Not that Yahoo’s core business — selling advertising — matters much to investors right now.

Wall Street is far more interested in the fate of the company’s 15 percent stake in Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company. Yahoo plans to spin off the holdings, worth more than $30 billion, into a separate company called Aabaco Holdings in the fourth quarter. The deal is designed to avoid incurring a capital-gains tax bill, but Wall Street analysts are concerned that the Internal Revenue Service will reject Yahoo’s argument that the spinoff should be tax-free.

In an interview, Kenneth Goldman, Yahoo’s chief financial officer, said the company was moving forward with plans to spin off Aabaco in the fourth quarter, although Yahoo had said the deal could be called off if it received an unfavorable tax opinion. The name Aabaco, which is a bit unusual, has no particular meaning, he said, other than to evoke Alibaba. “It didn’t come from me,” he said.

For the quarter, Yahoo reported revenue of $1.24 billion, up 15 percent from the $1.08 billion it reported in the same quarter last year. But after deducting the share paid to partners, revenue was flat.

The company posted a net loss of $22 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with the profit of $270 million, or 26 cents a share, it reported a year ago.