Yahoo takeover

[waltky]

Proxy fight over Yahoo...

Microsoft told potential Yahoo bidders it might back bids: report
25 Mar.`16 - Microsoft Corp executives are in talks with equity firms considering bids for Yahoo Inc! saying that Microsoft might be willing to offer "significant financing" for their efforts, tech news site Recode reported on Thursday.

However, Microsoft has not made commitments so far to investors, and any discussions are exploratory, Recode reported, citing unnamed sources. Microsoft's move is an attempt to ensure a good relationship with Yahoo's buyer, the website reported. Yahoo launched an auction of its core business in February after it shelved plans to spin off its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd . In an interview with Reuters in February, Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer said the company will entertain offers as they come but its first priority is a turnaround plan.

Yahoo faces increasing pressure from shareholders and investors to sell its core business instead of going through a spinoff that would separate the company from its multibillion-dollar stakes in Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP on Thursday said it would nominate nine candidates for the board in an attempt to overthrow the entire board of Yahoo including its chief executive.

Starboard has been pushing for changes at Yahoo since 2014 and owns about 1.7 percent of the company. Microsoft's partnerships and acquisition strategy head Peggy Johnson is also part of the effort to finance a possible Yahoo buyer, Recode said. Microsoft, which made a hostile bid to buy Yahoo in 2008, had no interest in making a more significant bid, but others do, Recode said. Yahoo and Microsoft declined to comment.

Microsoft told potential Yahoo bidders it might back bids: report

See also:

Starboard launches proxy fight to remove entire Yahoo board
Thu Mar 24, 2016 - Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP moved on Thursday to overthrow the entire board of Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O), including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who has struggled to turn around the company in her nearly four years at the helm.

Starboard, which has been pushing for changes at Yahoo since 2014 and owns about 1.7 percent of the company, said it would nominate nine candidates for the board. The proxy fight comes as Yahoo is pressing ahead with an auction of its core Internet business, which includes search, mail and news sites. The faded Internet pioneer has been struggling to keep up with Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google and Facebook Inc (FB.O) in the battle for online advertisers. Yahoo said in a statement it will review Starboard's nominees and respond in due course.

Yahoo and Starboard could still come to an agreement before the company's annual meeting, expected to be in late June. If they cannot avoid a proxy fight and the Yahoo board election is taken to a shareholder vote, attention will swing to the large mutual and index funds that own the stock and will carry heavy weight in the final tally. "We think everyone getting into the stock over the past six months, and most of those easing their way out, will all side with Starboard," said Don Bilson, head of event-driven research at Gordon Haskett, an independent research firm.

BlackRock Inc (BLK.N), Vanguard Group, State Street Corp (STT.N) and Fidelity Investments own a combined 16.2 percent of Yahoo shares, according to Thomson Reuters data, with Goldman Sachs owning another 4.2 percent. Yahoo co-founder David Filo - one of the board members Starboard wants to remove - is the company's largest shareholder with a 7.5-percent stake.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Microsoft tryin' to gobble up Yahoo...

Microsoft meets with private equity over Yahoo deal
Sat Mar 26, 2016 - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) executives are in early talks with potential Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) investors about contributing to financing to buy the troubled Internet company, a person familiar with the situation said.

The talks are preliminary, the person added, and Microsoft is focused on preserving the relationship between the two companies. Microsoft and Yahoo have longstanding search and advertising agreements. Private equity firms interested in Yahoo approached Microsoft, the person added. Microsoft declined to comment.

Yahoo is auctioning its core Internet business, which includes search, mail and news sites. The faded Internet pioneer has been struggling to keep up with Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc in the battle for online advertisers. Verizon's Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said in December that the U.S. wireless carrier could look at buying Yahoo's core business if it was a good fit.

Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP moved on Thursday to overthrow the entire board of Yahoo, including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who has struggled to turn the company around in her nearly four years at the helm. Microsoft's interest in Yahoo comes nearly a decade after another approach. In 2008, then-CEO Steve Ballmer tried unsuccessfully to buy Yahoo for about $45 billion. Website Re/code previously reported meetings between Microsoft and investors.

Microsoft meets with private equity over Yahoo deal

 

[anotherlife]

What happened to the good old America Online after time warmer decided to finance it? I guess this consolidating away yahoo, will leave us with just one search provider, Google, could as well just be a government service after that, or worse.

 

[waltky]

Looks like Yahoo wants to sell...

Yahoo extends deadline for bids by a week: Re/code
Fri Apr 8, 2016 - Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) has extended the deadline to bid for its businesses by a week to April 18, technology news website Re/code reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Yahoo, whose shares were up 1.7 percent in early trading, had set an April 11 deadline for preliminary bids, which could yield a deal by June or July, the Wall Street Journal had reported. Yahoo has launched an auction of its core Internet business, which includes search, mail and news sites, after abandoning its plan to spin-off its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N). The company has been struggling to keep up with Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google unit and Facebook Inc (FB.O) in the battle for online advertisers.

Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) is ready to make a bid for Yahoo's Web business, and hopes to make a merger more successful by also making an offer for a stake in Yahoo Japan Corp (4689.T), Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Google is also mulling a bid for Yahoo's core business, Bloomberg reported, citing a source. However, Re/code's Kara Swisher said that a Google bid was "highly unlikely."

Yahoo is also under pressure from activist investor Starboard Value LP which moved to overthrow the entire board of the company, including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, last month. Yahoo spokeswoman Rebecca Neufeld said the company had no comment. Yahoo shares, which have risen about 9 percent since the beginning of the year, were up 1.4 percent at $36.67 in early trading.

Yahoo extends deadline for bids by a week: Re/code

See also:

Yahoo worth more than market cap suggests - Max Wolff
Friday, April 08, 2016 - VIDEO

 

[waltky]

Why would anyone want to buy Yahoo?...

Yahoo: Why would Daily Mail or anyone else buy net firm?
Mon, 11 Apr 2016 - The Daily Mail's owner says it is considering a bid for Yahoo - but why would anyone want to buy the tech giant?

Recently, there have been more stories about Yahoo shutting bits of its business than celebrating successes. The firm's own internet services are now valued to be worth a fraction of its stake in the e-commerce giant Alibaba. So, after the US tax authorities effectively blocked Yahoo's sales of shares in the Chinese business, chief executive Marissa Mayer opted for plan B: sell off Yahoo's core business. Since February, dozens of US-based companies have been linked to a potential bid. But the UK-based owner of the Daily Mail newspaper has now confirmed it is in discussions with unnamed parties to make an offer - an announcement that caught many by surprise.

Does anyone use Yahoo anymore?

In much of the world, Yahoo may be considered a marginal internet brand. But in the US, it is still a force to be reckoned with. In February, it was the States' third most visited online platform, attracting more than 204 million people, according to research firm Comscore. To put that in context, Facebook had only 1% more users and Google's apps and websites only 17% more. Yahoo's news and sports are read by about one in four people at least once a week in the country, according to a University of Oxford study.

And there are reports that its personal finance coverage is proving popular with millennials - those born in the 1980s and later - thanks to it mixing articles about how to deal with debt with more traditional earnings coverage. Other properties, including its blogging platform Tumblr, photo-sharing service Flickr, web-based email accounts and Q&A site Yahoo Answers continue to have international appeal. All of which means the firm can state that "more than one billion people" regularly use its products.

So, why not continue as it is?

Investors are getting restless because Yahoo's share of users doesn't match its share of online advertising sales. Last year, Yahoo accounted for only 1.5% of marketers' online spend, according to a study by eMarketer. By contrast, Google scooped up 35% and Facebook 19%. Furthermore, Yahoo's position appears to be getting worse. The firm has predicted that its overall revenues will drop by about 15% this year, according to documents seen by the news site Recode.

Why isn't it doing better?

 

[waltky]

Yahoo revenues and profits fall...

Yahoo revenues fall again as internet firm reviews bid options
Tue, 19 Apr 2016 - Yahoo reports a fall in revenues and profits for the first three months of 2016, as the company reviews offers from potential bidders.

Yahoo has reported a $99m (£69m) quarterly loss, compared to a $21.2m profit for the period last year, as it reviews offers from potential bidders. The internet firm also saw revenues fall 11.6% to $1.08bn in the January-March period from the quarter in 2015.

But the revenue fall was better than analysts' forecast, and Yahoo's shares rose in after-hours trading on Wall Street. In February, Yahoo said it was looking for buyers for its core internet arm. The deadline for potential bids was Monday.

Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer​

In a statement Yahoo's chief executive Marissa Mayer said: "Our 2016 plan is off to a solid start as we continue to focus on driving efficiency, lowering costs, and improving long-term growth. "In tandem, we made substantial progress towards potential strategic alternatives for Yahoo." Verizon, YP Holdings - formerly Yellowpages.com - and private equity firm TGP have all expressed an interest. And the owner of the UK's Daily Mail newspaper is also considering a bid in partnership with other parties.


Continuing to struggle

Over the last few years Yahoo has struggled to keep up with the changing internet advertising landscape, with some analysts arguing that it has failed to remain relevant in many of its core markets. Investors have been disappointed with Ms Mayer's inability to secure a turnaround for internet firm. Activist investor Starboard Value has proposed replacing Yahoo's entire board of directors.

Yahoo announced that it was looking for potential buyers for its core businesses after plans to sell its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba fell through. Despite the fall in revenues, the figures were well received by investors and Yahoo's shares rose 1% in extended trading. "Given all the challenges Yahoo has faced with the reduction of its workforce and the Alibaba spinoff plan, to come in and deliver these numbers is a very positive thing," JMP Securities analyst Ronald Josey said.

Yahoo revenues fall again as internet firm reviews bid options - BBC News

 

[TheOldSchool]

Yahoo sucks. I don't know why anyone would want to buy it.

 

[Gracie]

I still use AOL for my mail, but nothing else. I go to yahoo for mail too, but nothing else.

 

[waltky]

Yahoo chief's $55m severance package...

Yahoo chief's $55m severance package revealed
Mon, 02 May 2016 - Yahoo boss Marissa Mayer will get $54.9m (£37.4m) in severance pay if she loses her job when the troubled internet firm is sold.

Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer will receive $54.9m (£37.4m) in severance pay if she loses her job in the sale of the troubled internet firm. In February, the internet company announced it was offering its core business for sale, after several years of falling advertising sales.

She has attempted to turn the company's fortunes around with a mobile-first strategy since 2012. But critics say she has failed to stem the decline. A filing to the US Securities and Exchanges Commission says Ms Mayer will receive a package of cash, stock and other benefits if she is removed as chief executive within a year of any sale.

No payout

The internet media company's fortunes have changed drastically in the past decade, with sales falling from $7.2bn in 2008 to $4.6bn last year. Ms Mayer received $36m in compensation last year, compared to $42.1m in 2014. Other executives will also receive big severance packages in the event of of a sale. The company's chief financial officer, Ken Goldman, would receive more than $16.1m, and chief revenue officer Lisa Utzschneider would net $19.9m. "I don't think this management team has done anything to merit a huge payout," Eric Jackson, managing director of SpringOwl Asset Management - a Yahoo shareholder - told the Associated Press.

A large part of the internet company's $32bn value is attributed to its shareholding in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant. It also owns the online blogging platform Tumblr and photo-sharing site Flickr. Companies including US communications giant Verizon and the UK-based owner of the Daily Mail newspaper have been linked to the sale of Yahoo, and analysts believe a deal could be agreed this year.

Yahoo chief's $55m severance package revealed - BBC News

 

[waltky]

Verizon buys Yahoo...

Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon
Mon, 25 Jul 2016 - US internet firm Yahoo will be sold to American telecoms giant Verizon Communications for $5bn (£3.8bn) in cash.

Yahoo will be combined with AOL, another faded internet star, which Verizon bought last year. The deal does not include Yahoo's valuable stake in Chinese firm Alibaba. The price tag for the deal is well below the $44bn Microsoft offered for Yahoo in 2008 or the $125bn it was worth during the dot.com boom. Verizon said the deal for Yahoo's core internet business, which has more than a billion active users a month, would make it a global mobile media company.

Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo, said: "Yahoo is a company that has changed the world, and will continue to do so through this combination with Verizon and AOL." In an email to staff, Ms Mayer said she was "planning to stay", adding: "I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It's important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter." However, the takeover, which is due to be completed in early 2017, raises questions about whether the Yahoo brand could disappear. "That's the big open-ended question: what are they going to do with the brands?" said Michael Goodman, a director at Strategy Analytics.

Analysis: New York business correspondent Michelle Fleury

While this is a sad day for Yahoo - as big as Facebook and Google in its prime - it raises interesting questions about its new owner. What are Verizon's ambitions? Beyond the talk of becoming a global media company, Verizon chief executive Lowell McAdams wants a larger share of the booming digital advertising pie. And he thinks this deal will help him. As a leading US mobile phone network, Verizon already had a wealth of data from smartphone users that it could mine.

Its purchase of AOL a year ago for its programmatic advertising technology allowed it to leverage that more effectively. Yahoo, meanwhile, has struggled to build its mobile advertising business. Its appeal is that it has content. With Yahoo, Verizon gains the internet company's 600 million monthly active mobile users, as well as its email service, Yahoo Finance, and Tumblr, which is popular among millennials. So is Verizon ready to take on the likes of Google and Facebook? In 2015, these two tech behemoths claimed the largest share of the digital ad market. Whether or not Verizon can challenge that remains to be seen - but that's certainly the idea.

Brands

 

[waltky]

Lack of direction lead to Yahoo's demise...

The identity crisis that led to Yahoo's demise
July 26, 2016 - When senior Yahoo executives gathered at a San Jose hotel for a management retreat in the spring of 2006, there was no outward sign of a company in crisis.

The internet pioneer, not yet a teenager, had just finished the prior year with $1.9 billion in profits on $5.3 billion in revenue. The tough days of the dot-com bust were a distant memory, and Yahoo Inc, flush with lucrative advertising deals from the world's biggest brands, was enjoying its run as one of the top dogs in the world's hottest industry. But for one retreat exercise, everyone was asked to say what word came to mind when a company name was mentioned. They went through the list: eBay: auctions. Google: search. Intel: microprocessors. Microsoft: Windows.

Then they were asked to write down their answer for Yahoo. "It was all over the map," recalled Brad Garlinghouse, then a Yahoo senior vice president and now COO of payment settlement start-up Ripple Labs. "Some people said mail. Some people said news. Some people said search." While some executives said this was a useful management exercise that took place multiple times over the years, it proved an ominous portent of the business troubles to come. Indeed, the demise of Yahoo, which culminated in an agreement this week to sell the company's core assets to Verizon Communications Inc, has been more than a decade in the making. Many of the more than two dozen former Yahoo managers interviewed by Reuters over the past two weeks -- who now occupy executives suites elsewhere in Silicon Valley -- agree that the company's downfall can be traced to choices made by both the executive leadership and the board of directors during the company's heyday in the mid-2000s.

A combination photo of Yahoo logo in Rolle Switzerland and a Verizon sign in San Diego California​

Some of the missed opportunities are obvious: a failed bid to buy Facebook Inc for $1 billion in 2006. A 2002 dalliance with Google similarly came to naught. A chance to acquire YouTube came and went. Skype was snapped up by eBay Inc. And Microsoft Corp's nearly $45 billion takeover bid for all of Yahoo in 2008 was blocked by Yahoo's leadership. Just as damaging as the missed deals, though, was a company culture that ultimately became too bureaucratic and too focused on traditional brand advertising to prosper in a fast-moving tech business, according to some of the former Yahoo managers Reuters spoke with. "It became very difficult to get both investment and alignment" around new product initiatives, said Greg Cohn, a former senior product director at Yahoo and now CEO of the mobile phone app company Burner. "If you built a new product and the home page didn't want to feature it, you were hosed."

Worst of all, once Alphabet Inc's Google had displaced it as peoples' first stop for finding something on the internet, Yahoo was never able to decide on exactly what it wanted to be. Yahoo today has more than 1 billion users and has focused on mobile under chief executive Marissa Mayer, who told Reuters in an interview Monday that she still saw a "path to growth" for Yahoo, which the Verizon merger accelerated. Yahoo will continue to operate as a holding company for its large stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, which are worth far more than the core business. Yahoo declined to comment for this story.

THE PURPLE CARPET

 

[Rocko]

Verizon buys Yahoo...

Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon
Mon, 25 Jul 2016 - US internet firm Yahoo will be sold to American telecoms giant Verizon Communications for $5bn (£3.8bn) in cash.

Yahoo will be combined with AOL, another faded internet star, which Verizon bought last year. The deal does not include Yahoo's valuable stake in Chinese firm Alibaba. The price tag for the deal is well below the $44bn Microsoft offered for Yahoo in 2008 or the $125bn it was worth during the dot.com boom. Verizon said the deal for Yahoo's core internet business, which has more than a billion active users a month, would make it a global mobile media company.

Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo, said: "Yahoo is a company that has changed the world, and will continue to do so through this combination with Verizon and AOL." In an email to staff, Ms Mayer said she was "planning to stay", adding: "I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It's important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter." However, the takeover, which is due to be completed in early 2017, raises questions about whether the Yahoo brand could disappear. "That's the big open-ended question: what are they going to do with the brands?" said Michael Goodman, a director at Strategy Analytics.

Analysis: New York business correspondent Michelle Fleury

While this is a sad day for Yahoo - as big as Facebook and Google in its prime - it raises interesting questions about its new owner. What are Verizon's ambitions? Beyond the talk of becoming a global media company, Verizon chief executive Lowell McAdams wants a larger share of the booming digital advertising pie. And he thinks this deal will help him. As a leading US mobile phone network, Verizon already had a wealth of data from smartphone users that it could mine.

Its purchase of AOL a year ago for its programmatic advertising technology allowed it to leverage that more effectively. Yahoo, meanwhile, has struggled to build its mobile advertising business. Its appeal is that it has content. With Yahoo, Verizon gains the internet company's 600 million monthly active mobile users, as well as its email service, Yahoo Finance, and Tumblr, which is popular among millennials. So is Verizon ready to take on the likes of Google and Facebook? In 2015, these two tech behemoths claimed the largest share of the digital ad market. Whether or not Verizon can challenge that remains to be seen - but that's certainly the idea.

Brands

They should have sold way back when Jerry Yang was running the company.

 

[yiostheoy]

Yahoo has been down and out for a long time.

Acquisition is the only solution.

 

[waltky]

Yahoo to be re-named Altaba after Verizon deal...

Yahoo to be named Altaba, Mayer to leave board after Verizon deal
Mon Jan 9, 2017 | Yahoo Inc said Monday that it would rename itself Altaba Inc and Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer would step down from the board after the closing of its deal with Verizon Communications Inc

Yahoo has a deal to sell its core internet business, which includes its digital advertising, email and media assets, to Verizon for $4.83 billion. The terms of that deal could be amended - or the transaction may even be called off - after Yahoo last year disclosed two separate data breaches; one involving some 500 million customer accounts and the second involving over a billion.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer delivers her keynote address at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada​

Verizon executives have said that while they see a strong strategic fit with Yahoo, they are still investigating the data breaches. Five other Yahoo directors would also resign after the deal closes, Yahoo said in a regulatory filing on Monday. (bit.ly/2iXrbwn)

Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo, participates in a panel discussion at the 2015 Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco, California​

The remaining directors will govern Altaba, a holding company whose primary assets will be a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) and 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo Japan. The new company also named Eric Brandt chairman of the board, effective Jan. 9.

Yahoo to be named Altaba, Mayer to leave board after Verizon deal