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Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

nytimes.com

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Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#171

Post by jackgavigan »

I thought Yahoo's stock price would rise on this news (because it removes the uncertainty that was overshadowing the original Aabaco spin-off plan) but, despite a brief opening spike, the stock is down on yesterday's close.

On the conference call this morning, the management team sounded really downbeat. I expected them to sound positive and optimistic, talking about unlocking shareholder value and focusing on Yahoo Core but they sounded like somebody had died.

As of this moment, the market value of Yahoo's stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan are $32.5bn and $8.67bn respectively, while Yahoo itself has a market cap of $32.37bn.

To quote Matt Levine, "the whole point of Yahoo as a company right now is to not pay taxes on Alibaba. [...] If there was a way to avoid paying taxes on the Alibaba shares that involved burning all of Yahoo's actual businesses to the ground, Yahoo should do that all day long, and then do it again the next day. It would still add shareholder value."

"And the market, right now, is valuing Yahoo as though it will fail in that mission, which is its only mission."

Source: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-02/yahoo-is-lo...

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#172

Post by sirkneeland »

clavalle wrote: post #104

Yahoo is the Motorola of the Internet Sector. Always playing catch up in an industry that is lead or die. Good to great engineers with failed leadership trying to coast on past success then, when the stuff hits the fan, trying to effect a culture change on a bloated structure. Finally, the sell off.

Also add Palm, BlackBerry, Nokia to that list...

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#173

Post by dothis »

Do you guys think our emails on Yahoo mail are safe after this? I will backup mine as soon as I find the time to do so.

Yahoo has a terrible track record regarding emails. I already lost one due to inactivity. They gave it to somebody else. That somebody probably has access to several of my accounts now. On websites where I used my Yahoo address and then just forgot about it.

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#174

Post by Karunamon »

username223 wrote: post #82

When Yahoo finally dies, my main concern is what happens to the @yahoo.com email address I've had for a couple of decades, and which now lives next to my name in countless address books. Does it perpetually forward to an address I choose? Does Yahoo try to charge for this? Do Russian identity thieves buy the domain and make my life hell?

There's a bunch of smart TV's out there that are tied to Yahoo services (Vizio at least, probably others) for basic things like app installation. I hope they at least transition smoothly...

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#175

Post by atYevP »

voltagex_ wrote: post #24

Again I ask, where should I take ~30GB of photos that I have on Flickr? Yes, I have other backups but I need offsite storage. Guess I'll have to budget for it now. Backblaze B2 isn't quite ready yet.

As much as I shudder saying it, Google+ has been pretty good at keeping all of my photos. Though I have them backed up from my Android device. Not sure how well it works when actively using it for photo storage.

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#176

Post by jeffwass »

mattlutze wrote: post #30
FussyZeus wrote: post #3

Oh just give this poor old dog the old Yeller treatment already. I don't know what's more sad, the fact that Yahoo has fallen from where it once was, or that it's falling so slowly and that it's new CEO, once thought to be it's saving grace, is letting the bleeding continue for seemingly as long as she possibly can. I can't imagine the morale issues in the trenches of Yahoo, it's gotta be just horrible in there.

As a sidebar, I've always kinda felt the name gets in the way. Yahoo! I feel silly saying it. I feel silly asking someone if they Yahoo!? It feels silly seeing it on stock tickers. Do I want to invest in a silly business? Work for a silly business? The answers are yes and yes in an objective world, if the company is producing interesting products that are selling. But when it comes to marketing to users, investors an…

Interesting comment, but does sample size of 1 mean times have changed?

I remember reading a tech trade rag back in the late 90's where some consulting company or other was talking about their business. They were getting tons of requests to help provide branding and corporate identity for tech clients.

Apparently "Yahoo" was the gold standard, and everybody and their cousin wanted a name or trademark or other branding component akin to Yahoo.

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#177

Post by deeringc »

robotcookies wrote: post #41
wiremine wrote: post #12

Honest question: what has been Yahoo's core business for the last 15 years?

I would say "portal" which is to connect content creators with content consumers (and charging for space on the portal). Unfortunately for yahoo, this model lost out to social networks. People seem to prefer seeing content from friends over content curated from yahoo. Or they prefer going to sources directly.

I also think that sites like reddit and hackernews have taken a part of the role that a portal once provided. Content that is crowd-sourced seems to be better received than what a single company can push in a curated list.

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#178

Post by jwegan »

kaizendad wrote: post #131
chollida1 wrote: post #17

Yahoo had to do this. They had been hanging onto the belief that the IRS wouldn't tax their Alibaba spin out, a belief that they and their tax accountants alone believed. Most telling is that Yahoo was up after the markets closed on this news. Heck Bloomberg just sent me a note saying the sentiment of the news on Yahoo was very positive, even the machines like this news:) Sadly this probably means 3 things are going…

This is cleverer than people are giving them credit for. It delivers immediate value to shareholders; it delivers opportunities for long term growth to shareholders; it creates one valuable Asian property that can acquire other properties and continue to deliver shareholder value; it creates a US company that is easier to acquire than it used to be, without the Alibaba share, and thus could be bought by a big media c…

She had nothing to do with coming up with the financial engineering. From the article itself it says the hedge fund Starboard Value came up with the move and has been pressuring the board to do it for months.

Re: Yahoo to Spin Off Its Core Businesses

#180

Post by charlesdm »

mkagenius wrote: post #153
charlesdm wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did she? Maybe I'm a bit more sceptical, but what did she actually achieve? 1. She failed at putting Yahoo back on the map. She spent billions on acquiring businesses that bring in close to no revenue. Maybe it's a great place to work, but if there's no money coming in, it won't stay great long. 2. She failed at financial engineering; she couldn't even get a tax free spinoff through. I would've been happy to cut her…

> 2. She failed at financial engineering; she couldn't even get a tax free spinoff through. She managed to keep a part of Alibaba stake. This reverse spin off will also be tax free.

She's throwing the company away she is currently CEO of.

The BABA stake had to be separated from Yahoo, but this is literally the worst possible way, aside from selling the shares + paying taxes, to achieve this.

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