If BABA keeps declining in value, you'll reach a point where in hindsight it'll be obvious that Yahoo should have just sold the holdings, taken the tax hit, and

If BABA keeps declining in value, you'll reach a point where in hindsight it'll be obvious that Yahoo should have just sold the holdings, taken the tax hit, and distributed the money to shareholders. And that's a crap situation to be in, because you'll have armchair pundits calling out the company for not doing it. If BABA stays in value or goes up, then selling off the core is the best option, except it's hard, it has all sorts of complications, it takes a lot more time than someone just buying the entire company, which makes it harder to find buyers, and you might not get as good as price as you could if you sold the entire thing. Either way, you are making a huge bet on the future value of BABA, and you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.