San Francisco - Yahoo! CEO
Marissa Mayer is among six directors who plan to leave the board of the
investment company that will be left after the closing of the proposed sale of
Yahoo’s main internet properties to Verizon Communications.
The new company, a
shareholder in Alibaba Group and Yahoo! Japan, will change its name to Altaba
and reduce its board to five members as it looks ahead to its next chapter with
fewer ties to the iconic brand, according to a filing Monday.
Yahoo agreed to sell its web
properties to Verizon in a deal valued at about $4.8 billion, though questions
have come up after Yahoo revealed two separate hacks of user data. The deal
came after Mayer failed to deliver on a turnaround attempt that began after her
arrival in 2012.
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“The end of the Marissa
Mayer era - it looks like her plan is to complete the sale of the operating
company to Yahoo and let the lawyers and tax accountants figure out the best
option for the stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan,” said Paul Sweeney, an
analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
The directors who will
remain with Altaba after the closing of the Verizon sale are Tor Braham, Eric
Brandt, Catherine Friedman, Thomas McInerney and Jeffrey Smith. Brandt was
named the chairman Monday to help the company ease its transition to an
investment vehicle.
Others, including David
Filo, co-founder of Yahoo, and Maynard Webb, who had been chairman, intend to
leave after the planned sale of the web services to Verizon. Webb was named
chairman emeritus.
Read also: 2013 hack hit 1bn, Yahoo! admits
Board members departing
after the sale to Verizon said that “his or her intention to resign is not due
to any disagreement with the company,” Yahoo said in the filing.
While the deal with Verizon
followed months of negotiations with various parties, it has come under
pressure after Yahoo last month revealed a second major hack of user accounts.
Verizon began exploring a lower price or a possible exit from its purchase
agreement in the wake of the recent disclosure of one of the largest-scale data
breaches reported to date, Bloomberg reported at the time.
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