Yahoo! Comments on Alibaba Investment

Yahoo! (YHOO) had little to say about its Alibaba investment during last night's quarterly conference call. The following is an excerpt from a transcript of that call:

Sue Decker – CFO and EVP, Finance and Administration

Netting out the sources and use of cash, our ending cash and marketable securities balance was just below $4 billion, an increase of about $132 million from last quarter. Please note that this ending cash balance does not include several other important sources of incremental balance sheet value:

1. Our interest in Yahoo! Japan, which was valued at $10.6 billion at the end of Q2, representing more than $7 per share.

2. Our investment in Alibaba, which at the time of the transaction was valued at $1.4 billion, and is currently carried on our balance sheet at that value.

Comment: With no real word from YHOO execs on the status of its investment in Alibaba one must wonder if Alibaba is trully "Building a Bonfire with Yahoo! Money".

Comments

[borisb]

well the market cap of Baidu at $2.6 Billion
sugguest that Alibaba is not insurmountable,
also Ebay's super sized spending in auctions
suggust that Alibaba might be relegated to
B2B commerce. rather then being a 3 headed
Pirana. also, i just learned the leader of
Alibaba was a small time elementary school teacher.

2006 Jul 23 08:45 PM