John Layfield Says Yahoo (YHOO) Strategy Like ‘Playing LeBron James’

Fox Business Network analyst John Layfield offered his thoughts about Yahoo (YHOO) on 'Varney & Co." today.
By Amanda Schiavo ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Yahoo (YHOO) held what could very well be its final shareholder meeting as an independent company on Thursday.

CEO Marissa Mayer came out on stage and said that there are no updates to the company's sales process, CNN Money reports. However, Mayer did dedicate the bulk of her time to arguing that her turnaround efforts were not a waste of time.

Fox Business Network analyst John Layfield appeared on this morning's "Varney & Co." to discuss Yahoo. Host Stuart Varney inquired as to Layfield's opinions on Yahoo stock.

"I was completely wrong. I bought some Yahoo in the high 20s, I still own it because I think the valuation, the break-up, just their stake in Alibaba (BABA) and Yahoo Japan is worth about $37 billion-$38 billion right now," Layfield told Varney.

"She had a great strategy," Layfield said in reference to CEO Mayer. "But it's like playing LeBron James, you can have a great strategy [but] sometimes it doesn't work. Her strategy just simply didn't work."

Fox Business Network's Elizabeth MacDonald chimed in noting that a large portion of Yahoo's write-downs came on Mayer's watch "and remember Microsoft (MSFT) wanted to buy it for $44 billion, you can't forget that." The offer, which was turned down by Yahoo, was made about nine years ago, according to MacDonald.

Shares of Yahoo are higher by 1.01% to $37.94 on Friday morning.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings has set a "hold" rating and a score of C- on Yahoo stock. The primary factors that have impacted the rating are mixed - some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks.

The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, good cash flow from operations and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, TheStreet Ratings also finds weaknesses including deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity and a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself.

TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: YHOO

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