this is more of a brainstorming thread. YHOO wants to give most of the proceeds from Alibaba stake to its shareholders. the problem is that they have a massive gain on the investment and therefore they are liable for a significant tax bill. why doesn't YHOO spin off the Alibaba stake now to the current YHOO shareholders? for instance, through a tailored right issue? they could issue rights to buy Alibaba at the specific price in 1 years time (e.g. tailored to cover only their initial investment, i.e. avoiding a capital gains tax). then all the tax problems would shift to individual investors who can presumably handle it better. at the same time the YHOO price would likely rise up (as it would become a better proxy for Alibaba IPO) and YHOO could make a secondary issue of common stock raising some cash they "lost" on Alibaba rights? in fact even this could be handled by the same rights issue - basically keeping all in the house... any thoughts?
I think the real fear is that YHOO management will NOT pass the proceeds through to shareholders. They will blow them on more stupid acquisitions. If Alibaba is as great as everyone claims, why would YHOO want to sell any of their shares? Particularly at the IPO price? Alibaba clearly has a vastly superior business to YHOO, so really, if they are smart, they will look for ways to spin off the exisitng YHOO business and become more of an Alibaba proxy.
agree. i am extremely unimpressed with YHOO's "new" CEO. Marissa Meyer looks like a high class hooker but she is certainly not as smart... last time i saw her speaking she made an impression on me that she likely didn't finish her high school grades. well that's yahoo! i guess.