雅虎梅耶尔到了危机时刻

“如果继续一意孤行，我们认为做错事的代价会过于巨大。”雅虎股东Starboard发出了“威胁”。

“你在跟我开玩笑吗？！”也许只有这句内心潜台词，才最能体现出玛丽莎·梅耶尔当下的沮丧心情了。去年，对冲基金公司Starboard Value购入大量雅虎（Yahoo）股份，并敦促雅虎出售所持有的大量阿里巴巴（Alibaba）和雅虎日本股权。梅耶尔被迫照办，公司一整年都在筹备这次大规模的拆分。但这么做又会让雅虎面临沉重的税负——这已不是什么秘密了。

然而，Starboard认为这一风险实在太高，于是改变了主意。他们最近给雅虎发送了公开信，要求公司不要拆分股票。如今，Starboard希望雅虎继续持有阿里巴巴和雅虎日本的股票，转而出售雅虎自身境况不佳的互联网业务。换句话说，雅虎股东持有的公司，将变成一个仅拥有两家企业股份的空壳以及55亿美元的现金，而这两家公司的股票本来就可以通过公开市场获得，由此，雅虎将没有任何实际业务。

激进投资者总是对雅虎吹毛求疵，而他们自己也没有什么好办法。这些喜欢吸引眼球、爱写公开信、只注重短期收益的人总是指手画脚，若要平息他们的吵闹，就会遇到问题。不论他们的要求是否合理，即便你满足了，可能也仍然不够。他们还会改变想法！这样的争执没有机会获胜，也几乎不会结束。

Starboard是梅耶尔遭遇的第二个激进的投资者对手，她曾在2013年设法搞定了Third Point的丹·罗伯。

那么，Starboard为什么改变主意呢？谁又会购买雅虎的核心业务？这两个问题的答案分别是税费和持怀疑论的买家。

首先是税费。雅虎计划拆分市值240亿美元的阿里巴巴和雅虎日本的股份，他们从这些成功的早期投资中获得了大量资本收益，拆分股份可以减少为此所交的税费。由于美国国税局（IRS）对雅虎的交易计划能否免除数十亿美元的税款迟迟不表态，雅虎剥离其持有的15%阿里巴巴股份的进程将推迟到明年1月甚至更晚来进行。如果雅虎决定无论如何也要继续拆分，那他们有可能要缴纳数十亿美元税费。Starboard认为承担这样的风险并不值得，就开始对雅虎施压。

在给雅虎的公开信中，Starboard表示：“如果继续一意孤行，我们认为做错事的代价会过于巨大。”

Starboard建议雅虎继续持有阿里巴巴和雅虎日本的股份，转而实施这家投资机构一年多以前提出的设想：为其不断萎缩的核心业务寻找下家，以此获得高达10亿美元的成本协同效应。去年，Starboard曾建议雅虎与美国在线（AOL）合并，但后者最终同意被威瑞森（Verizon）收购。在这次的公开信中，Starboard没有提出可供选择的合并对象。

其次是持怀疑论的买家。Starboard通过计算得出的结论是，市场对雅虎核心业务的估值仅有20亿美元。雅虎有46亿美元的收入，仍是全球第五大网站，但这一估值（或是把这一估值翻个两三倍）表明，投资者已经不认为雅虎还能继续增长，不相信它会在未来创造更大价值了。买家会把公司抢到手，将其拆成很多部分，解雇大量员工，即便如此也能挣到钱。这种极度悲观怀疑的行为方式就能把雅虎搞垮。

过去十年中，雅虎先后有五位首席执行官走马上任，公司被新闻界、股东和激进投资者折磨得体无完肤。他们的每一次转型尝试都遭到了大声嘲笑。无论潜力如何，梅耶尔最近一次的转型还没结束。但据Recode报道，对梅耶尔战略上的抨击甚至让她失去了高管层信任。此时此刻，看上去只有她一个人认为雅虎还能被拯救。

针对Starboard公开信一事，雅虎并未应《财富》要求立即发表评论。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

“If you stay on the current path, we believe the potential penalty for being wrong is just too great,” Starboard wrote in its letter to Yahoo.

On a scale of one to “Are you KIDDING me?!,” how frustrated must Marissa Mayer be feeling today? Hedge fund Starboard Value took a large stake in Yahoo last year, urging the company to sell its large holdings in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Mayer obliged, and the company has been working on the massive spin-off all year.It’s no secret that Yahoo’s long-planned spinoff of its valuable Alibaba stake comes with the risk of a hefty tax bill.

But last night, Starboard changed its mind. The company sent a letter to Yahoo (read it here), urging it not to spin off the stakes. Now, Starboard wants Yahoo to hold the Alibaba and Yahoo Japan stakes, but sell Yahoo. In other words, Yahoo shareholders would own an empty shell for the stock of two companies that they can already access directly through the public markets, plus $5.5 billion in cash. The company would have no operating business.

Activist investors have picked over Yahoo so much that they’ve run out of good ideas. This is the problem with appeasing a group of headline grabbing, letter-writing, short-term focused meddlers – even if you give them what they want, regardless of whether it makes sense, it probably won’t be enough. Or they could change their minds! There might be no way to win and it might never end. Starboard is Mayer’s second bout with activist investors; she managed to shake off Third Point’s Dan Loeb in 2013.

So why did Starboard change its mind, and who would possibly buy Yahoo’s core business? The answers, respectively, are taxes and a very cynical buyer.

First, taxes: Yahoo’s proposed $24 billion spin-off of Alibaba and Yahoo Japan was designed to limit the taxes that Yahoo would have to pay on the massive capital gains it earned on those very successful early stage investments. But the IRS denied its request for prior approval, and Yahoo has decided to go along with the plan anyway, risking that it will have to pay billions in taxes. Starboard has decided the risk isn’t worth it.

The activist pressure comes on the heels of news that the spinoff of Yahoo’s 15% stake in Alibaba would be delayed until January, if not later, as the IRS has declined to ruleon whether or not the sale would result in a multibillion dollar tax bill for Yahoo.

“If you stay on the current path, we believe the potential penalty for being wrong is just too great,” Starboard wrote in its letter to Yahoo.

Starboard is advocating that Yahoo hold on to its stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan and instead move forward with an idea the activist investor first floated more than a year ago: Yahoo should find a partner for its shrinking core business in order to lock in as much as $1 billion in cost synergies. Last year, Starboard pushed Yahoo to consider a merger with AOL, but that company later agreed to be sold to Verizon. Starboard did not present an alternative merger partner in its letter.

Second: A cynical buyer. Starboard has calculated that the market is only valuing Yahoo’s core business at $2 billion. Yahoo has $4.6 billion in revenue and remains the fifth-largest website in the world. But that price (or a low multiple of it), says investors have given up on any hope of Yahoo ever growing or creating value in the future. A buyer could snap it up, strip its various parts, lay off a huge chunk of its staff, and still make money on the deal. That would be a very cynical way to kill the company.

For the last decade, Yahoo has gone through five CEOs and been battered by the press, investors, and activist investors. Each new turnaround attempt has been met with even louder derision. Regardless of its potential, Mayer’s latest turnaround narrativehas not stuck. In another blow to her strategy, Mayer has even lost the faith of her top executives,according to Recode. And at this point, it’s starting to look like she is the only one who thinks Yahoo can be saved.

Yahoo did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment on the Starboard lette.