Yahoo Continues to Fight Asset Sell-Off [Report] - The UpStream

Over the past few months, the future of Yahoo has been a big question. The board of directors has been entertaining the idea of spinning off several aspects of the company. At one point they considered divesting their ownership in Alibaba.com, the Chinese Amazon. More recently, however, the board has decided that Alibaba should stay and Yahoo's core businesses should go.

Included in the current spin-off consideration are the display advertising business, which mostly serves Yahoo's other core businesses, such as news, sports and mail, as well as the Internet business itself. Spinning off the core business could be financially positive to the corporation, as it would be done tax free. On the other hand, the move could take upwards of a year, just ask HP.

Some of the investors, including notoriously loud investor Starboard Value LP, has advocated for an outright sale instead of spinoff. They believe that the faster turnaround and cash injection could help get the company going down whatever path it is they have planned. For now, however, the board is not entertaining this idea. That is, they are not entertaining it this week.

On February 2nd, the company will release its quarterly earnings report. Depending on the reaction to the numbers and, more importantly, the announced plans for the future, the board may take the investors' idea into consideration. It could be a good time to consider it, too, as people close to the situation have said the company has been approached several times about such a sale. Yahoo has not commented on these rumors.