MS offered $44B for Yahoo inclusive of their almost 50% stake in then pre-ipo Alibaba. At the time, Yahoo's investment in Alibaba was valued at more than their entire market cap (negative valuation for Yahoo's domestic operations, or negative value taking into account tax implications of divestiture of these assets, etc).
Yahoo turned down MSFT's offer. Yahoo then spun off its entire company, keeping the name Yahoo with this spin-off subsidiary. The parent company, now named Altiba, retained ownership of the stake in Alibaba. This is where the ~50B valuation remained.
The spin-off company (valued in the negative by the market) was then sold for $4.5B to Verizon. Altiba retained its $56B market cap during this time.
Yahoo, inclusive of Altiba, out-performed MS's offer. It was a far better deal for shareholders to turn down MSFT. The net value to shareholders exceeded $60B.
There were a lot of poorly written articles at the time, which confused the sale of the subsidiary (YHOO) with the previous offer (for both YHOO and what became AABA) so your confusion is understandable. But this perspective is simply wrong.
You are thinking of the wrong era. We're talking about the 2008 offer to buy Yahoo. Alibaba was worth around $10b when Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $45b.
Alibaba was pre-ipo at the time and did not have a market valuation. The most effective way to estimate a market value for Alibaba at this time is the 2008 MSFT offer itself.
MSFT didn't offer $44B for Yahoo's internet business. The offer was in large part for the Alibaba stake.
Regardless, MSFT priced it all at around $44B, which is less than it eventually was valued at.
I amend my statement a little: They actually IPOed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in late 2007 before delisting in 2012. They IPOed at $10bn. They traded as high as $25bn the first day. But I have no other data.
Alibaba was delaying going public because they wanted to get back the 40% they had sold to Yahoo. Their expected market cap was $200B, so the 40% that Yahoo owned would eventually be worth $80B. Hence MSFT offered $44B, which was a lowball offer.
Eventually Marissa made amends with Jack Ma and Yahoo was allowed to keep 24% of their stake, and then BABA went public. But before Marissa came on board, there was Carol Bartz who was a total fuck up of the highest order; a potty-mouthed prick if there was one. She pissed Jack off when they first met, and Jack took Alipay from out of under her. I'm surprised more people don't blame Bartz for the screwups at Yahoo.
MS offered $44B for Yahoo inclusive of their almost 50% stake in then pre-ipo Alibaba. At the time, Yahoo's investment in Alibaba was valued at more than their entire market cap (negative valuation for Yahoo's domestic operations, or negative value taking into account tax implications of divestiture of these assets, etc).
Yahoo turned down MSFT's offer. Yahoo then spun off its entire company, keeping the name Yahoo with this spin-off subsidiary. The parent company, now named Altiba, retained ownership of the stake in Alibaba. This is where the ~50B valuation remained.
The spin-off company (valued in the negative by the market) was then sold for $4.5B to Verizon. Altiba retained its $56B market cap during this time.
Yahoo, inclusive of Altiba, out-performed MS's offer. It was a far better deal for shareholders to turn down MSFT. The net value to shareholders exceeded $60B.
There were a lot of poorly written articles at the time, which confused the sale of the subsidiary (YHOO) with the previous offer (for both YHOO and what became AABA) so your confusion is understandable. But this perspective is simply wrong.