[mfairbank]

The competing activist investor hedge fund Spring Owl released a plan [0] in December with its vision to turn Yahoo! around and achieve a stock price of $113 (currently $35). The basic gist is to focus on Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, kill most everything else, and handle the Alibaba tax situation (ha, as if they haven't already been trying to do that). Things could get really interesting if multiple activists are fighting for board seats over competing visions for the company.

[0]: http://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/yahoopresentat...

[dave_sullivan]

For anyone interested in reading about a scenario like this, the book "barbarians at the gate" is very good.

Here's a question: all these big old companies are in the market for startups that they can buy to fix their business. Why not buy the big old company instead, build the product there, and keep more of the value generated? I think we'll see much more of this over the next few years: PE going after old guard tech cos like yahoo (or amd) OR going after old guard non-tech and automating everything.

[bradleyjg]

I wonder how much money Yahoo spend on lobbying and political campaigns. As a citizen I'm not a fan, but the single best thing the company can achieve for its shareholders is giving them access to alibaba shares without a hefty tax bill.

[gcb0]

not really. they bought shares that didn't offer dividends. what they SHOULD do is to sell all that now while high and invest back in the business.

with that money they can buy whatever premium content they want, give it free, and get more money back in ads. they can became the broadcast behemoth of the streaming era or whatever. (fun fact, they paid billions for broadcast.com)

yeah, the company will probably burn that money and achieve nothing... but well, sell your shares for something else you believe then.