Yahoo sales process expected to close this month

06 Jul 2016

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Yahoo might finally be able to sell itself this month with a third round of bids from its suitors expected today. The final selection process would happen by 18 July, Recode reported, citing unnamed sources.

According to the report, Verizon, considered the leading bidder, had AOL head Tim Armstrong leading its negotiations, while Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert and private equity firm TPG are also in the fray.

However, according to the report, Yahoo's core business was currently worth around $3.5 billion to over $5 billion, which might not come near investors' expectations. What Yahoo leaders might to do if the bids were sub-par, was, therefore, an open question.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had over the past few years tried to turn over the lagging company, focusing on video, mobile and social initiatives. She had also acquired several firms, including blogging site Tumblr.

These efforts had failed to boost Yahoo's business, and the company was now looking at a sale after three decades of independent existence.

Meanwhile, though Marissa Mayer was elected to Yahoo's board of directors at the company's shareholder meeting last week, investors managed to send a strong signal of their disapproval of the chief executive.

Mayer received the least number of votes among Yahoo's director nominees, and most votes against her board seat. On the whole, around 105 million votes were cast in opposition to Mayer's election to the board, an SEC filing showed.

Last week's Yahoo election contrasted sharply to the one in 2015, when Mayer received the second-highest number of votes for Yahoo's board, but at the time, an Alibaba spinoff had still seemed promising.

In early 2015, Mayer had revealed a tax-free proposal to spin off Yahoo's stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant and return that value to shareholders, but thanks to uncertainty over the company's tax obligation, the plan had to be shelved.

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