Verizon Communications Inc has taken over Yahoo Inc, completing a US$4.5 billion deal that is to usher in a new management team to attempt to wring more advertising revenue from one of the Internet’s best-known brands.
Tuesday’s closure of the sale ends Yahoo’s 21-year history as a publicly traded company.
It also ends the nearly five-year reign of Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer, who is not joining Verizon. She is to walk away from Yahoo with a compensation package worth about US$125 million, including her severance pay and stock awards that are to be fully vested with the deal’s completion.
Yahoo’s e-mail and other digital services such as sports, finance and news are to be run by Tim Armstrong, who has been running AOL Inc since Verizon bought that company for US$4.4 billion two years ago.
Armstrong is now to be chief executive of a new Verizon subsidiary called Oath, which is to consist of Yahoo and various AOL services.
About 2,000 Yahoo and AOL workers are expected to lose their jobs as Verizon trims expenses and eliminates overlapping positions.
“Now that the deal is closed, we are excited to set our focus on being the best company for consumer media, and the best partner to our advertising, content and publisher partners,” Armstrong said.
Verizon is not getting Yahoo’s prized stakes in two Asian Internet companies, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Yahoo Japan.
Those are to belong to a newly formed company called Altaba Inc, which is also to inherit Yahoo’s US$8 billion in cash and any money that might have to be paid in various shareholder lawsuits filed against Yahoo leading up to the sale.
Altaba’s stock is to begin trading next week. Yahoo’s stock is to trade through tomorrow.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,