• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 4, 2023

Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jim Lanzone has a goal to take the company through an initial public offering (IPO) as part of a plan to return the Silicon Valley-based group to prominence.

Yahoo is “ready financially, the company has a great balance sheet, we’re very profitable,” he told The Financial Times, adding that being a private company allowed Yahoo to make necessary structural changes and create a series of businesses similar to the model used when he was head of CBS Interactive. 

Yahoo became a public company in April 1996. It quickly grew in importance for web users with its combination of search and email, turning down a $47 billion bid from Microsoft in 2008.

Soon after, Yahoo partnered with Microsoft to build out its advertising business, focusing on search.

It was a 10-year partnership that began in 2010. The partnership supported organic and paid-search listings. At least at the time, during a time when both companies were open about the relationship, Yahoo search results were powered by Bing's search algorithms, and the paid-search ads on Yahoo search were generated by the Microsoft adCenter.

Verizon, which acquired Yahoo and AOL in two transactions in 2015 and 2017, sold both to private equity firm Apollo in a deal reportedly valued at $5 billion in September 2021 after incurring significant losses under its ownership.