Roy Bostock, blamed for his role in Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) failed buyout of the portal company in 2008, and for the rocky tenures of CEO Jerry Yang and Carol Bartz, announced he would leave as chairman. In the minds of many long-term investors, he could not go too soon. The board has been slow to restructure the company, which owns large, but not operationally useful piece of China e-commerce firm Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan. Management and the board have also found no viable solutions to the drop in display ads that have hurt revenue, nor have they engineered any M&A transaction to alter the company’s mix or sales.
Bostock announced
the board has concluded that in order to accelerate the Company’s transformation, the combination of a new Chief Executive Officer with an enhanced team of independent directors would provide Yahoo! with the expertise and perspectives necessary to drive innovation and growth going forward. Therefore, Mr. Joshi, Mr. Kern, Mr. Wilson and I have volunteered not to stand for re-election at the next shareholders’ meeting.
Furthermore, the board today elected two highly qualified independent directors, Alfred Amoroso and Maynard Webb, Jr. Mr. Amoroso served as President and CEO of Rovi Corporation until December 2011 and, among other positions, had previously served as the President, CEO and Vice Chairman of META Group, Inc., the President and CEO of CrossWorlds Software, Inc. and as a member of the world-wide management committee of IBM Corporation. Mr. Webb, the Chairman of LiveOps, Inc., served as that company’s CEO until July 2011. Prior to that, Mr. Webb was Chief Operating Officer of eBay and Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Gateway, Inc., in addition to management, leadership and board positions at several other companies spanning his 30-year career.
The board continues its search for additional independent directors. This search is being led by director Patti Hart, CEO of International Game Technology, Inc., who chairs our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. We anticipate announcing additional directors to round out the board as soon as this process concludes.
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