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Yahoo ( YHOO ) has pushed back the deadline for bids on the company by one week, to April 18 rather than this coming Monday, according to media reports. “We’ll see who bids — and, more to the point, who gets passed through to the next round. It’s a little like the ‘Hunger Games,’ except you get to live and then have to overhaul the Silicon Valley Internet giant,” Re/Code wrote Friday. Verizon Communications ( VZ ) is said to be planning to make a first-round bid for Yahoo’s Web business and is also planning to bid for the company’s holdings in Yahoo Japan to help sweeten its offer, Bloomberg said. Google, the main division of Alphabet ( GOOGL ), is also reportedly considering a bid for Yahoo’s core business. One-time potential suitors including AT&T ( ATT ) and Comcast ( CMCSA ) have decided against bidding, the Bloomberg report said. Microsoft ( MSFT ), which failed with a hostile bid for Yahoo in 2008, also won’t bid, according to the report. Time ( TIME ); Japan’s SoftBank ( SFTBY ), the majority owner of Yahoo Japan; and several private equity firms also are kicking the tires, reports Bloomberg. Verizon and its subsidiary AOL are working with at least three financial advisers on its bid, the report said. Re/Code said earlier this week that documents Yahoo provided to potential bidders predict the Web portal’s 2016 revenue will drop by close to 15% and its earnings by more than 20%. Yahoo’s inability to fully embrace the transition to mobile has meant that “usage and monetisation are moving to areas where Yahoo is unable to follow,” wrote Edison Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor in a research note Friday. Windsor said that Yahoo has been “buying traffic in order to prop up the popularity of its online properties. Effectively, Yahoo is masking the declines in its revenue by buying revenue-generating traffic from other websites and services. This means that the revenue genuinely generated by Yahoo’s properties will fall by 14% this year to $3.6 billion.” Yahoo has not commented on the reports. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect EPS ex items to fall 10% this year, to 53 cents, with revenue falling 9% to $4.52 billion. Yahoo has recently implemented layoffs and begun the process of selling itself and spinning off its hefty stake in China e-commerce giant Alibaba Group ( BABA ). It’s also in the midst of a proxy fight initiated by activist investor Starboard Value seeking to oust Yahoo’s entire board and CEO Marissa Mayer. Yahoo’s revenue growth has stalled for nearly a decade as ad dollars continue to slip away to rivals, including Facebook ( FB ), Netflix ( NFLX ), Google and others, as well as high-profile startups Snapchat and Pinterest. Yahoo stock was down more than 1% in midday trading in the stock market today , near 36. Verizon stock was up a fraction. Scalper1 News
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