Yahoo Inc. (YHOO, Financial) stock was up 1.21% on Wednesday following Tuesday's announcement that Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ, Financial) had completed its $4.48 billion takeover of the company. The deal will see a new management team takeover leadership of the company, removing longtime president and CEO Marissa Mayer.
The deal ends the company's 21-year long history of being a publicly traded entity.
Mayer led the company over a five-year period that saw the company's stock rise 242%, from $15 a share to $52.63 a share. Yahoo, a company known for making routinely bad purchases, failed to innovate and keep up with the likes of Alphabet Inc.'s Google (GOOG, Financial) (GOOGL, Financial).
Mayer resigned from her position following the deal's closing.
Mayer oversaw 53 acquisitions during her tenure with the company, with a total value $2.3 billion to $2.8 billion. Numerous acquisitions were talent and technology grabs, resulting in the companies shutting down after joining the ranks of Yahoo.
The few acquisitions that continue today are Tumblr, which the company acquired in 2013, and Polyvore, which was purchased in 2015 for $230 million. Several companies continued to operate in their own divisions, including Lexity, Aviate, Flurry, BrightRoll and Media Group One.
Additional notable companies purchased by Yahoo over its run as a public company include BlueLithium, which was founded by Gurbaksh Chahal and purchased for $300 million, and Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion. Overture Services Inc. and Tumblr were the only other companies purchased by Yahoo for over $1 billion.
Mayer will receive a compensation package valued at $125 million. She is reportedly walking away with a total of nearly $260 million when accounting for her equity holdings.
"Given the inherent changes to my role, I’ll be leaving the company," she posted on Tumblr. "However, I want all of you to know that I’m brimming with nostalgia, gratitude and optimism."
Verizon has said the company will trim expenses, with 2,000 employees expected to lose their jobs in the process.
Yahoo will join Verizon-owned AOL to help build out the company's digital advertising space. The space, dominated by Facebook Inc. (FB, Financial) and Google, has eluded Yahoo for the better part of a decade.
The company famously declined to purchase Google from Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997 for $1 million. It would later sign a deal with Google to license its technology, leading to the growth of its biggest rival at the time.
An additional proposal to purchase Google for $3 billion was also overlooked in 2002. The company also declined an acquisition from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT, Financial) in 2008 for $44.6 billion.
The job cuts will include both Yahoo and AOL employees. Reports indicate the cuts may come as early as Wednesday.
Yahoo's revenue has shrunk to $3.5 billion since peak levels in 2008 when not accounting for ad commissions. Google's revenue excluding ad commissions was over $70 billion last year.
Disclosure: The writer does not own any stakes in the listed companies.
