Yahoo's handling of financial blogs says it all originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: The faces of Yahoo

Susan Decker passed over for Yahoo! CEO role: Always the bridesmaid originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Finally, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) has ditched its CEO Terry Semel, according to MarketWatch. And the new CEO is Jerry Yang, a co-founder of the company. Former CFO, Susan Decker was named president, positioning her for a chance to take over the top slot.

It is beyond me why Semel held onto his job for so long. He helped stabilize Yahoo after the dot-com crash but has stumbled from one incompetent quarter to the next for years. And he has taken home some truly outrageous pay -- a total of $452 million in salary, bonus and stock-option exercises since April 2001 [subscription] -- during which time Yahoo stock has risen four-fold.

However, in the last year the disconnect between Semel's pay and Yahoo's performance became too much to take. According to the New York Times, his total 2006 pay was $107.5 million during which time Yahoo's stock fell 35%. And directors concluded Yahoo was just not catching up fast enough with Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) so Semel had to go.

Susan Decker had been positioned to take over the company as CEO. But Yahoo's board probably decided that she was not yet ready. However, she is considered to have the inside track during the CEO search to replace Semel. So Yang's appointment could be just a temporary move that will help stabilize the company until she is ready.

Or, with the stock up 8% to $29.62 in after-hours trading, he might just sell it. It would make a nice morsel for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned in this post.

[See our live blog of the web cast in which Terry Semel discusses his resignation here.]

Yahoo dumps Semel. What took so long? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: The faces of Yahoo

Terry Semel resigns; Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang takes over originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel considers resigning

Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel considers resigning originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo! shareholders send a message originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ten CEOs who need to leave originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Very early in the morning, stock futures are mixed, albeit trending downward, pointing to a flat to positive start for the S&P 500 and a negative start for the Nasdaq.

Overseas, Asian market were positive, while European markets are flat to negative. The dollar strengthened somewhat against the pound and the euro, but not as much against the yen.

With little economic data today other than weakly crude inventories to be released at 10:30, and ahead of the all important and market impacting non-farm payroll to be reported Friday, the market will pay more attention to management shakeup and some leading, but struggling, companies such as Yahoo! and DaimlerChrysler.

First, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). The buzz started yesterday in the afternoon that major shakeup and reorganization in the company are to come as Sarah Gilbert pointed out last night. YHOO stock has been struggling losing 30% YTD while competitor Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares are up over 17% YTD.

As part of the reorganization at Yahoo!, Chief Operating Officer Daniel Rosensweig and Media Group chief Lloyd Braun will leave the company, while Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker will assume an even more prominent management role. Farzad Nazem, Yahoo's chief technology officer, will remain in that position. By all accounts, this positions Decker to succeed Semel as the CEO. YHOO shares are up half a percent in pre-market.

Joe Eberhardt, Chrysler Group's executive vice president of global sales, marketing and service, and No. 2 in DaimlerChrysler AG's (NYSE:DCX) Chrysler Group will leave the company to run his own Mercedes-Benz dealership. Apparently, a Mercedes dealership is still profitable despite falling sales in Chrysler.

Novell Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL) is sinking more than 8% in pre-market after reporting disappointed quarterly financial results yesterday. Revenue fell 15% to $244.9 million, compared to analysts forecast of $251.5 million. Novell also said it would likely incur $20 million to $25 million in restructuring charges.

Wall Street investment banks can breathe a little easier today as a federal appeals court rejected a securities class-action lawsuit accusing them of manipulating the prices of initial public offerings during the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s, according to The New York Times. The potential settlements could have amounted to billions with nearly all banks affected. The plaintiffs, however, could seek a review by the entire panel of the Second Circuit.

US Airways Group (NYSE:LCC) CEO Doug Parker said his company will drop its proposed takeover of Delta Air Lines (Other OTC:DALRQ) if Delta management remains unconvinced of the benefits, as he is not prepared to fight with management.

Before the bell 12-6-06: YHOO management restructuring in focus this morning originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 06 Dec 2006 07:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo! gets reorg, Rosensweig out, Susan Decker gets blessed originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Back when business casual dressing was the rage, Yahoo!'s board gave a necktie party for CEO Tim Koogle. It was March 8, 2001. Yahoo! Inc.'s (NASDAQ: YHOO) stock had dropped from a bubble-fueled $108 in late 1999 to just above $8. Terry Semel, former Warner Bros. big came in to replace Koogle.

Like most Internet stocks that hit ridiculous highs in 1999, Yahoo!'s stock never returned to that level. But, it did get back to $43 in early 2006, and, after a series of missteps, it has fallen to just above $24.

Yahoo! management has to take the lion's share of the blame here. Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) stock has outperformed the older company by a huge margin. Yahoo!'s new advertising and search technologies are behind their schedules. Yahoo! has warned on third quarter earnings. The company's strategy to keep Yahoo! as an "Internet portal" keeps it in a pack of old "new media" companies like AOL and MSN. Distinguishing one from the other is difficult.

Yahoo! did not acquire MySpace or YouTube. Either move could have picked up a massive new audience and put the company into the social networking/sharing business. And, Yahoo! has not introduced any major new product to steady its flagging fortune.

Perhaps it is time for Mr. Semel to go now. He had a good run from 2001 to 2005. He made hundreds of millions of dollars on Yahoo! stock. But he did not keep the company on the cutting edge. He took no big chance, and it shows. Even eBay took a chance on Skype, a company that would have fit better with Yahoo!'s instant messaging business.

The company's CFO and the COO are not likely candidates to take Mr. Semel's place. They have been involved in the decisions that have brought Yahoo! to its current place. Maybe one of Google's two management stars Omid Kordestani or Jonathan Rosenberg could take Semel's place.

Douglas McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Yahoo! -- Terry Semel's retirement party originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Internet stocks were up today and Yahoo Inc. with them as its shares gained 91 cents, or 3.34%, to close at $28.17.

While there is no one news item that can explain today's rise in share price, the gain could be attributed to a number of recent positive issues:

• The rumor about Project Panama being well on its way with some advertisers gaining access to the new platform within a few weeks.
• The news that Yahoo has just hired Peter Daboll, formerly comScore Media Metrix CEO, to be the head of global market research, which provides Yahoo with consumer research used to help drive product development, marketing and sales.
• Then we have last week's comScore report showing Yahoo! News at the top of the list of news sites having a third of the traffic, or 31 million unique visitors in June.
• Or perhaps it was Terry Semel, Yahoo's CEO, handling of tough questions posed to him in this interview.

Having said all that,

• W.R Hambrecht cut Yahoo! shares price target to $33 from $42
• some started wondering whether Yahoo (along with Google and eBay) would be mentioned next with regards to the stock options scandal
• and finally, Yahoo's consumer satisfaction is down four points this year to 76, according the Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (as is Google's and AOL's)

Yahoo! after the bell 8-15-06: Up more than 3% originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Aug 2006 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In a move sure to take cost savings to a newly symbolic level, Yahoo! said today that Terry Semel's salary would be reduced to $1 each year throughout 2008, just like the top management at Google.

[Aside: as someone who's often been responsible for payroll, I've always wondered how these checks were processed; is it paid all at once or split up into bi-monthly amounts of four cents each? And do they withhold FICA?]

In return, Semel received 6 million stock options at an exercise price of $31.59 per share, as well as the opportunity to receive up to 1 million additional stock options each year. Semel has made $429 million in stock rewards, in addition to his $600,000 salary -- so please don't start sending him your leftover cans of garbanzo beans.

Yahoo! joins Google in tiny CEO pay originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In the war for search supremacy, the past often comes back to haunt you. For the progenitor of search and long-time incumbent, Yahoo!, this holds true more often than not.

For Terry Semel, as CEO of Yahoo!, making tough decisions is part of the job.  When those decisions are cause for fanfare, then rejoicing in the limelight is a welcome perk, but when those decisions in hindsight are more than lamentable but shy of egregious, then he will certainly have to suffer some fierce criticism.

Today's New York Post: Online Edition is running a great story by Janet Whitman, covering quite the story by Terry Semel himself which he recounted at a May 11th Newhouse School-sponsored breakfast event.

The story goes that Semel met Larry Page and Sergei Brin for dinner in 2001, and though Google wasn't on the table, Larry and Sergei valued the business at $1 billion. 

Continue reading Yahoo! passed on buying Google for $1 billion?!

Yahoo! passed on buying Google for $1 billion?! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 12 May 2006 16:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.