困境中 雅虎考慮出售核心業務

SAN FRANCISCO — The board of Yahoo will discuss potentially selling off the beleaguered Internet company’s core business during a series of meetings this week, people briefed on the plans said on Tuesday.

舊金山——雅虎董事會將在本週的一系列會議上討論出售這家處於困境的互聯網公司核心業務的可能性，瞭解這一計劃的人士週二透露。

Directors of the company will also discuss whether to move forward with plans to spin off Yahoo’s 15 percent stake in the Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce giant. The board will weigh all its options, and it is unclear whether the directors will change course, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the plans.

公司的董事們也將討論是否繼續推進剝離雅虎對中國電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴集團所持的15％股份的計劃。知情人士說，董事會將權衡所有的可能，目前還不清楚董事會是否會改變議程。這些人要求不透露姓名，因爲他們沒有獲得公開討論這些計劃的授權。

Still, the discussions — which will take place at a regularly scheduled board meeting — highlight the difficulties that have long troubled one of the most prominent Internet companies.

不過，這些將在定期的董事會上進行的討論，突顯了這家最大的互聯網公司之一長期以來面臨的困難。

The discussions are also sure to put attention squarely on Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, and the company’s direction under her leadership. Although Ms. Mayer is credited with stabilizing the company, which was in rapid decline, Yahoo has introduced no breakthrough products during her three years at the helm and has fallen further and further behind competitors like Facebook and Google in the battle for advertising dollars.

這些討論也必將把人們的注意力集中到雅虎首席執行官瑪麗莎·梅耶爾(Marissa Mayer)身上，以及她領導下的公司方向問題。雖然讓公司穩定下來的功績歸於梅耶爾，在她上任之前，公司業績在快速下滑，但是，在她掌管的三年中，雅虎並沒有推出任何突破性產品，而在與如Facebook和谷歌等對手的廣告收入競爭上落得越來越遠。

A representative of Yahoo declined to comment on the plans.

雅虎的一名代表拒絕就這些計劃發表評論。

Begun as a simple website called Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web, Yahoo has grown into one of the biggest names in the Internet business.

以名爲“致遠和大衛的萬維網指南”(Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web)的一個簡單網站起家的雅虎，後來發展爲互聯網業務的巨頭之一。

Yet for the last decade, Yahoo has struggled to find its reason for being. Under the leadership of Ms. Mayer, a highly vaunted Google executive brought in to drive the latest turnaround effort, the company has spent billions of dollars on acquisitions like Tumblr and Polyvore that have yet to prove their value. And in October, the company announced it was writing off $42 million that it had wasted on an ill-fated foray into original video programming.

然而，在過去10年中，雅虎一直在努力尋找其存在的理由。爲引導最新的一輪復興計劃，雅虎高調引進了曾任谷歌高管的梅耶爾，在她的領導下，公司花費了數十億美元來收購諸如tumblr和Polyvore等尚未證明自己價值的公司。今年10月，公司宣佈將一筆4200萬美元的壞賬註銷，這筆錢被浪費在一個進軍原創視頻節目的失敗嘗試上。

Hundreds of millions of people continue to use Yahoo, which was a pioneer on the Internet. So the core business could have value to a potential acquirer.

雅虎是互聯網界的先驅，仍有數以百萬計的用戶在使用它。因此，其核心業務可能對潛在的收購者具有價值。

“The saving grace for Yahoo is that it still has a relatively large user base that is reliant on the platform so long as they maintain email addresses there. It also has a still relatively strong (and still relatively large) sales force,” wrote Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research, in a note to clients Tuesday night. “As long as both of those factors remain in place, there would be time for an acquirer to establish new strategies and develop products while the property continues to generate cash flow.”

“雅虎的賣點在於，它的用戶羣規模依然比較大，他們只要還使用雅虎電郵，就會依賴這個平臺。而且雅虎還有一支比較強（規模也相對較大）的銷售隊伍，” 樞軸研究(Pivotal Research)分析師布賴恩·威澤(Brian Wieser)本週二晚在一份致客戶的信中說。“只要這兩個因素依然存在，雅虎就會繼續產生現金流，收購者就有時間來規劃新戰略，開發產品。”

But by far the greater value to shareholders has come from Yahoo’s large stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, which is controlled by the Japanese investment firm SoftBank. Subtract the Alibaba and SoftBank stakes and the value of the remaining company is less than zero.

但是迄今爲止，股東認爲雅虎持有的大量阿里巴巴和雅虎日本的股票價值更大；雅虎日本由日本投資公司軟銀(SoftBank)控股。除去阿里巴巴和軟銀的股份，雅虎剩下的價值爲負。

The planned board discussions were reported Tuesday evening by The Wall Street Journal. In an interview on Tuesday after news of the potential board talks was published, Jeff Bonforte, Yahoo’s senior vice president for communications products, said employees were continuing to work on new products and features as the larger discussions about the company’s fate continued.

《華爾街日報》本週二晚上報道了這個計劃舉行的董事會討論。當天該消息刊出之後，雅虎通信產品高級副總裁傑夫·邦弗特(Jeff Bonforte)接受採訪表示，就在雅虎命運大討論繼續進行之際，員工正在繼續開發新產品和新功能。

“It’s clear that Marissa came in with a timeline of three to five years,” Mr. Bonforte said.

“很明顯，在瑪麗莎上任的時候，着眼的就是三到五年的時間，”邦弗特說。

But he said that ultimately his team members did not have any control over how much time they would get to show results. “I just try to ship products that I’m not ashamed of,” he said.

但他表示，對於他們有多少時間去展示成果，他的團隊成員沒有任何控制權。“我只是在嘗試推出不會問心有愧的產品，”他說。

The board’s deliberations are also taking place under pressure from a prominent activist investor, the hedge fund Starboard Value, which has spent more than a year trying to push Yahoo to take action to raise its stock price.

董事會的審議也是在對衝基金斯塔博德價值(Starboard Value)施加的壓力下進行的，這家著名的激進投資機構已經花了一年多的時間試圖讓雅虎採取行動，提升股價。

Last month, Starboard called on Yahoo to abandon the spinoff of the Alibaba stake after the Internal Revenue Service declined to bless the potential deal as tax-free. That could negate the rationale for the spinoff and lead to a tax bill of several billion dollars.

上個月，斯塔博德呼籲雅虎放棄拆分阿里巴巴股份，因爲國稅局拒絕爲該交易提供免稅待遇。這可能會讓分拆不再具有意義，反而帶來數十億美元的稅單。

While Yahoo could fight a tax determination, Starboard has argued that the upside of winning that battle would be limited.

雅虎可以對這個稅收認定提出異議，但斯塔博德認爲贏面有限。

Should Yahoo put its core business up for sale, the operations are expected to draw takeover interest from other technology companies as well as private equity firms, analysts and investors have said.

分析師和投資者說，雅虎如果將其核心業務掛牌出售，預計將會吸引其他科技公司和私募股權公司的收購興趣。

A representative of Starboard declined to comment.

斯塔博德的一名代表拒絕發表評論。