Yahoo Board Considering Sale of Internet Business, Spinning Off Stake in

Given Yahoo’s $30 billion investment stake in Alibaba, some investors may have speculated that the Chinese e-commerce giant would take a closer look at Yahoo’s U.S. Internet assets.

Her future, however, could also be discussed at the board meetings, although tech news site Re/code says Mayer continues to enjoy board support, adding that rumours of Yahoo selling off its entire core business are greatly exaggerated.

After such a sale, all that would be left, essentially, is the Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes.

“It is clear the market has a dim view of the company’s current strategy”, Starboard says.

Marissa Mayer, president and chief executive officer of Yahoo!, delivers a keynote speech in Las Vegas, the US.

The company’s future is being considered by the Yahoo board this week partly in response to a campaign by activist hedge fund and Yahoo shareholder Starboard Value, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

In a letter last month Starboard urged Yahoo to halt plans to sell the $22 billion Alibaba stake due to the risk of a $12 billion tax liability and because the holding along with Yahoo Japan accounts for most of Yahoo’s implied value.

Firms like Softbank Group Corp. would also be interested in Yahoo. IAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters adds that Mayer’s arrival, following a long stint at Google, has increased expectations that Yahoo will be able to have a quick turnaround.

One of the oldest and well distinguished online companies, Yahoo, is likely to put flagging Internet businesses up for sale.

This is at a time when 92 percent of internet users use search engines.

But she did not woo advertisers well: in 2014 she overslept and left top advertisers waiting two hours at the industry’s biggest gala, Cannes Lions in France, for instance. “She came in three and a half years ago to a company that wasn’t growing and it’s still not growing today”.

The Wall Street Journal, citing “a person familiar with Alibaba’s thinking”, said that the company is unlikely to make a bid for the troubled business. Starboard attributes the relatively low price of the Internet business to poor management of the division by Mayer and the Yahoo management team.

“To me that would be most valuable to sell”, said Ivan Feinseth, an analyst at Tigress Finanical Partners. Should Yahoo decide to sell its core business, private equity firms are expected to gobble up the wide variety of web assets the company owns. The stock was range-bound for the remainder of the day and closed up by 1.94 at $35.65, with volume at a 10-month high.