Altaba Inc. was a non-diversified, closed-end management

investment company An investment company is a financial institution principally engaged in holding, managing and investing securities. These companies in the United States are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and must be registered under t ...

based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

that was formed from the remains of the first incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. after

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

acquired old Yahoo's

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

business. Verizon completed its acquisition on June 13, 2017, and put the assets under a new subsidiary named Yahoo! Holdings within its newly created division, Oath (now the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc.). After the transaction, Yahoo! Inc. had no operating business but retained its cash holdings, partnership investments and bond portfolio, as well as certain patents that Verizon did not purchase. It reorganized as an investment fund and changed its name to Altaba Inc. on June 16. The only Yahoo! - branded interest held by Altaba was its stake in the joint venture

Yahoo! Japan is a Japanese internet company originally formed as a joint venture between the American internet company Yahoo! (later divested by Verizon into Altaba) and the Japanese company SoftBank. It is headquartered at Kioi Tower in the Tokyo Garden Te ...

, which it sold to the

SoftBank Group is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vi ...

in late 2018.

History

1994–2017: Yahoo! Inc.

In January 1994,

Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. As of February 2022, Yang has a net worth ...

and

David Filo David Robert Filo (born April 20, 1966) is an American billionaire businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. His Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side software used to dynamically serve v ...

, who were Electrical Engineering graduate students, created a website named "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web". The Guide was a directory of other websites, organized in a hierarchy, as opposed to a searchable index of pages. In April 1994, Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web was renamed "Yahoo!". The word "YAHOO" is a

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

for "

Yet Another Among programmers, yet another (often abbreviated ya, Ya, or YA in the initial part of an acronym) is an idiomatic qualifier in the name of a computer program, organisation, or event that is confessedly unoriginal. Stephen C. Johnson is credited ...

Hierarchically Organized Oracle" or "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." The yahoo.com domain was created on January 18, 1995. Yahoo! grew rapidly throughout the 1990s and diversified into a

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayi ...

, followed by numerous high-profile acquisitions. The company's stock price skyrocketed during the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Comp ...

and closed at an all-time high of US$118.75 in 2000; however, after the dot-com bubble burst, it reached an all-time low of US$8.11 in 2001. Yahoo! formally rejected an acquisition bid from the

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...

in 2008. In early 2012, the largest layoff in Yahoo!'s history was completed and 2,000 employees (14 percent of the workforce) lost their jobs.

Carol Bartz Carol Ann Bartz (born August 28, 1948) is an American business executive, former president and CEO of the internet services company Yahoo!, and former chairman, president, and CEO at architectural and engineering design software company Autodesk. ...

replaced co-founder Jerry Yang as

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

in January 2009, but was fired by the board of directors in September 2011;

Tim Morse Timothy R. Morse was the CEO of Ten-X. Previously Morse was the interim CEO of the Internet services company, Yahoo!. He was named after Carol Bartz lost her position as CEO on September 6, 2011. In January 2012, Yahoo picked Scott Thompson as th ...

was appointed as interim CEO following Bartz's departure. Former

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

president Scott Thompson became CEO in January 2012 and after he resigned was replaced by

Ross Levinsohn Ross B. Levinsohn (born 1962/1963) is an American media executive who has worked in media and technology. He is the CEO of The Arena Group and '' Sports Illustrated'', and has held senior roles at Yahoo, Fox Interactive and Tribune Publishing, ...

as the company's interim CEO on May 13, 2012. On July 16, former Google executive

Marissa Mayer Marissa Ann Mayer (; born May 30, 1975) is an American businesswoman and investor. She is an information technology executive, and co-founder of Sunshine Contacts. Mayer formerly served as the president and chief executive officer of Yahoo!, a p ...

, became the CEO of the company. The media reported on Yahoo!'s interest in the video streaming site Hulu on May 26, 2013. Under Mayer's leadership, Yahoo!'s bid is worth between US$600 and $800 million, as a variety of options that consist of different circumstances were put forward by the company. As of May 28, 2013, Yahoo!'s videos attract 45 million unique visitors a month, while Hulu has 24 million visitors—the combination of the two audiences can place Yahoo! in the second-most popular position after Google and its subsidiary

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. Data collated by comScore during July 2013 revealed that more people in the U.S. visited Yahoo! websites during the month in comparison to Google websites—the occasion was the first time that Yahoo! outperformed Google since 2011. The data did not incorporate visit statistics for the Yahoo!-owned Tumblr website or mobile phone usage. On September 22, 2016, Yahoo disclosed a data breach in which hackers stole information associated with at least 500 million user accounts in late 2014. According to the BBC, this was the largest technical

breach Breach, Breached, or The Breach may refer to: Places * Breach, Kent, United Kingdom * Breach, West Sussex, United Kingdom * ''The Breach'', Great South Bay in the State of New York People * Breach (DJ), an Electronic/House music act * Miroslav ...

reported to date. Specific details of material taken include names, email addresses, telephone numbers, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers, dates of birth, and

encrypted In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...

password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

s. The breach used manufactured web cookies to falsify login credentials, allowing hackers to gain access to any account without a password. On December 14, 2016 a separate data breach, occurring earlier around August 2013 was reported. This breach affected over 1 billion user accounts and is again considered the largest discovered in the

history of the Internet The history of the Internet has its origin in information theory and the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and interconnect computer networks. The Internet Protocol Suite, the set of rules used to communicate between networks and de ...

. On June 13, 2017, following the departure of

, Thomas J. McInerney was appointed chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Inc.

2017–2019: Altaba Inc.

On June 16, 2017, the company that remained after Verizon Communications purchased the core Internet businesses of Yahoo! Inc. was renamed Altaba Inc. The new company, listed by the

Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

as a "non-diversified, closed-end management investment company," immediately began trading on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

under the ticker symbol AABA. In September 2018, Altaba settled three lawsuits relating to Yahoo's data breaches for $47 million. On September 17, 2018, Altaba announced the sale of their stake in Yahoo Japan Corporation for $4.3 billion. On the same day, Altaba announced a $5.75 billion share repurchase program. On April 3, 2019, Altaba announced in a press release that it would sell its stake in Alibaba Group and shut down. The company would shut down in the fourth quarter of 2019. On October 2, 2019, Altaba stopped trading on the Nasdaq at the close of the day, and pursuant to its Plan of Complete Liquidation and Dissolution, filed a certificate of dissolution in Delaware ( where Altaba is domiciled), on October 4. A small amount of funds will be withheld for potential Chinese taxes on the sale of its stake in the Alibaba Group.

Assets

Altaba owned Excalibur IP, a patent company, controlled a significant minority interest in Alibaba Group (16.3%) until it sold its stake in 2019, and maintained investments in

Hortonworks Hortonworks was a data software company based in Santa Clara, California that developed and supported open-source software (primarily around Apache Hadoop) designed to manage big data and associated processing. Hortonworks software was used to b ...

, Gomaji,

Envestnet Envestnet, Inc. is an American financial technology corporation which develops and distributes wealth management technology and products to financial advisors and institutions. Their flagship product is an advisory platform that integrates the ...

, Rimage Corporation,

SeatGeek SeatGeek is a mobile-focused ticket platform that enables users to buy and sell tickets for live sports, concerts and theater events. SeatGeek allows both mobile app and desktop users to browse events, view interactive color-coded seatmaps, compl ...

, Protagenic Therapeutics,

Eastman Kodak Company The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpo ...

, and

Paperless Post Paperless Post is a software company based in New York City that enables creating, sending, and managing online invitations and events. Product Paperless Post invitations and cards are designed both in-house and by exclusive design partners such a ...

. The Fund's external investment advisors included BlackRock Advisors, LLC and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. The company divested itself of all holdings in Snap Inc. (the owner of Snapchat) and

References

External links

* * {{authority control Yahoo! Financial services companies established in 1995 Financial services companies disestablished in 2019 Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Investment companies based in New York City American companies established in 1995 1995 initial public offerings American companies disestablished in 2019 1995 establishments in New York (state) 2019 disestablishments in New York (state)