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Breakingviews

Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer Has Run Out of Time for a Turnaround

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief, has been under pressure to turn around the company.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer has run out of time for a turnaround.

After three years, it’s clear that neither the chief executive, nor maybe any potential replacement, can save the flailing Internet company. The board’s job should be to determine the best way for tidying up the company’s affairs. Ms. Mayer’s best legacy could turn out to be that she got a good price for Yahoo’s core business.

Ms. Mayer has tried to drum up excitement by investing and buying smaller firms in mobile, video and social technologies. That hasn’t worked. Yahoo is expected to earn less than half as much as it did in 2012. The future doesn’t look any brighter, as companies cut into its advertising revenue with software that blocks online ads.

It’s doubtful that any other executive could do better. After all, Yahoo has had six bosses over the last decade, and none were able to figure out how to turn things around. History shows that struggling tech companies rarely regain momentum. Top engineers flee, new technologies and rivals are ignored and sclerosis sets in.

Given that reality, it might be futile for the board to try to replace Ms. Mayer. Instructing her to dismember the company might be the best approach and a way for her to salvage her reputation.

Yahoo’s market capitalization is $33 billion. Its stake in the Chinese Internet firm Alibaba is worth $32 billion alone. Throw in its $9 billion stake in Yahoo Japan and net cash on its books, and the market is valuing the company’s core business at less than zero — even if it has to pay capital gains taxes on its overseas stakes.

Considering the core search and Internet advertising business should throw off more than $800 million of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization next year, it is probably worth well over $1 billion to private equity firms.

Yet the market thinks it has negative value. Fetching almost any price at all could make Ms. Mayer into an investor hero.

Robert Cyran is a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. For more independent commentary and analysis, visit breakingviews.com.

 

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