‘‘This is Marissa’s moment of reckoning’’
"Alibaba IPO poses key test for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer" by Michael Liedtke | Associated Press May 08, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO — While the sale of Alibaba stock will be a short-term boon for Yahoo, it will also remove some of the financial scaffolding lifting Yahoo’s stock as the company’s revenue continues to slip.
Related: Hoping for more revenue, Yahoo announces additions, changes
"Yahoo reported first-quarter sales that exceeded analysts’ estimates, showing the turnaround effort under chief executive Marissa Mayer is displaying some signs of success. Revenue was up. Yahoo earned $312 million during the first three months of this year."
I guess a lot changes in three weeks.
Most analysts say the Alibaba stake is the main reason that Yahoo’s stock has more than doubled under chief executive Marissa Mayer, because investors latched on to Yahoo shares as a way to get a piece of Alibaba’s IPO.
Related: The $59 Million Dollar Mom
Also see: No going back for those working at home
Yahoo’s broken glass ceiling
Marissa Mayer is insulting our intelligence
Executive privilege: Marissa Mayer’s HR decisions at Yahoo
Enough of the fawning media attention.
With much of the Alibaba support going away, ‘‘it’s time to rev up revenue growth,’’ said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. ‘‘They will need to move the needle now.’’
One of the quickest ways Mayer could boost revenue would be to buy another company, something she will be in a better position to do after Ali-baba’s IPO is completed.
IPOs are all about getting money into the stock market.
Although Alibaba probably will not set an IPO price for its stock until this summer, analysts estimate the Chinese company’s market value at $150 billion to $200 billion. At that level, the 208 million shares Yahoo is required to sell will bring in at least $10 billion.
With that much money coming in, Mayer could afford to make a big splash by buying a hot startup such as rising social media star Pinterest or the ephemeral messaging service Snapchat. But those startups are not generating much revenue, an issue that would probably rattle investors if Yahoo dared to buy them.
Related: Snapchat settles with FTC over privacy claims
I don't want my stuff disappearing. Why do you think I'm putting it here?
A more logical takeover candidate for Yahoo would be AOL Inc., another once-imposing Internet company that was outwitted by innovators such as Google and Facebook. While he thinks an AOL acquisition could work for Yahoo, Moshe Cohen, a Columbia University business professor who has been tracking Yahoo’s ties with Alibaba, said he believes many investors are unnerved by the prospect of Mayer financing a shopping spree with the windfall....
Look what happens when you put a women in charge.
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This enough to lock up the sale?
"The unlikely ascent of Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder" by Neil Goughand Alexandra Stevenson | New York Times May 08, 2014
HONG KONG — Today, Alibaba is China’s largest online retailer, with merchandise volumes that lag behind only those of Walmart worldwide. The e-commerce giant is also moving forward with plans for a stock sale that is expected to rival Facebook’s $16 billion offering two years ago. If successful, it would help vault Alibaba to the highest ranks of technology industry titans.
Related:
Facebooking the Next Bubble
Facebook's IPO Flops
The Facebook Frauds
The stock price is up now thanks to the Fed printing press -- just as the elite holders of the stock are now eligible to sell. Wow.
Jack Ma’s ascent to dot-com billionaire is remarkable for not following the traditional script. Unlike Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Steve Jobs, or Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Ma, 49, has no background in computing and professes not to understand technology. Ma began his career as an English teacher.
His role at Alibaba has always been as the main strategist, a flamboyant motivator in chief, and a relentless opponent to those who compete against him. Alibaba’s two main websites, Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com, now account for 60 percent of packages shipped through China’s postal system.
“He effectively represents millions of people who now depend on Alibaba for their livelihood,” said Duncan Clark, who has known Ma since the late 1990s and is chairman of BDA China, a consulting firm. “That’s a constituency. He’s a politician with a small ‘p.’ ”
He has also proved to be a serial disrupter — an outsider with a knack for creating new markets by reimagining old industries. Alibaba and Ma are shaking up some of China’s most staid, state-dominated industries, starting ventures in banking and finance and mobile phone communications. He is even moving into the department store business and film production.
“Innovation in many industries has been triggered by outsiders,” Ma wrote last June in The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party — an unusual move for a private-sector entrepreneur.
He was putting the country’s state banks on notice.
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In early 1999, his first site, Alibaba.com, lured Joseph C. Tsai, a Taiwan-born former lawyer educated at Yale who was working in a private equity business in Hong Kong. Together, Ma and Tsai brought in Goldman Sachs and SoftBank as investors. Ma began Taobao, the consumer-to-consumer platform, in 2003, at a time when eBay’s Chinese unit dominated the business.
He remains a hands-on executive chairman and oversees strategy at Alibaba, but in May 2013 he stepped down as CEO.
I love elite $ucce$$ stories, don't you?
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Ma would never leave you feeling blue, would he?
"Blue Hills Bank to go public" by Deirdre Fernandes | Globe Staff March 12, 2014
Blue Hills Bank, a small community institution with big ambitions, plans to sell its stock to the public in the hopes of raising nearly $240 million, a step that analysts say also opens up the Hyde Park mainstay for eventual purchase by a larger bank.
Blue Hills announced its plans in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The initial public offering also needs the approval of state banking regulators and the Federal Reserve.
The IPO is the latest move by the 143-year-old bank to expand its business and raise its profile. It dropped its old neighborhood name, Hyde Park Savings Bank, in 2011. Last summer, it acquired three Nantucket branches from Santander Bank, reaching beyond its six-office footprint in the Boston area.
It has nearly quadrupled its loan portfolio in the past three years, primarily by lending to commercial real estate projects and businesses.
In December, it made an even bigger splash, winning the naming rights to the concert pavilion on the Boston waterfront formerly known as the Bank of America Pavilion. Blue Hills will pay close to the $300,000 annually that Bank of America paid as part of its deal, which lasts just under 10 years.
What'$ in a name, huh?
Related: Blue Hills Bank gets its name on the waterfront pavilion
In February, former Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino joined the bank’s board of directors. Menino could not be reached for comment Wednesday....
Related: Former Mayor Thomas M. Menino joins Blue Hills Bank Board of Directors
How much does that position pay?
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"Wall Street cold shoulder for biotech IPOs rubs Radius Health" by Kyle Alspach
Radius Health Inc., which is developing a new treatment for bone-loss disease, cited poor market conditions for withdrawing its IPO, in which it sought to raise up to $92 million for clinical development work.
What?
Related: Dow hits a record on strong earnings
So what is the real rea$on they withdrew?
************
With the stock market in the midst of a selloff of biotech shares, many younger life science companies are finding it rough going getting to Wall Street....
The mixed messages are dizzying.
Related: Skittish investors pummel technology stocks
Great, another bubble to give us all a bath.
Recent market conditions have been a challenge for all companies seeking to go public, but particularly for early-stage biotech companies, said Kathleen Smith, chairwoman of IPO research firm Renaissance Capital....
“It’s no surprise that investors have become skittish,” she said. “Half the IPOs priced this year are trading below their IPO prices and we are seeing a rising number of deals delayed or withdrawn.”
That's not a very good batting average for business.
As recently as February the benchmark Nasdaq Biotechnology Index hit a record high, and up-and-coming biotech firms had been streaming into the public markets for much of the past year. Then biotech stocks began backsliding, with a major sell-off in April; the index has recovered some but not to the record highs.
The stock market turned in a mild day Friday, with most shares closing incrementally higher....
So much for record day and strong earnings, sigh!!!
While Radius said it did find enough interest among investors to sell the shares publicly, spokeswoman Barbara Ryan said the company has decided to wait until market conditions for biotech stocks improve. Radius raised $43 million in private funding a year ago and is not short on cash, she said. The firm won’t say how much it would have been able to raise on Thursday.
Founded in 2003, Radius Health has raised at least $241 million in private funding. Top shareholders in the company include Boston-based MPM Capital, which own 28 percent. Other investors include HealthCare Ventures of Cambridge and Bain Capital-affiliated Brookside Capital of Boston.
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Why am I always down by the time I finish these posts?
