News
U.S. telco to reportedly make up to 1,000 people redundant.
Verizon plans to axe up to 1,000 staff across AOL and Yahoo, it emerged this week.
Sources cited in a Recode report on Wednesday claimed that the redundancies amount to less than 20% of the combined company, and will likely take place in overlapping areas of the businesses.
Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion; it followed that deal up in July 2016 with the $4.83 billion purchase of Yahoo’s core Internet assets. Yahoo’s price tag was cut by $350 million in February in the wake of revelations that Yahoo had suffered major cyberattacks.
The Yahoo deal is expected to close this month, at which point it will be combined with AOL. The new company will be led by former AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong. It will be down to him to turn the two fallen Web giants into one online advertising and media powerhouse.
In April, Armstrong announced that the merged company will be called Oath. The reaction to the unveiling was mixed, with some wishing Verizon continued success, while others pointed out that the word ‘oath’ also refers to uttering an expletive.
Judging by the Recode report, there are probably around 1,000 AOL/Yahoo staffers muttering a few oaths this week.
