Yahoo Stock Attracts A Melting Pot Of Buyers, Sellers

A book filled with financial details and direction of future strategies for Yahoo's business given to prospective bidders may paint a grim picture of the company's future, but it hasn't stopped private equity firms from buying up its stock when others sell.

Numina Capital Management, a privately owned hedge fund based in Manhattan, bought 347,200 additional shares of Yahoo stock in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to a Security Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

The investment management firm now holds approximately 687,400 shares of Yahoo valued at $24.2 million, which makes up approximately 14.09% of Numina's portfolio, as first reported by Street Edition.

Carlson Capital also added Yahoo to its portfolio during fourth-quarter 2015. The investment management firm now holds 2,967,737 valued at $104.4 million, and Andra Ap-fonden, a Swedish national pension fund, bought 12,500 shares for a total of 53,500 valued at $1.9 million, even as many other companies continue to sell off their stakes

Squarepoint Ops reduced its stake by selling 25,000 shares and now holds 36,587 of Yahoo valued at $1.3 million. Nomura Asset Management reduced its stake by 5,060 share and now holds 112,728 valued at $4 million. Alliancebernstein reduced its stake by 88,501 shares and now holds 1,721,198 valued at $60.5 million. Blackrock Institutional Trust Company reduced its stake by 70,358 shares, and now holds 22,492,435 valued at $791.1 million.

Despite all this buying and selling of stock, Re/code reports that after examining disclosure documents inside the sale "book" that Yahoo’s bankers show prospective bidders, the number show a "serious free fall."

One slide shows expected results from 2016, estimating that Yahoo's revenue will drop close to 15% and earnings by more than 20%. Backing out traffic acquisition costs (TAC), the revenue should decline from $4.4 billion in 2014 and $4.1 billion in 2015, already down from previous years to $3.5 billion in 2016, writes Kara Swisher.

Another slide touts "Index, its Don Quixote voice search effort in mobile." Swisher says the document calls it a personal assistant, but ignores the fact Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft already have well-developed products.

Meanwhile, activist investor Starboard Value has been pushing Yahoo's board to sell off the company's core assets after it gave up on plans for a tax-free spinoff of its stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba.

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