4 ms·

Shareholders did great holding onto Yahoo! stock, as it’s Alibaba holdings would perform magnificently.

by hkmurakami 5y ago

jsight 5y ago
I could be wrong, but I don't think that was enough to push it back above the 44.6B valuation.
- oefrha 5y ago
  Yahoo used to have a 15% stake in Alibaba. Alibaba’s market cap today is ~643B according to (ironically) Yahoo Finance. Edit: Apparently they used to hold 30%, but sold half of that for peanuts in 2012.
  - mbesto 5y ago
    Also, IIRC, Yahoo Japan is basically another entity and way bigger than all of Yahoo global, in which Yahoo had a stake in as well.
  - 1024core 5y ago
    Jack Ma refused to take Alibaba public until Yahoo sold half of its stake back to him (for peanuts). Carol Bartz really screwed Yahoo over in its dealing with Alibaba. Yahoo had 2 seats on the 5-seat board of directors and Bartz couldn't be bothered to appoint directors to those. When she became CEO, Jack came to meet her and she dressed him down in front of his underlings: a big slap in the face to Jack. These two incidents made sure that he was as uncooperative as could be. He took Alipay out from under Yahoo and never informed Bartz. Whatever you may say about Marissa Mayer, when she became CEO her first priority was to fix the broken relationship between Alibaba and Yahoo. She smoothed things over, and Jack let Yahoo keep the 15% stake, instead of asking for all of it back. She made Yahoo many billions with her moves.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  The Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes Yahoo got were selling half of Alibaba stake for $8B in 2012 and $40B remaining in 2019. They sold Yahoo Japan shares for $4B in 2019. Microsoft would have had no need to sell the 2012 stake at the time. They could have possibly doubled their money.
  - jsight 5y ago
    Oh, certainly if YHOO or MSFT had retained the Alibaba stake it would have been worth it. It looks like YHOO shares never went back above $45B, though: https://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-market-cap-over-time-2016-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-market-cap-over-time-2...
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      The market was not valuing Yahoo fairly for most of its life as Yahoo for the company name after this. So when Yahoo’s remains changed to Altaba after selling that $4.5B Yahoo namesake and Yahoo Japan for $4B+ soon after, it was still a nearly $40B market cap company. Almost all of it being 16% of Alibaba.

Shareholders did great holding onto Yahoo! stock, as it’s Alibaba holdings would perform magnificently.

jsight 5y ago

I could be wrong, but I don't think that was enough to push it back above the 44.6B valuation.

oefrha 5y ago
Yahoo used to have a 15% stake in Alibaba. Alibaba’s market cap today is ~643B according to (ironically) Yahoo Finance. Edit: Apparently they used to hold 30%, but sold half of that for peanuts in 2012.
- mbesto 5y ago
  Also, IIRC, Yahoo Japan is basically another entity and way bigger than all of Yahoo global, in which Yahoo had a stake in as well.
- 1024core 5y ago
  Jack Ma refused to take Alibaba public until Yahoo sold half of its stake back to him (for peanuts). Carol Bartz really screwed Yahoo over in its dealing with Alibaba. Yahoo had 2 seats on the 5-seat board of directors and Bartz couldn't be bothered to appoint directors to those. When she became CEO, Jack came to meet her and she dressed him down in front of his underlings: a big slap in the face to Jack. These two incidents made sure that he was as uncooperative as could be. He took Alipay out from under Yahoo and never informed Bartz. Whatever you may say about Marissa Mayer, when she became CEO her first priority was to fix the broken relationship between Alibaba and Yahoo. She smoothed things over, and Jack let Yahoo keep the 15% stake, instead of asking for all of it back. She made Yahoo many billions with her moves.
skinnymuch 5y ago
The Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes Yahoo got were selling half of Alibaba stake for $8B in 2012 and $40B remaining in 2019. They sold Yahoo Japan shares for $4B in 2019. Microsoft would have had no need to sell the 2012 stake at the time. They could have possibly doubled their money.
- jsight 5y ago
  Oh, certainly if YHOO or MSFT had retained the Alibaba stake it would have been worth it. It looks like YHOO shares never went back above $45B, though: https://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-market-cap-over-time-2016-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-market-cap-over-time-2...
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    The market was not valuing Yahoo fairly for most of its life as Yahoo for the company name after this. So when Yahoo’s remains changed to Altaba after selling that $4.5B Yahoo namesake and Yahoo Japan for $4B+ soon after, it was still a nearly $40B market cap company. Almost all of it being 16% of Alibaba.