解讀雅虎剝離阿里股份 梅耶爾在爲自己的改革爭取時間

Marissa Mayer’s two and a half-year tenure as chief executive of Yahoo YHOO -2.93% hasn’t exactly been smooth. But she’s had one big safeguard keeping the company’s stock up: a giant stake in Alibaba BABA -1.01% . When the massive Chinese e-commerce startup went public last September, Yahoobanked $9.4 billion on a tiny investment its co-founder, Jerry Yang, made back in 2005. Yahoo still owns a 15.4% stake in Alibaba, and many of its shareholders believe it’s more valuable than Yahoo ’s why, shortly after Alibaba’s IPO last fall, activist investor Starboard Value began pressuring Mayer to sell off the remaining stake in the most tax-efficient way possible. (The firm also believes Yahoo should sell itself to its Web 1.0 peer AOL.)

瑪麗莎o梅耶爾擔任雅虎首席執行官已有兩年半的時間，期間並非一帆風順。但梅耶爾有一個支撐雅虎股價的法寶，那就是該公司持有的大量阿里巴巴股票。2005年，雅虎創始人楊致遠向阿里巴巴進行了一筆小投資，去年 9月，已成長爲中國電商巨頭的阿里上市，雅虎因此獲利 94 億美元。如今，雅虎仍持有阿里15.4%的股份，許多股東認爲，這部分阿里股份比雅虎公司本身更值錢。因此，去年阿里上市後不久，維權投資公司Starboard Value就開始向梅耶爾施壓，要求雅虎以最節稅的方式，賣掉剩餘的阿里股份。[Starboard Value公司還認爲，雅虎應該把自己賣給同屬“Web 1.0時代老兵”的美國在線。]

On Tuesday, Mayer appeased Starboard other disgruntled investors by announcing a spin-off of its remaining Alibaba stake. The spin-off, announced ahead of the release of Yahoo’s fourth quarter earnings report, will save the company $16 billion in taxes and give Yahoo shareholders stakes in a new, publicly traded entity called SpinCo. It is set to happen in the fourth quarter of this year. (Yahoo will retain its stake in Yahoo Japan, which is worth $7 billion.)

本週二，梅耶爾宣佈將剝離剩餘的阿里股份，以此安撫Starboard及其他心懷不滿的投資者。此消息宣佈於雅虎發佈四季度財報前。分拆阿里股份，將幫助雅虎節稅160億美元，而雅虎股東將擁有公開交易新實體SpinCo的股份。分拆將在今年四季度進行。(雅虎公司將繼續持有雅虎日本的股份，後者價值70億美元。)

With the Alibaba shares separated from Yahoo’s core business, Mayer is under more pressure than ever to deliver the turnaround she was hired to execute. She spent the majority of Yahoo’s earnings call touting the company’s progress on her plan, which carries a new acronym: MaVeNS.

鑑於阿里股份與雅虎核心業務剝離，梅耶爾承受着前所未有的壓力，必須實現衆人對她的期許，即幫助雅虎華麗轉身。在雅虎的營收電話會議上，梅耶爾花了大半時間，來兜售其簡稱爲“MaVeNS”計劃的進展。

MaVeNS stands for mobile, video, native and social. (The awkward term follows the advertising world’s equally as cumbersome “SoLoMo,” as in social, local, mobile.) Mayer believes growth in these areas will offset declines in display advertising.

“MaVeNS”代表移動、視頻、原生（廣告）和社交。(與彆彆扭扭的MaVeNS一詞類似的，還有廣告界的另一大作：“SoLoMo”，代表社交、本地、移動。)梅耶爾認爲，上述四個領域的增長，將彌補展示廣告業務的衰退。

She touted growth in Yahoo’s mobile business, which brought in $254 million in revenue in the fourth quarter, a 23% increase over the previous quarter. Yahoo’s media properties now reach more than 575 million people each month. Mobile accounted for $1.26 billion in gross revenue for the year. It’s encouraging growth—that revenue did not exist before Mayer joined the company. “In late 2012, this management team changed course from a confused, web-based strategy which preceded us, to a beautiful, app-based strategy,” she said during the call.

梅耶爾盛讚雅虎移動業務的增長，該業務在四季度帶來2.54億美元收入，環比增長23%。如今，雅虎媒體業務每月的受衆人數超過 5.75億美元。移動業務全年總收入達12.6億美元。上述增長令人鼓舞，在梅耶爾加盟雅虎前，根本不存在這項收入。梅耶爾在電話會議上表示：“2012年底，雅虎管理團隊改弦易張，將此前頗顯混亂、基於網絡的戰略，變成如今極爲出色、基於應用程序的戰略。”

But that is still a small sliver of Yahoo’s overall business, which continues to shrink. The company’s $1.179 billion in quarterly revenue was a 1% decline from last year. The company’s net earnings of $166 million marks an 84% decline over the year prior. And Yahoo’s non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.30 is a 35% decline over the year prior.

但這在雅虎整體業務中仍然只佔一小塊，而雅虎整體業務仍在繼續萎縮。雅虎季度收入11.79億美元，同比下降1%。而公司淨利潤爲1.66億美元，同比下滑84%。此外，雅虎不按一般公認會計原則計算的每股收益爲0.30美元，同比下降了35%。

Thanks to the spin-off announcement, Yahoo’s shares jumped more than 7% in after-hours trading. After the deal is executed at the end of this year, Yahoo’s stock will no longer be padded by Alibaba. Mayer’s deft moves as a “steward of capital,” in her words, won’t matter once Yahoo owns none of Alibaba. For the first time since she joined the company, Yahoo will be evaluated solely on its own merits.

由於宣佈了拆分阿里股份，雅虎的股價在盤後交易中上漲超過7%。拆分在今年年底完成後，雅虎的股票將失去阿里這一支撐。梅耶爾自稱“資本管家”，但一旦雅虎不再持有阿里股份，梅耶爾這方面的才華將無用武之地。自梅耶爾加盟以來，雅虎將首次完全以自身表現接受衆人評判。

Mayer knows this, and for the last year, she has emphasized the long game. She even pointed out that Steve Jobs didn’t come up with the iPod until five years after he returned to Apple. But until Mayer comes up with Yahoo’s version of the iPod—metaphorically speaking—shareholders will have to settle for MaVeNS.

梅耶爾清楚這一點，過去一年，她一直在強調要放眼長期。她甚至指出，喬布斯重返蘋果五年後，才推出iPod。但在梅耶爾幫助雅虎拿出自己的“iPod”前，股東們只能將就接受梅耶爾的MaVeNS計劃了。（財富中文網）