Yahoo says it will spin off its prized stake in China's Alibaba Group Holding in a move that will allow it to avoid paying billions in future taxes. A newly formed entity called SpinCo will inherit ownership of Yahoo's remaining 384 million shares in the Chinese ecommerce giant when the spin-off is completed toward the end of this year. The stock of the new company will be distributed pro-rata to Yahoo shareholders, resulting in SpinCo becoming a separate publicly traded company.
Tuesday's much-anticipated announcement about the management of Yahoo's 15 percent stake in Alibaba overshadowed Yahoo's results for the final three months of last year. Yahoo's shareholders are far more interested in CEO Marissa Mayer's plans for the Alibaba stake because it's currently worth about $39 billion. That's far more than the value of Yahoo's own online services, which have been struggling to generate more revenue for the past six years.
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