
Starboard asks Yahoo to sell core business instead of Alibaba stake - mauriziodaniele
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/19/us-yahoo-spinoff-idUSKCN0T81SQ20151119#1SutuTK8RB6WpWU7.97
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pm24601
Why should any company listen to "shareholders"?

Shareholders don't think long-term.

Shareholders prefer the immediate cash out gratification.

Warren Buffett does not listen to shareholders for the same reason. They are
not thinking about the business.

Unfortunately, too many CEOs think the same way -- immediate cash out, screw
the long-term growth.

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calbear81
The most basic answer is that the "shareholders" are the owners of the
business. Shareholders do think "long-term" in the sense that they believe
their capital could achieve better returns in other areas and hence the desire
to "cash out".

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pm24601
They are welcome to sell their shares anytime. Being a shareholder does not
mean that a shareholder runs the business. A shareholder can sell their shares
or vote for a different board. That is it.

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fredkbloggs
I'm not sure why either Starboard or the reporter thinks this is newsworthy.
After you read the background, at the very end of the article you come to this
little nugget of obviousity that every reader was waiting for: "Many analysts
attribute little or no value to the business ..." Yeah, exactly. Yahoo!'s
operating entity is totally and utterly worthless. No one would buy it. It's
not even clear that you could construct a transaction in which Yahoo!'s
current shareholders pay someone to take it off their hands.

The sad fact is that for most Yahoo! shareholders, the best deal on offer is
going to be giving the US government 35% of the value of those foreign
holdings and then selling their stock in what's left for $0. Starboard is just
wriggling on the hook and looking for ways to avoid booking the inevitable
massive loss on this holding. The IRS knows this and their private letter
ruling denial is just them playing hardball. It's not right or fair, but if
the IRS were a business partner, it's exactly what you'd expect.

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hapless
Reuters cites no sources for the "little or no value." It could be made up
from whole cloth. "Some people say" isn't journalism.

Starboard's own analysts assign a value around $2 billion.

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jbob2000
That value could just be in assets, like hardware and office space. The Yahoo!
product offering is what's worth "little or no value". They have 0 products
that are number 1 in any market. They have no vision, no big projects, no R&D,
and the only time I hear about Yahoo is when someone is wondering why they're
still around.

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Retric
Yahoo! makes actual money. Step away from the meaningless stats and realize
being a top 5 global website for the last decade take execution beyond most
'unicorn' startups.

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jbob2000
Sure they make money, but so do chinese knock-offs. That's what Yahoo is, a
cheap rip-off of better internet services. They do search, but google is
better. They do email, but outlook and gmail is better. They do ads, but
facebook and google are better. They do news, but there's no money in that
given the ridiculous number of companies in the news space.

Seriously, go to yahoo.com and try and figure out what this company is about.
It's just a portal with all sorts of links to other garbage. It's a remnant of
90s internet. Yahoo tried to revamp their mail solution a year ago and their
users threw a huge fit because "it's different and I don't like change!".
That's the only thing keeping them running; a contingent of luddite users.

If Yahoo's users leave, they're done. You can't say the same for Google,
they're now expanding into automobiles. And Facebook is moving into video
games. These are companies with vision and an outlook for the future. Where is
that for Yahoo? It's not enough just to make money any more.

