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.
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