Yahoo Inc’s Mickie Rosen, the veteran entertainment executive hired to lead the company’s media business in 2011, is departing one year into chief executive officer Marissa Mayer’s attempt at a turnaround.
Rosen, who was senior vice president of global media, is leaving on Sept. 1 and will receive a severance package for termination “without cause,” according to a regulatory filing from the Sunnyvale, California-based company on Monday.
Mayer has emphasized online video, an area overseen by Rosen, as part of her effort to revive growth at the largest US Internet portal. Rosen’s departure follows Yahoo’s failed attempt to buy a majority stake in video site Dailymotion as well as a bid for Hulu LLC, which called off an auction this month.
Earlier on Monday, Yahoo director and activist investor Daniel Loeb said he was leaving the board and selling US$1.16 billion of his stake back to the company.
“Mickie has made tremendous contributions to Yahoo’s media business over the past two-and-a-half years, and we wish her all the best,” Sara Gorman, a spokeswoman for Yahoo, said in an e-mailed statement, without elaborating on the reason for her departure.
Yahoo shares fell 4.3 percent to US$27.86 at the close in New York, the biggest decline since June 24.
The drop came after Yahoo announced plans to repurchase 40 million shares at US$29.11 apiece from Loeb’s Third Point LLC, a sign that the hedge fund manager may see limited upside to Mayer’s turnaround plan.
Loeb is left with about 20 million shares, or less than a 2 percent stake. His allies on the board, Harry Wilson and Michael Wolf, are also stepping down, leaving Yahoo with seven directors.
Last week Yahoo reported second-quarter sales of US$1.07 billion, lower than analysts’ average estimate of US$1.08 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Mayer has thus far focused on revamping products and improving worker morale at the expense of wooing advertisers, who continue to shift budgets to Google Inc and Facebook Inc.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”