The proportion of jobs being made redundant across #AOL and #Yahoo is around 15 percent globally, we have confirmed with our sources. This shakes out to as many as 2,100 jobs being lost as part of the corporate merger. Yesterday Re/Code suggested up to 1,000 jobs will be cut across the combined company, as duplicate roles in departments such as finance, HR, marketing and admin are taken out, but our sources said that figure is too low. We understand there are around 14,000 employees in total across AOL and Yahoo today. While no voluntary redundancies are being offered, one source told us that employees who left in recent months are being paid out to help hit reduction targets. We are also told that the proportion of redundancies is not equal across internal departments. One source said this can be up to 30 percent, depending on the organization, noting another has cuts of ~5 percent. “It seems that a lot of thought and effort has gone into this, and counterpoints have been listened and accepted,” the source added. Last July Verizon, AOL’s parent company, announced it had finally sealed an agreement to acquire Yahoo (Disclosure: AOL is also TechCrunch’s parent company). The deal is now racing to a close. We understand the proxy vote is taking place today — meaning the acquisition will close in a week’s time. The combined AOL-Yahoo entity has already been given a new brand name (Oath:), and will be headed up by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. Asked for comment for this story, an AOL spokesperson told us: “Oath’s strategy is to lead the global brand space. With access to over 1 billion consumers upon close, we will be positioned to drive one of the most important platforms in the consumer brand space. Consistent with what we have said since the deal was announced, we will be aligning our global organization to the strategy.” Back in February, Yahoo and Verizon agreed that $350 million would be knocked off the sale price for Yahoo — cutting it down to $4.48 billion — following the disclosure of two massive data breaches, one estimated to cover around 500 million accounts, and another affecting more than 1 billion accounts. It’s not yet clear who will head up security for Oath.
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