Yahoo CEO Talks About Alibaba Spinoff
Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, is still determined to go ahead and spin off stakes in Alibaba.
Yahoo Inc. is all set to go on with the move of spinning off Alibaba Group. The CEO of the company, Marissa Mayer recently confirmed plans of doing so and sell company’s stakes in Alibaba. The CEO confirmed it while speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Conference that it is determined to go ahead with this move despite of tax risks. It is believed that the shares of the company increased by 2.3% when this news came out.
Ms. Marissa Mayer stated in the conference, “We’re proceeding with our plan as proposed. It’s based on an understanding of a few key things. I can’t presume to speak for the IRS but given our understanding of that fact pattern, we should proceed with the transaction as planned.” It is known that Yahoo currently holds the second largest stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, after the largest stakeholder, Softbank, which is the Japanese technology organization.
Yahoo now only has 401.8 million shares of the e-commerce giant out of which 16.3% of those are outstanding shares. The company sold the rest when the Chinese corporation publicized the company in September and hold the record of the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the world. “In wake of the successful debut of the e-commerce giant, the Yahoo CEO came under pressure from shareholders to make best use of its Alibaba capital,” as reported by BidnessETC.
Furthermore, Yahoo announced in January to sell its stake in the e-commerce giant and proposed to come up with a new company through its spin off stakes. This was supposed to be a tax-free move, which was appreciated by the Street and Yahoo stocks immediately jumped following this news.
New developments suggested last month that IRS is planning to change its spin off tax laws, which might create problems for the company. This news resulted in a decline of its shares and raised doubt on it to go further with the same plan as it though it will.
When Marissa Mayer reconfirmed about its spin-off plan, the Street saw it positively yet again. Ms. Mayer further added that the company is currently looking for options for its ‘Yahoo Japan’. She stated, “We’re working with our advisers around maximizing the value of Yahoo Japan. Those opportunities, that’s a thing we’ll communicate with our shareholders in the future.”
The present CEO has changed the fate of Yahoo within no time. She was also credited as one the most influential CEOs recently.
