Yahoo prepares for split, will lay off 15% of workforce in restructuring

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
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Internet search, content pioneer and Apple partner Yahoo is readying for either a reverse spinoff or outright sale that would see the well-known web businesses separated from the parent company and more than 1,000 employees laid off.




Company officials indicated that while they are moving forward with the expectation that Yahoo's web properties will exist as an independent entity, the board of directors would entertain offers to purchase the core assets. Disney, Verizon, and AT&T have all at various times expressed interest in acquiring Yahoo should it put itself up for sale, and private equity firms are likely to make a play for the seminal web portal as well.

As part of the realignment, Yahoo will close five offices in Dubai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Milan.

Following the split, Yahoo's huge stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba -- which has largely propped up Yahoo's stock price for the last three years -- will remain with the original company. An earlier plan to spin off the Alibaba stake instead was rejected by the IRS.

In the immediate future, Yahoo will be "focused on discovering, being the digital information guide that we've always been, and really thinking through how can we inform, connect and entertain our users," chief executive Marissa Mayer said during a CNBC interview.

She plans to reorganize Yahoo around three core platforms in search, mail, and Tumblr. Each of those platforms will be used to pitch one of four primary verticals -- news, sports, finance, and lifestyle -- on a region-by-region basis.

Yahoo remains an Apple partner, and that status is likely to be unaffected by the restructuring. The company currently provides data for the iOS Stocks app and is available as a search option in Safari, though Mayer failed in earlier attempts to outbid Google for the default placement.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 35
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,064member
    Funny - I accidentally clicked on a link to a yahoo page once a few years ago. Had no idea they still existed.

    And they had a 1000 employees? Really?
    jbdragon
  • Reply 2 of 35
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Finally. I personally would also rename the company Tumblr, or anything else.
    edited February 2016
  • Reply 3 of 35
    emoelleremoeller Posts: 574member
    I remember the Yahoo Super Bowl ads when they were in growth mode.   I guess its too late to try those again...
    steviecornchip
  • Reply 4 of 35
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,093member
    I remember the years when working for Yahoo was the equivalent of working today at Google, Facebook, or Apple.  

    My my, how Yahoo has fallen from grace.  I kind of had hopes for Marissa Mayer to turn it around, but all she ended up being was just some fashionable face, more concerned about looks than actually doing something.  What a shame.

    Yahoo is a (yet another) classic example of what happens when you get too complacent, then sit back and watch the world pass you by.
    1983jbdragonanantksundaramcornchip
  • Reply 5 of 35
    lord amhranlord amhran Posts: 902member
    How does Marissa Mayer still have a job at this point?
    anantksundaramcornchip
  • Reply 6 of 35
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    lord amhran said:
    How does Marissa Mayer still have a job at this point?
    What would you do to save Yahoo!?
    afrodrianonconformist
  • Reply 7 of 35
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    ireland said:
    How does Marissa Mayer still have a job at this point?
    What would you do to save Yahoo!?
    Actually, by the numbers, the only valuable (moneymaking) part of Yahoo are their Alibaba stocks they bought years ago. It's been said that they need to basically divest themselves of everything except for that stock and just become a holding company. I tend to agree. There's no point in Mayer continuing to allow Yahoo to lose money and they'll probably sell off their online assets/liabilities in short order.
    edited February 2016
  • Reply 8 of 35
    19831983 Posts: 1,225member
    Come on...who still uses Yahoo for search and email anymore! This has been coming for a while now, but its still sad to read about another Internet icon running into such difficulties.
    argonautcornchip
  • Reply 9 of 35
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    sflocal said:

    My my, how Yahoo has fallen from grace.  I kind of had hopes for Marissa Mayer to turn it around, but all she ended up being was just some fashionable face, more concerned about looks than actually doing something.  What a shame.

    wait - unless you work with her, how do you know she's just a face concerned with looks? because she's pretty? that's pretty judgmental. changing a giant company is hard. none of HP's string of CEOs have done it -- did you claim they were just about looks. too? why not?
    edited February 2016 argonautronnmwhitesteviecornchipcalibestkeptsecret
  • Reply 10 of 35
    buckalecbuckalec Posts: 203member
    Sadly thanks to the resolving CEO door at Yahoo (from Hollywood types to engineers) they lost focus and soul - allowing the Mind Police beginning with G to clean up and create a unmatched monopoly (with a little governmental lobbying help). When Mayer's went UPPER case and used a crappy optima style font, the game was up and the last dying murmurs of a great brand where exhaled.
  • Reply 11 of 35
    charlesatlascharlesatlas Posts: 398member
    What ticks me off is that Mayer is the one that screwed up Flickr, and now they've announced that they're going to reduce their investment in it. Just spin it off and let someone who knows what they're doing fix it.
    boriscleto
  • Reply 12 of 35
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    [quote]
    In the immediate future, Yahoo will be "focused on discovering, being the digital information guide that we've always been, and really thinking through how can we inform, connect and entertain our users,"
    [/quote]

    I've read that about six times, and all I'm seeing is "We're not really sure what we're going to do next."
  • Reply 13 of 35
    williamhwilliamh Posts: 1,033member
    ireland said:
    lord amhran said:
    How does Marissa Mayer still have a job at this point?
    What would you do to save Yahoo!?
    I agree with SpamSandwich. Divest.  As per the immortal wisdom of Michael Dell, they should liquidate and give the shareholders the proceeds.  There is nothing there worth saving.  They got rid of 15% of the employees, that leaves 85% to go.  The longer they continue, the more of the shareholder's wealth they will burn through.

    The fact that we don't use Yahoo isn't exactly a failure of Yahoo's, it's just that their "directory" is an anachronism from the time before search engines.  How many things have to go wrong in the world for us to go back to that?  
    SpamSandwichcornchip
  • Reply 14 of 35
    ronnronn Posts: 653member
    They're trying to do too many things at once. Focus, focus, focus. I would concentrate on original content, Tumblr and Flickr. Have them operate independently, with the goal of obtaining smaller companies to make this core better and bigger without too much interference from Mayer and the board. The Alibaba stake can support them for several years to come.
    cornchipcali
  • Reply 15 of 35
    bdkennedy1002bdkennedy1002 Posts: 543member
    But I thought changing the logo was supposed to fix all of their problems? I don't even know what they do anymore.
    cornchip
  • Reply 16 of 35
    boriscletoboriscleto Posts: 159member
    Please sell off Flickr to someone who knows what to do with it...
  • Reply 17 of 35
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    ronn said:
    They're trying to do too many things at once. Focus, focus, focus. I would concentrate on original content, Tumblr and Flickr. Have them operate independently, with the goal of obtaining smaller companies to make this core better and bigger without too much interference from Mayer and the board. The Alibaba stake can support them for several years to come.
    None of those things are making them money. Only their Alibaba holdings are worth anything. If Mayer has seriously looked at their bottom line and if there is anyone with half a brain on their board of directors they will move to quickly sell off all of their non-performing components.
    edited February 2016
  • Reply 18 of 35
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
    ireland said:
    Finally. I personally would also rename the company Tumblr, or anything else.
    How about akebono.stanford.edu?
  • Reply 19 of 35
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    volcan said:
    ireland said:
    Finally. I personally would also rename the company Tumblr, or anything else.
    How about akebono.stanford.edu?
    How about just keep the name Yahoo? Some other notable holding companies are Berkshire Hathaway, Icahn Enterprises and Grupo Carso (Carlos "Slim" Helu's company).
    cali
  • Reply 20 of 35
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
    volcan said:
    How about akebono.stanford.edu?
    How about just keep the name Yahoo? 
    Sorry for the obscure reference. Perhaps Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web or Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.

    Actually the name of the company is Yahoo! with an exclamation point which was added to get around a trademark conflict.
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