Marissa Mayer is getting ready to say goodbye to Yahoo’s board, but not necessarily to the Yahoo brand.
The company said in a U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday that it will shed almost everything that makes it Yahoo, including its name, when its deal with Verizon closes.
If you’re a Yahoo shareholder, you might notice the difference, but for Yahoo users, the consequences of Monday’s filing are minimal.
Yahoo the company has two major assets: a worldwide network of internet portals, and a 15 percent stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba worth many times that. When a plan to sell off the Alibaba stake ran into tax complications, the company pivoted , instead striking a deal to sell its portals, its brand — almost everything but the Alibaba stake, in fact — to Verizon.
Verizon is expected to merge Yahoo’s portal activities with AOL, which it bought in 2015 .
In July, just after Verizon announced the Yahoo deal, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong told TechCrunch: “The Yahoo brand will be staying with us for a very long period of time, we’ll be investing in it. ”
He was positive about his relationship with Mayer — “I think we’ll be able to work very well together,” he said.
At the time, Mayer told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that “I love Yahoo, and I want to see Yahoo into the next chapter.
