Yahoo Inc. will consider selling the company’s core internet business, with the possibilities being discussed in a series of board meetings being held from Wednesday to Friday, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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Yahoo was founded in 1994 by then-Stanford University electrical engineering graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo.
Such a sale would mark an abrupt change of plans at the company, which has been trying to revitalize its business for more than three years under CEO Marissa Mayer, while spinning off the ancillary Asian investments in a transaction expected to close in January.
Verizon, IAC/InterActive, News Corporation, and Time Inc., are all believed to be interested in purchasing Yahoo, in part because of the strength of Internet traffic the company logs.
Activist investor Starboard Value LP said Yahoo’s board should “immediately abandon” the spinoff and begin a “competitive process to sell its valuable core business at the highest price possible”.
Web portal Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), which is reportedly weighing its future direction amid meetings of its board this week, needs to deliver big hits in original video programming to attract viewers and advertisers and become “a real destination site”, Rosenblatt Securities analyst Martin Pyykkonen wrote in an industry note on Thursday. The company’s core business of selling desktop display advertising to large advertisers is in shambles after years of decline.
Shares Of Yahoo Inc. were notable movers during the trading session. Yet Yahoo has lost advertising market share in key areas such as mobile, where rivals such as Facebook and Google have gained ground. Yahoo said that it will still proceed with the initial plan despite IRS’ refusal of its request.
After such a sale, all that would be left, essentially, is the Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes.
The prospect of the US Internal Revenue Service taxing the Alibaba deal has also weighed on the stock.
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The company was planning the spinoff worth $30 billion to be completed this year and this had been announced by Mayer while releasing the 3Q15 results in October 2015.
