> Yahoo owns 15% of Alibaba, making them a major shareholder.

I saw a saying somewhere that said if you owe the bank five hundred thousand dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank five hundred million dollars, you own the bank.

Similarly, Alibaba's value is so much absurdly higher than Yahoo's that the 15% ownership stake is a burden to Yahoo-as-a-business. People have been writing for a while about how it would be immediately profitable for Alibaba to buy Yahoo outright in an all-stock deal, as it would take fewer shares of Alibaba to buy all of Yahoo (Alibaba holdings included) than Yahoo currently owns.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-02/yahoo-is-lo...

So, long story short, I can't see why Alibaba would care one way or the other what Yahoo thinks.