Yahoo Shareholder Wants CEO Marissa Mayer Ousted, Her Traces Erased

Meanwhile, what Canyon Capital wants-to sell Yahoo now-stemmed from Yahoo’s supposed failure in preparing a backup plan for the Alibaba spinoff. Inc.is facing additional pressure from investors who are running out of patience to see results.

Despite Mayer’s efforts to jumpstart Yahoo’s Internet advertising business over the past three and a half years, the company has only lost ground to Google and Facebook. He argued that Starboard’s proposal to sell the core business would not benefit shareholders, given the low price of Yahoo’s stock, which is down about 30% since the beginning of the year.

Yahoo abandoned a long-held plan to shed its valuable stake in Chinese e-commerce provider Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., due to concerns about a high tax bill, and instead is now considering bundling the rest of its assets into a separate, standalone company.

Yahoo’s management said it plans to increase the value of its core business through the spin-off from Alibaba, a process that could take more than a year.

“We find it hard to comprehend that in the face of months of tax uncertainty regarding the spinoff there was apparently no ‘plan B,”‘ Canyon Capital wrote. Divesting the core businesses in the new strategy, however, may also carry similar tax risks, Canyon Capital wrote.

In recent days, Yahoo investors have been calling for a new plan and new leadership to restore the value of the company.

SpringOwl’s managing director, Eric Jackson, who has battled with Mayer over Yahoo before, sent the presentation directly to Webb, he said.

He proposes cutting as much as $2 billion in annual costs by laying off 9,000 of the company’s 11,900 employees and contractors, eliminating perks like free food, selling its iconic headquarters and leasing back only the office space it needs.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported on the Canyon Capital and SpringOwl letters. He predicted that with cost-cutting and profitability improvements, the core businesses could even amount to at least $24 billion. “Requiring shareholders to continue to wait for definitive action for another year or more – and extending the tenure of senior management” is “simply unacceptable”.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it too many times, Marissa Mayer is not having a great time running things over at Yahoo (YHOO). Yahoo declined to comment.

SpringOwl’s sentiment contrasts with that of Starboard Value, the activist investor that prompted Yahoo to announce last week that it was pursuing a different course.

The size of Starboard’s stake in Yahoo isn’t clear but it is among the firm’s largest positions, people familiar with the matter have said.