Altaba
More info
- Released
- 2017–2019
- Type
- Investment company
- Predecessor
- Yahoo
The shell left over once Verizon bought Yahoo's actual business – effectively a block of Alibaba stock wearing a different name.
When Verizon acquired Yahoo's operations in 2017 for roughly $4.5 billion, neither the stake in Alibaba nor the one in Yahoo Japan went with them. What remained was renamed Altaba – "alternative" plus "Alibaba" – and registered as a closed-end investment fund with no business of its own.
The irony was hard to miss. The Alibaba stake Jerry Yang bought in 2005 for a billion dollars was, for long stretches, worth more than all of Yahoo, meaning the market valued the web portal itself at zero or less. Altaba sold its Yahoo Japan holding in 2018, began liquidating in 2019 and was delisted the same year.