Even before choosing a new boss, Yahoo’s board must decide whether the company should remain independent or if shareholders would be better served by putting it on the block. The latter option makes more sense. What is more, management should think radically and put itself on the list of buyers.

If Yahoo’s board, which met on Wednesday, chooses the go-it-alone route it must revive the core content and advertising business, with its large audience and deteriorating financial performance. The company has $3.2bn in net cash and generated $1.2bn in operating cash flow last year. Yahoo also has an outside chance of generating still more liquidity from the sales of its Asian assets. All of which points towards an acquisition-driven renaissance. The problem with that approach is cost. Technology entrepreneurs do not dream at night of being bought out by creaking antiques. So Yahoo would have to pay up for acquisitions – probably risky internet media companies.

If the decision is to sell Yahoo, there are three obvious types of buyer – big media, big technology and private equity. Big media is least likely; the ghosts of the AOL and MySpace deals still haunt the corridors of Time Warner and News Corp. Big technology is a possibility – Alibaba or Microsoft could make sense, for different reasons. Private equity makes even more sense: the cash flow to support a buy-out is there, especially if separating Yahoo’s Asian assets reduces its enterprise value to a reasonable $3bn to $5bn, from $15bn now. And money is still cheap. The problem with any sale, however, will again be price – Yahoo will be seen as a forced seller, depressing its value.