Yahoo will be holding a series of board meetings to weigh its options on what to do with its flagging internet business. CEO Marissa Mayer has failed to turn the company around as investors had hoped, and the board is apparently considering simply selling off whatever is left.
The board of directors will be looking at the best way to go forward with the company, which may include selling its lucrative stake in China’s Alibaba. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, there are growing concerns about Mayer’s lack of progress with the company and the number of top executives who have vacated their positions.
At the moment, the core Yahoo business is valued significantly less than the stocks it owns in Alibaba. The WSJ report suggests that Yahoo itself is worth less than nothing. This is due to its market capitalisation being valued at $31 billion, while its 15% stake in Alibaba is worth $32 billion. To make matters worse, Yahoo Japan is also worth $8.5 billion. In other words, the company is probably worth more without the Yahoo bit dragging it down.
At the moment, there is no guarantee that the internet giant will take any significant action after the board meetings. It has mulled over selling the Alibaba stake multiple times over the last few years, and nothing has come of it.
There is still a chance that the board could give Mayer another chance to improve the business. While investors are not convinced by the viability of Yahoo as a company, it still has a significant amount of web traffic. It drew some 210 million visitors in October 2015, which is not a small number by an stretch of the imagination. Only Google and Facebook managed more visitors.
This turn of events is not the end of Yahoo. The company still has quite a bit of cash reserves despite the doom and gloom surrounding it. That being said, it is likely that Yahoo will need to restructure into something else if it wants to regain its lost audience.
[Source: Wall Street Journal]
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