Ever since last year, Yahoo has been struggling to turn their fortunes around. This week though, the company has done numerous board meetings where the heads mull over the possibility of selling the company’s core business.
The news of Yahoo’s potential sale was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. According to their sources, Yahoo has been holding a “marathon” number of board meetings to discuss the potential of selling off the company. This move would purportedly affect Yahoo’s stake in the Chinese internet marketplace Alibaba.
Yahoo’s was seemingly serious about its attempts to sell the brand off earlier this week. However, CNBC and The New York Times reported that Yahoo would not spin off its stake in Alibaba.
Today, Yahoo has officially annouced their plans going forward, which is to conduct a “reverse spin off” where everything but its Alibaba stake is moving to another company. While it remains to be seen what will happen to Yahoo as a whole, it is speculated that such a move would allow Yahoo to go ahead with its original plan to spin off the Alibaba stake without the risk of a ton of US taxes.
While the move may suggest that Yahoo is getting ready to be sold off, the company has insisted that this is not the case. However, Yahoo believes that its stock is “undervalued”, and that it has a responsibility to “entertain offers”, meaning that the sale of the company is still not quite off the cards.
It is still too early to tell what will happen to Yahoo in the near future, however, Yahoo’s current president and CEO, Marissa Mayer, is in for some rough times ahead. Originally brought into Yahoo to turn things around, Mayer’s attempts at “resetting Yahoo’s focus” has yet to bare fruit as the company has suffered evaporating profits and a string of acquisitions that did little to turn things around.
SOURCE: Engadget
