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In-a-spin! Yahoo! clutches! Alibaba! baby! to! breast!

Purple Palace plans to chuck other assets out the door instead

Yahoo! has backed away from plans to cut loose its remaining multi-billion-dollar stake in Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba.

The Purple Palace said that it will now spin off assets and liabilities other than its Alibaba stake, after it got in a pickle over "the market's perception of tax risk" over the original proposal.

Yahoo!'s 384 million shares in Alibaba are worth $32bn – dwarfing the Marissa Mayer-run company's core biz, which is worth $4bn.

On Tuesday, the ailing firm said in a statement:

The Board remains committed to accomplishing the significant business purposes and shareholder benefits that can be realised by separating the Alibaba stake from the rest of Yahoo!.

To achieve this, we will now focus our efforts on the reverse spin off plan.

Mayer promised investors that Yahoo! will "prioritise investments to drive profitability and long-term growth".

The embattled chief claimed that the "reverse spin" plan – which is subject to shareholder approval – for the Alibaba stake would "provide more transparency into the value of Yahoo!'s business." ®

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