Tuesday January 13, 07:29 PM
UPDATE 2-Yahoo to name Bartz as new CEO - WSJ
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO - news) plans to name longtime Silicon Valley executive Carol Bartz as its next
chief executive, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the situation.
Bartz, the former chief executive of software company Autodesk Inc (NASDAQ: ADSK - news) , would be a stabilizing influence on the troubled Internet company, analysts said. But Yahoo shares fell 2 percent as investors seemed disappointed by the choice.
'I think the market may be a little bit disappointed that Yahoo's not going with someone who isn't a little bit more savvy when it comes to technology and media,' said Todd Greenwald, an analyst at Signal Hill.
A Yahoo spokesman declined to comment.
Bartz, 60, was chief executive of Autodesk until 2006. She also has held executive positions at Sun Microsystems Inc and is on the boards of giant technology companies Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO - news) and Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC - news) .
The offer would end Yahoo's two-month search for a chief executive to succeed co-founder Jerry Yang, who agreed in November to step down as CEO as soon as a replacement could be found.
Appointing Bartz could end a tumultuous period for the embattled Internet search engine and advertising company. Last year it suffered a dizzying stock slide after rejecting a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT - news) .
'She's known as a tough and fair leader; she's known for bringing people together and building consensus,' said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner (NYSE: IT - news) . 'That's certainly something that Yahoo needs right now. They need that adult leader to bring that order to the company.'
At the same time, Weiner said: 'She's not a hard-core engineer... She's not what you would call a dot-com or Web insider, but maybe that's not what Yahoo needs right now.'
Yahoo has been struggling to maintain its hold on the lucrative Internet search advertising market against arch-rival Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG - news) .
Yang, who took on the CEO role in 2007, had faced growing criticism from investors, including Carl Icahn, for rejecting Microsoft's offer. Microsoft withdrew its offer in May.
Yahoo later signed a search advertising deal with Google, but the deal fell apart after Google withdrew over antitrust concerns raised by the U.S. Justice Department.
Bartz's appointment, if it happened, could lead to a fresh offer from Microsoft, said Sandeep Aggrawal, an analyst at Collins Stewart (LSE: CLST.L - news) .
'I think Yahoo probably needed a CEO who was going to favor this deal,' he said.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said several times that he is no longer interested in buying Yahoo but remains open to a deal involving their Internet search businesses.
Other names that had been mentioned as possible contenders for the top Yahoo slot were News Corp Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin and Arun Sarin, former chief executive of Vodafone Group Plc.
Yahoo shares fell 25 cents, or 2 percent, to $11.97 on the Nasdaq (NASDAQ: news) stock market in afternoon trading.
(Reporting by Robert MacMillan, Anupreeta Das and Gabriel Madway in San Francisco, Yinka Adegoke in New York and Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Derek Caney and Gerald E. McCormick) Keywords: YAHOO CEO/
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