The activist investor who wants Yahoo to sell its core business presented to its board today

Activist hedge fund Starboard Value's manager Jeff Smith presented to Yahoo's board of directors on Wednesday, urging them to sell the internet business, according to a report in USA Today.

The Yahoo board is reportedly holding a three-day series of meetings to consider its various options, including whether to press ahead with a planned spinoff of its stake in Chinese ecommere company Alibaba that is slated to be completed in January, or whether to pursue other options such as selling Yahoo's core internet business.

Starboard has called on Yahoo to abandon the spinoff plan, because the risk of incurring a hefty tax bill is too large. Instead, Starboard wants Yahoo to sell the internt business, which consists of various online properties that have struggled to keep up with rivals such as Google and Facebook.

Yahoo's 9-member board is meeting Wednesday through Friday, and according to USA Today, Smith made his case to the board on Wednesday.

Yahoo's stock popped 7% on the intial reports of the board considering a sale earlier this week, but decined 3.7% on Thursday in a down market.

We've reached out to Yahoo and Starboard and will update this post if we hear back.