Daily Video: Yahoo Spins Off $40 Alibaba Stake Into SpinCo Unit

Yahoo has announced a plan to carry out a tax-free spin-off of its shares in Alibaba.

Yahoo, which once owned nearly 30 percent of the China-based e-commerce site that went public last year, said it would transfer its remaining 15 percent stake—384 million shares worth about $40 billion, plus what it called “legacy, ancillary businesses”—into a new unit dubbed SpinCo. Shares of the new unit will be distributed to Yahoo shareholders.

Apple just had its best-ever financial quarter, posting $74.6 billion in revenue and $18 billion in net profits for the first fiscal quarter of 2015.

This was mainly due to immense sales of its latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, Mac computers and sales of apps and more in the company’s App Store. Apple reported sales of 74.5 million iPhones around the world, an increase of 46 percent compared to the 51 million iPhones Apple sold in the same quarter a year ago.

Lance Crosby, founder and CEO of IBM’s SoftLayer unit, has resigned from IBM. Sources close to the situation said Crosby decided now was a good time to step away, as IBM has reorganized with a newly- formed IBM Cloud group headed by Big Blue veteran Robert LeBlanc.

Crosby was set to transition to a new role as head of innovation for IBM Cloud when he decided to leave.

Hewlett-Packard is beginning to fill out the lineup of executives who will lead the two new independent companies when the tech giant splits apart later this year.

Cathi Lesjak, currently HP’s CFO, will stay with CEO Meg Whitman at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, as will Martin Fink, CTO and head of Hewlett-Packard Labs.

Other well-known executives staying with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise include Henry Gomez, who will be chief marketing and communications officer and Mike Nefkens, who will lead the Enterprise Services Group.

Dion Weisler, currently executive vice president of HP’s printers and PC unit, will head second company, HP Inc. Others joining Weisler at HP Inc. include Jon Flaxman as COO; Shane Wall as CTO; Ron Coughlin, who will run the Personal Systems Group, and Stephen Nigro, who will lead the Printing Group.