Next Yahoo! Question: What's the Core Worth?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Wednesday's news that Yahoo!'s (YHOO) board is considering two separate "cash-rich splits" of its stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo! Japan is great for Yahoo! longs.

It had seemed that this board of directors was terminally stuck in limbo with respect to deciding what to do next.

Yahoo! longs wanted to see a full sale of the company or the pursuit of a cash-rich split. Yet, all the latest indications were the board was focused on doing some unnecessary minority sale to a PE firm that would dilute existing holders, or, in the case of Kara Swisher's latest story, about a sudden new focus on hiring magical unicorn CEOs (that didn't seem so magical to me).

However, Yahoo! longs -- according to The New York Times report -- can thank Third Point and Yahoo!'s largest shareholder Capital Research (led by the widely respected Gordy Crawford) for telling that board that they had to do better.

Today, the board will reportedly decide whether they want to accept a sweetened "cash-rich split" offer from Alibaba Group and Softbank or face a hostile bid for the whole company by them. It's hard to imagine the board would opt for the hostile bid path. But one thing I've learned as a long-suffering Yahoo! Long, waiting for the board to decide, is that you can't predict crazy.

Let's assume they bless the transaction, what's next?

We know that Yahoo! was an $18 billion company yesterday and doing this "cash-rich split" would allow them to dispose of what they deem to be non-core assets for a valuation of around . . . $17 billion. This means the infinitely wise market was valuing Yahoo!'s core business at -$2 billion (after subtracting out the cash on their balance sheet).

After the transaction -- per the NYT report -- Yahoo! will have $5 billion cash from Softbank for the Yahoo! Japan stake, $7.5 billion cash from Alibaba Group in exchange for the majority of their 40% stake in Alibaba Group, a remaining 15% stake in Alibaba Group that this transaction values at $4.5 billion, $2.4 billion of cash on their balance sheet, and the Yahoo! "core business."