On December 1st, there have been articles appearing that speculate about the potential succession of Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer. Some potential candidates that could take Mayer’s seat includes Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Google/YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki, and former interim Yahoo CEO, Ross Levinsohn.
The Wall Street Journal, who reported later that same afternoon, said that the Yahoo board was going to consider this week if they will sell some, or even all, of the company:
The fate of troubled Internet portal Yahoo Inc. may be decided in a marathon series of board meetings this week.
Yahoo’s board plans to weigh a potential sale of the company’s core business during a series of meetings beginning Wednesday and continuing through Friday, people familiar with the matter said.
The board is expected to discuss whether to proceed with a plan to spin off more than $30 billion in shares of Alibaba Holding Group Ltd., find a buyer for Yahoo’s core business of Web properties, or both, the people said.
While there have been some missteps on Yahoo’s part, Mayer has been doing some decent work trying to get the company’s feet from where it was before. Getting Yahoo to where they are now has been down right difficult, considering their competition – Facebook and Google. Facebook has usurped Yahoo’s place as the major display advertising platform, and Google owns the majority of the search marketing. Despite being one of the largest properties online with 200+ million visitors, and being one of the few true brands on the internet, it’s an uphill battle for Yahoo.
Unfortunately, meaningful revenue growth has been hard for Yahoo to reach, and now institutional investors have begun feeling impatient. The WSJ article said that “private equity firms are expected to be among those taking a look at Yahoo’s core business, people familiar with the matter said.”