Yahoo! (YHOO) Comes Out With Lame Business Plan To Support Higher Value

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) has come out with a business plan which says the company is worth more than Micorosft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is offering. That is based, to some large extent, on how the company will do in 2010. As if the management knows.

The one piece of good news is that Yahoo! says it will hit its Q1 numbers. Wall St. was concerned that, if it did not, Microsoft might drop its offer and try to buy the company at a lower price point later.

Some keys:

The plan supports the unanimous determination by the Company’s board of directors that Microsoft’s January 31, 2008 unsolicited acquisition proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo!.

Yahoo!’s management today also reaffirmed its outlook for the first quarter 2008 and full year 2008, as previously provided on January 29, 2008

Key sources of projected growth in revenue and operating cash flow cited in the presentation include $1.9 billion in added revenue ex-TAC over the next three years from display/video advertising, as Yahoo! expects its growth to outpace the currently anticipated market rate of growth in online display/video advertising.

Over the course of the three-year financial forecast the company has plans and strategic initiatives which are expected to roughly double operating cash flow over the next three years from $1.9 billion to $3.7 billion and generate $8.8 billion in revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs (revenue ex-TAC) in 2010

That assumes that the competition does nothing to upset these programs, that the economy is OK, and that management knows what it is doing.

Douglas A. McIntyre.