online business last year has come to fruition. The $4.48 billion deal is now complete, which means that Verizon now owns popular internet venues such as HuffPost and Yahoo Finance. As part of the deal, former Yahoo Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Marissa Mayer has stepped down from her position, to be replaced by former AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.
The new company, which will combine Yahoo and AOL brands, is called Oath. The good news is that Verizon, for the moment and the foreseeable future (to hear Armstrong answering common questions), has no intention of making changes to the brands that were once available through Yahoo or AOL. Services like fantasy sports teams, email accounts, Yahoo Finance, Tumblr, Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget will remain the same. Armstrong further explained that we should consider former Yahoo and AOL services as being front and center, and Oath being on the side. So keeping your existing Yahoo email and finding your favorite sites should not be much of a problem. Once launched, Oath will combine over 50 media and technology brands in an easy to navigate platform that will house everything in a neat little package.
The downside of the merge and acquisition is that just as former CEO Mayer lost her job, an estimated 15 percent of former Yahoo and AOL employees will lose theirs. There is just not enough work for everyone at Oath, and that means that unfortunately, roughly twenty one hundred people out of the 14,000 combined companies’ employees will be looking for new jobs in the near future, according to Zacks.
It isn’t clear how many (if any) former Yahoo and AOL services will be cut, but so far, it sounds like Verizon wants to keep things simple for everyone. That, of course, is in their best interest considering that Yahoo has been around for over twenty years (hard to believe it was launched on March 2nd, 1995!) and has acquired quite a following, especially in its email, finance and sports services. And while Google and Bing are big search engines, Yahoo is no push over in that department either. We look forward to seeing for ourselves what all the fuss is with Oath, and if it will be as successful as Armstrong seems to think.