Yahoo To Approach Buyers For Its Business

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On Friday, Yahoo Inc. made an official announcement to launch the sale of its core internet business. The CEO of the firm, Marissa Mayer, said in a meeting the company is going to have an auction process and will start looking for bidders as soon as the new week starts. The process to approach the potential corporate or equity buyers as well as bidders has begun. The sources familiar to the matter said that the Web company has shelved its previous plan to spin off its core internet business which is a fairly good option considering the circumstances.

A few tech firms which include AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp., and Verizon Communications Inc. are interest in buying out Yahoo if the deal is right. Apart from that, a few buyout firms such as Bain Capital Partners, KKR & Co., and TPG are also looking for a possible deal from the Internet firm. The people asked to not disclose or reveal their personal information as the situation is not public yet. They added that it is not likely that Yahoo receives any potential first round bids for the business until next month.

For the sale process, Yahoo has already hired financial advisers, a bank, and a law firm to help out with it. Furthermore, it also told the independent board members on Friday to seek other strategic options despite the pressure is exerted from its activist investors it is trying to transform itself and is taking various deals into consideration. The search engine giant said in a statement that the financial counsel will be provided by the likes of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., and PJT Partners Inc.

According to Bloomberg, the representatives for AT&T, Comcast, TPG, Verizon, and of course Yahoo declined to comment on this matter. On the other hand, the representatives for Bain and KKR did not respond immediately for comments.

The CEO Marissa Mayer is in charge since 2012 and has been doing a lot to change the fate of the company. She has been focused in improving the mobile platform as well as boosting the advertising revenue. And the board of directors was satisfied with her performance and leadership thus far. But since late last year, the activist hedge fund and investor Starboard Value is pressurizing the firm indirectly to bid farewell to Ms. Mayer.

The shareholders are not content with the performance regardless of the fact that the company officials showed confidence in her. In her tenure, Ms. Mayer did improve the conditions at Yahoo but still failed to boost sales as well as separate the Asian assets, Alibaba stake of $26 billion, from its core business. Starboard warned that if it does not launch an auction process then it will take its first step towards a proxy fight with Yahoo. The people said that in order to avoid proxy fight, Yahoo has taken this decision.

The Yahoo stock has plummeted by 10% this year. This decline is right after the 34% decline observed in the last fiscal year. The stock price of each stock while closing on Friday was reported to be $30.03 which resulted in the accumulative value of the company as $28 billion.

Ford Motors To Launch Four All-New SUVs in the Next Four Years

The auto-maker plans to target the market that want to purchase SUVs.

Earlier on Thursday, the automobile company Ford Motors made an announcement according to which the company mentioned its plans of launching all-new four SUVs in a time span of 48 months. The auto-maker plans to do so because of the growing global demand and popularity of SUVs and crossovers. The official news will be made at the Chicago Auto Show by the Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Mark LaNeve.

As per the news announced by the automobile manufacturer, it will be designing four new SUVs and produce them in the time period mentioned above – and these automobiles will be aimed to fill the gap in the market where it has not yet introduced its products. Additionally, these new products will be a part of a global plan made by the organization; however they have yet to announce where and when these vehicles will be launched.

It is possible that these new SUVs and crossover might be made a part of the organization’s mainstream Lincoln or Ford Brand. It is also likely that these cars make their debut in Europe, Asia, United States and/or South America. According to a statement by the Blue Oval, the company does not plan to remove any of its models from its product line.

Presently, the demand for SUVs is quite high and that is what all the auto-maker companies in the industry have been working on – additionally this demand for SUVs had caused numerous auto-makers to think that it would be better if they working on shifting their focus towards introducing more SUVs in the market instead of passenger cars or Sedans.

The major reason as to why the Detroit based automobile maker has made its shift into the SUV market is because these vehicles are more fuel efficient and given that the gas prices are at a low currently, it encourages a number of customers to go for SUVs instead of other cars. Additionally, the company conducted a research according to which it stated that once the younger generation moves towards starting a family in the upcoming years, they would want to purchase convenient vehicles and hence the sales of SUVs will increase significantly. These automobiles have become the starting point for a number of families now.

Furthermore, Ford recently announced its fourth quarter earnings which were much better than the Wall Street had projected it to post. According to the report, the company has given guidance for 2016 as well; according to which the profit margins in North America might not be same as they were in the previous year at 10.2%; mainly because the Ford stock dropped to $11.70 during the last week of the first month. This drop in the share price was of 1.2% however the company earned 50 cents on each share. The analyst at Wall Street had expected the company to report EPS of 51 cents.

Majority of these earnings per generated in the fourth quarter of the previous year amidst the declining oil prices. Presently, the stock is being traded at 11.17 at a discount of 1.50%.