Verizon completes acquisition of Yahoo as Mayer quits

Verizon closed its acquisition of Yahoo yesterday, merging the brands which include not only Yahoo, but also Tumblr, AOL and others into its media behemoth, Oath.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will leave as a result of the acquisition, though she said she was "brimming with nostalgia, gratitude, and optimism".

The $4.48 billion transaction will see Mayer receive a $186 million payout, according to previous Yahoo securities filings.

In a Tumblr post, she said: "Looking back on my time at Yahoo, we have confronted seemingly insurmountable business challenges, along with many surprise twists and turns. I've seen our teams navigate these hurdles and mountains in ways that have not only made Yahoo a better company, but also made all of us far stronger.

"During these past five years, we've built products that delight our users, focused on our clients' businesses, driven substantial value for our shareholders, and endeavored to make Yahoo the absolute best place to work."

The closing of Verizon's $4.48 billion takeover brings an end to a sometimes troubled transaction that saw the telecoms firm reduce its initial offer by $350 million in the wake of two historic hacks that affected more than one billion Yahoo users.

Marni Walden, Verizon president of media and telematics, said the acquisition is a "critical step" in growing Verizon's Oath division to a worldwide scale.

"The combined set of assets across Verizon and Oath, from VR to AI, 5G to IoT, from content partnerships to originals, will create exciting new ways to captivate audiences across the globe," she added.

Tim Armstrong, former CEO of Oath-subsumed AOL, is leading the Oath division of more than 50 media brands now including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sport, Tumblr, HuffPost and more.

He said: "We're building the future of brands using powerful technology, trusted content and differentiated data. We have dominating consumer brands in news, sports, finance, tech, and entertainment and lifestyle coupled with our market leading advertising technology platforms."

Under Armstrong, Oath will attempt to offer more innovative ways of advertising, rolling out tools like ONE by AOL and programmatic ad tool BrightRoll to span mobile, video, search, native and more.