Ironfire Capital: Pressure From Starboard And Other Shareholders Is Going To Continue On Yahoo - Alibaba Gr Holding (NYSE:BABA)

Yahoo! Inc.'s YHOO decision to spin off its stake in Alibaba into a separate publicly-traded entity did make some shareholders happy. However, Eric Jackson from Ironfire Capital, a long-term shareholder of Yahoo is not quite satisfied. Jackson recently spoke with CNBC about why Yahoo needs to do a lot more to boost its stock.

“I still think people don’t understand the true power of what was announced yesterday,” Jackson said. “I think they will over time; I think there is an extra $5-6 a share that is going to come back into Yahoo’s stock over the next few weeks as people understand the value of this thing. So, it was a good move, but I think there’s still going to be a lot of questions hanging over Marissa Mayer.”

Mayer's On Board, Stock Is Up. Why Aren't You Happy?

When asked about Yahoo's stock jump from $15 to $50 following Mayer's take over, Jackson responded less than enthusiastically, “Well, to be honest…I think quite honestly you or I could have taken the job two and a half years ago and the stock would have gone from $15 to $50.”

“This is all predicated on Alibaba explosion. So, yeah. Am I unhappy? I am unhappy because I want this stock to be $80, I think this stock should be $80 today.”

He continued, “I think it can get to $80 before the end of the year, and when you look at how she has done as an operator, I mean take a part of any metric you want from that report last night and it was lousy. I mean, she has a lot of work to do. EBITDA continues to kind of bleed out, and yet they have got bloated cost structures. So, I think the pressure from Starboard and other shareholders is going to continue on this company so they’ll start to do all of those things.”

Jackson did give Mayer credit in the end, saying, “It was the right move, If she could do only one thing, she did the right thing.”

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