Yahoo Inc chairman Roy Bostock fired CEO Carol Bartz over the telephone on Tuesday, ending a tumultuous tenure marked by stagnation and a rift with Chinese partner Alibaba (阿里巴巴).
Chief financial officer Tim Morse will step in as interim CEO, and the company will search for a permanent leader to spearhead a battle in online advertising and content with rivals Google Inc and Facebook.
Shares in Yahoo jumped 6 percent in after-hours trading to US$13.70 after closing at US$12.90 on the NASDAQ on Tuesday. They are scarcely higher than where they were when Bartz first took the reins in January 2009, with hopes of reviving stalled growth and competing with up-and--coming rivals.
Photo: Reuters
On Tuesday, her efforts were abruptly halted after Bostock called with the bad news.
“I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s chairman of the board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward,” the outspoken CEO said in a two--sentence e-mail to employees.
The turn of events surprised few Wall Street observers who had tracked a rising torrent of -criticism and watched revenue growth falter and sputter out.
Some analysts said Bartz’s departure signaled the company had run out of options after failing to dominate the advertising and content markets and handing over its search operations to Microsoft Corp.
That partnership, under which Microsoft handles search for Yahoo’s Web sites and keeps a portion of ad revenue, appears to favor the software company at Yahoo’s expense.
Yahoo is still one of the most popular destinations on the Internet, but faces increasing competition from social networking service Facebook and from Google, which has a market value of US$170 billion, 10 times more than Yahoo.
Yahoo said a new executive leadership council would help Morse in managing day-to-day operations, as well as supporting “a comprehensive strategic review” to position the company for growth.
The decision to oust Bartz was reached by a unanimous vote of Yahoo’s eight independent directors late last week, according to a person close to the company.
Bartz and co-founder Jerry Yang (楊致遠), who are also on the board, did not participate in the vote, the person said.
Yahoo is worth about US$16 billion, with much of that ascribed to its roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba, the parent company of Web sites including Alibaba.com and Taobao (淘寶). Yahoo also owns a stake in Yahoo Japan, along with Japanese mobile company Softbank.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort