When Verizon’s US$4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo is finalised later this year, it will merge AOL and Yahoo into a new brand called ‘Oath’.
Yahoo’s search, email and content business will form part of the new Oath brand, while the company’s 15% stake in Alibaba and its share of Yahoo Japan that were not acquired by Verizon will continue under the name Altaba as announced earlier this year.
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong confirmed the new Oath brand on Twitter:
Billion+ Consumers, 20+ Brands, Unstoppable Team. #TakeTheOath. Summer 2017. pic.twitter.com/tM3Ac1Wi36
— Tim Armstrong (@timarmstrongaol) April 3, 2017
Filings from Yahoo revealed that in the wake of two massive data breaches of up to one billion accounts, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam had sought a reduction of up to US$925 million on the original US$4.83 billion purchase price from Yahoo director Tom McInerney. By late February, the two companies agreed to a $350 million reduction to $4.48 billion.
An AOL spokeswoman did not address reports about the new name to Business Insider, but stated that “In the summer of 2017, you can bet we will be launching one of the most disruptive brand companies in digital.”
