Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present)
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational technology company that focuses on media and online business. This article deals with the history of the company since Verizon acquired it in 2017.
After acquiring the company in 2017 for $4.48 billion, Verizon folded the company into a subsidiary called Oath Inc. In December 2018, Verizon announced it would write-down the combined value of its purchases of AOL and Yahoo! by $4.6 billion, roughly half; the company was renamed Verizon Media the following month in January 2019.
In September 2021, funds managed by Apollo Global Management acquired 90% of the company for roughly $5 billion; Verizon retained a 10% stake in the company.
Yahoo Inc. was formed on February 8, 2006 as part of a corporate restructure. It is organized in Delaware and is headquartered in Manhattan, New York.
History
Under Verizon (2017–2021)
A year after the completion of the AOL acquisition, Verizon announced a $4.8 billion deal to acquire Yahoo!'s core Internet business, to invest in the Internet company's search engine, news, finance, sports, video, emails and Tumblr products. Yahoo! announced in September and December 2016 two major Internet security breaches affecting more than a billion customers. As a result, Verizon lowered its offer for Yahoo! by $350 million to $4.48 billion.The AOL deal and subsequent Yahoo! purchase were led by Verizon's management team, including Lowell McAdam, Marni Walden and Tim Armstrong. Walden had been tasked with merging the two entities and delivering on the promise of moving Verizon from an analog to digital platforms business. Walden left Verizon in 2017. Later events revealed that the integration did not deliver the expected value.
Two months before closing the deal for Yahoo!, Verizon announced it would place Yahoo! and AOL under an umbrella named Oath. The deal closed on June 13, 2017, and Oath was launched. Upon completion of the deal, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer resigned. Yahoo! operations not acquired in the deal were renamed Altaba, a holding company whose primary assets were its 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba Group and a 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan. After the merger, Oath cut fifteen percent of the Yahoo!-AOL workforce. In 2018, Altaba sold Yahoo! Japan to SoftBank Group.
In April 2018, Helios and Matheson Analytics acquired the Moviefone movie listings website from Oath, in consideration for which Verizon took a stake in Helios and Matheson.
In April 2018, Verizon sold Flickr to SmugMug, for an undisclosed amount.
In May 2018, Verizon and Samsung agreed to terms that would preload four Oath mobile apps onto Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones. The agreement includes Oath's Newsroom, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, and go90 mobile video apps, with integration of native Oath advertisements into both the Oath apps and Samsung's own Galaxy and Game Launcher apps.
On September 12, 2018, it was announced that K. Guru Gowrappan would succeed Tim Armstrong as CEO, effective October 1.
On December 3, 2018, the company banned "adult content" from Tumblr effective December 17, 2018. The ban led to objections that it harms the LGBTQ community, sexual abuse survivors, sex workers, adult content blogs, and other bloggers. The ban followed Apple's removal of the Tumblr app from the App Store because Apple objected to child pornography. Some speculated Tumbler's ban was an attempt to regain access to the App Store.
In December 2018, Verizon announced that it was cutting 10% of Oath's workforce and would write down the value of the business by $4.6B. Verizon management blamed competitive pressures and that the business never achieved the anticipated benefits. The move wiped out all of the goodwill on the balance sheets that accompanied the acquisitions.
On January 8, 2019, Oath was renamed Verizon Media. In August 2019, Verizon sold Tumblr to Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com, for an undisclosed amount that was reportedly less than $3 million. In November 2020, Verizon sold HuffPost to BuzzFeed. in an all-stock deal, remaining minority shareholder in Buzzfeed.
, the company employed about 10,350 people.
As Yahoo! (2021–present)
In September 2021, investment funds managed by Apollo Global Management acquired 90% of the company for roughly $5 Verizon retained a 10% stake.On September 10, 2021, Jim Lanzone, who had been CEO of Tinder, was named CEO of Yahoo!, succeeding Gowrappan.
In August 2025, with the possibility of regulators requiring the Google Chrome web browser to sold, Yahoo! Inc was one of three companies that were in talks to acquire Chrome. However, a sale was not required by regulators and any deals talks were called off.
Management history
Three chief executives have led the Yahoo! companies since 2017. They are:- Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo! Inc.
- Guru Gowrappan, CEO of Oath Inc., Verizon Media, and Yahoo!
- Tim Armstrong, CEO of Oath Inc.