Yahoo Inc. announced its Q4 and yearly results Tuesday while at the same time announcing that it would spin off its remaining stake in Chinese E-Commerce giant Alibaba Inc.

The financials weren’t great for Yahoo with the once internet-leading company seeing a small decline in revenue. Fourth quarter revenue came in at $1.253 billion, down from $1.266 billion for the same quarter in 2013. Revenue for the year ending December 31st came in at $4.618 billion, down from 2013’s figure of $4.680 billion.

Yahoo reported net earnings for Q4 at $166 million, down significantly from $348 million in Q4 2013. Yearly earnings looked impressive on paper at $7.552 billion, up from the $1.366 billion in 2013, however that figure is padded by its sale of part of Alibaba in 2014 for $9.404 billion, or a net gain of $6.122 billion after tax; excluding the Alibaba sale Yahoo’s net income for 2014 would have been $1.430 billion.

Leading the downwards pressure to Yahoo’s financials was its display advertising business which dropped 4 percent to $532 million for the fourth quarter of 2014 vs the same quarter in 2013. The yearly figures showed a decrease from $1.950 billion in 2013 to $1.868 million.

Yahoo noted though that its ad business it terms of volume remained strong, with the number of ads sold increasing approximately 17 percent for the quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, however the price-per-ad decreased approximately 20 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2013.

Search was perhaps the only highlight in the financials, with Yahoo’s deal with Mozilla starting to pay dividends.

CEO Marissa Mayer

GAAP Search revenue was $467 million for the fourth quarter, up one percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. Search revenue came in at $1,793 million for the full year of 2014, up 3 percent compared to $1,742 million in 2013. Gross search revenue was $932 million for the quarter, up 14 percent over Q4 2013. Gross search revenue for 2014 was $3.382 billion, also up 14 percent on 2013.

The company noted that the number of paid clicks increased approximately 10 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, and price-per-click increased approximately 7 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2013.

Combined with the Q4 earnings report Yahoo also said that it would spin off its remaining stake in Alibaba to a new company called SpinCo.

In a tax-free transaction, SpinCo will own all of Yahoo’s remaining 384 million shares of Alibaba, currently valued at $40 billion, as well as a legacy, ancillary Yahoo business.

The completion of the spin off is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2015 and is subject to certain conditions, including a favorable ruling from the Internal Revenue Service with respect to various aspects of the transaction, including its tax-free treatment and regulatory compliance.

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