Yahoo will make a lot of money off the Alibaba IPO
Alibaba—the huge and profitable Chinese e-commerce site—debuts on the U.S. stock market under the ticker symbol “BABA” on September 19, with an initial public offering expected to price at $66-$68 per share. That would deliver proceeds of approximately $25 billion, making Alibaba the world’s biggest IPO ever.
A principal beneficiary of the IPO is Yahoo, which owns 22.4 percent of Alibaba, and is now divesting of a portion of that holding. After taxes, Yahoo will likely net in excess of $6 billion. The company has indicated that roughly half of that will go back to shareholders in the form of dividends, said internet equity analyst Scott Kessler at S&P Capital IQ.
But, given that Yahoo has had virtually no growth in years, Kessler thinks the company should use some of its windfall to make a bigger splash in the market.
“To significantly move the needle in terms of how people think about Yahoo and how it’s positioned,” said Kessler, “we think a bigger, bolder strategy makes sense.”
Kessler suggested Yahoo could make additional billion-dollar-plus acquisitions, as it did last year with Tumblr, especially in the fast-growing mobile market. Yahoo’s recent acquisitions have mostly been smaller deals designed primarily to scoop up engineering talent from promising startups.
Technology analyst Carl Howe at 451 Research said Yahoo might buy up more Chinese internet companies as it divests of some of its Alibaba stake. He also expects a strong push into the mobile-payments market. Howe added that the company might also invest more to compete for eyeballs and online ads with rivals Google and Facebook.
“Buy into some sort of big content deal with another source of traffic—for example, Netflix or HBO—boosting business by driving more traffic,” Howe said.
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