With all of Yahoo's troubles—including declining sales and grim outlook—the company has at least one bright spot on the horizon.
It's expected to cash in big when Chinese Internet giant Alibaba goes public, widely expected to be one of the biggest IPOs of all time.
Yahoo owns a 24 percent stake in Alibaba, and is required to sell about 40 percent—or about 208 million shares—at the time of the IPO, leaving Yahoo with a potential windfall of more than $10 billion.
While the company has alluded to returning about half of its profits from the offering to shareholders, it's expected the company will also spend a lot of its proceeds on beefing up its struggling core ad businesses. But critics aren't certain money can fix Yahoo's problems.
"Yahoo is actually better off just throwing in the towel," said New York University finance professor Aswath Damodaran, a valuation expert.
"The most sensible thing that they can do is give the money back to stockholders. They have lost the game to others (Google, Netflix, Amazon) and it is time for [CEO] Marissa Mayer to concede and not throw good money after bad," Damodaran said in an email to CNBC.
While Yahoo does face significant challenges even after it gets the Alibaba windfall, all hope is not lost—at least not yet, said Kinshuk Jerath, a Columbia Business School marketing professor.
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