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Struggling internet pioneer, Yahoo is for sale, and bidders have up to April 18 to make their offers.
the company’s CEO Marissa Mayer is looking for a way to navigate it out of troubled waters but the company is entertaining offers from eager buyers.
According to CNN Money, Yahoo is expected to fetch something like $8 billion for its core Internet business.
Among the reported interested bidders are Daily Mail, Time Inc. (TIME Magazine owners), Verizon (Owners Yahoo rival AOL and other media assets), General Atlantic, TPG and KKR. Reports also have it that Google and Microsoft may be interested but may be held back by two factors: Google’s antitrust concerns and Microsoft’s existing relationship with Yahoo – Bing search.
It would be recalled that in 2008, Microsoft had made a $45 billion offer which Yahoo successfully fought off.
CNN Money reports that after April 18, Yahoo will decide whether it likes any of the offers it received. It could enter into an agreement with a potential buyer, or it could turn down all the offers.
If Yahoo enters into a purchase agreement, it will likely be a complicated deal that could take a long time to complete. Yahoo has stakes in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, which likely won’t be part of the sale. Yahoo has been trying to unload Alibaba through a complex reverse-spinoff for months.
How did Yahoo get here?
At its peak in early 2000, Yahoo was worth $255 billion. Yahoo never really recovered from the dot-com bust. After a series of missteps, bad bets and six CEOs over the past nine years, Yahoo is now valued at $34 billion.
But that $34 billion is roughly the value of its stake in its Asian holdings. In other words, the stock market is valuing Yahoo’s core Internet business as completely worthless.
After a promising start as CEO in 2012, Mayer’s free spending on talent, executives and questionable assets like Tumblr — yielding few positive results — have landed her in the hot seat. Mayer has been unable to grow the company’s profit.
Yahoo unveiled a new strategy in February, cutting staff and focusing on its most crucial businesses. But it appears to be too little, too late.