Uber, AirBNB, and DropBox are valued at $10 billion each.
Yahoo has a market cap of $33 billion. At first glance, it seems like Yahoo is worth more than all 3 combined. But here's the kicker:
Yahoo owns 23% of AliBaba, which will debut as the biggest IPO in history, with an estimated conservative market cap of $100 billion. That means Yahoo's stake is worth $23 billion.
Even with that $23 billion windfall, investors are only valuing Yahoo at around $10 billion max.
The article calls it a conglomerate discount based on holding multiple companies with public price points, and claims alibaba/yahoo! Japan are probably deeply discounted due to tax. But it must be strange to an investor - the core ad business is profitable and it's $1b quarterly revenue (from the article) is imo probably a safer bet than at least 2 of them three $10b companies. Depending on alibabas ultimate IPO valuation Yahoo! could continue having a really bizarre valuation locking billions of dollars away for a while.. Which is at least something them 3 won't have to deal with.
[0]http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-pecu...