With Jerry Yang out as Yahoo! (YHOO) CEO, what most of the board and many large shareholders want is for the portal company to be sold to Microsoft (MSFT). It may be at half the price of Redmond’s first offer, but that is an indication of how awful Yahoo!’s prospects are.
Yahoo! is busy trying to find a new CEO who will probably be fired within a month or two of taking the position.
According to Reuters, "To impress shareholders, Yahoo Inc’s next chief executive needs just one qualification: the willingness to do a deal with Microsoft Corp."
What does that mean? First, no one who really wants to turn Yahoo! around will take the job. The leaves out presumed front-runner Peter Chernin, COO of News Corp (NWS). He is not going to leave Rupert Murdoch for a few weeks on the West Coast.
The other by-product of the Yahoo! boards plans is that even a modestly skilled candidate can take the job. All that person needs to do it make sure that they get $20 million or $30 million if the company is sold. And, they need to vote "yes" on a sale.
The Yahoo! CEO search won’t take long and it will not yield a real hitter.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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