Yahoo Plans To Sell Core Business, Dismiss Current CEO

According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Inc.’s board is thinking about selling off the company’s flagging Internet businesses.

Cowen & Co. analysts estimated that Yahoo’s core search and display advertising business was worth $3.84 billion, while Pivotal Research Group valued it at just $1.9 billion. Though, Ms. Mayer has been known for stabilizing the condition of the company which was on steep decline before her rule, no advancement has been made by Yahoo during the three year leadership of Ms. Mayer.

Yahoo’s board, which includes co-founder David Filo, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) former Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr. and Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW.N) Chairman Charles R. Schwab, is also expected to discuss the planned spinoff of Yahoo’s 15 percent stake in Alibaba.

The hedge fund, which claims to be a major investor in Yahoo, railed against the Alibaba sale after the USA tax authorities denied Yahoo’s request to confirm the transaction would be tax-free, leaving it open to a potential $12bn tax bill.

“As the old saying kind of goes, reports of the impending demise of Marissa Mayer, inset, at Yahoo are greatly exaggerated”, Re/Code’s Kara Swisher said. Japan. WSJ notes that it presents an opportunity for Alibaba to buy back Yahoo’s stake in the Hangzhou-based company.

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.

Mobile revenue of Yahoo represented 24 percent of traffic-driven revenue in the third quarter of 2015 from 20 percent.

Yahoo websites including the homepage, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo fantasy sports. Yahoo shares were trading at less than $16 when Marissa Mayer was named the company’s CEO in July 2012.

Possible suitors for snapping up Yahoo’s core business could be private equity firms. But the company remains far behind web rivals such as Google and Facebook in terms of user engagement and advertiser budgets. In April, though, the deal was altered to allow Yahoo to use other search providers – a plan that became reality in October, when Yahoo announced that it would use Google for some search results and advertising.