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Tech Check
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Newly named Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz held a conference call Tuesday with Wall Street analysts and reporters and laid it on the line:
The company will be "outward looking and kick some butt," she proclaimed, and then added, "Let's give this company some friggin' breathing room" when it comes to the ongoing public battering Yahoo [YHOO
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] has suffered over the past year.
Her tough talk followed her formal introduction as the company's new CEO by Chairman Roy Bostock, who hailed Bartz as a "savvy leader with deep management expertise...(and) a very firm understanding of the challenges facing our industry."
Bostock added that she was the only candidate for the CEO position who actually received an offer, with the board impressed by her "decisive leadership style" and her "remarkable ability to motivate people."
Bartz added that it was "no secret that Yahoo has faced challenges over the past year," but with its powerful global brand, great assets and cash flow, there exists an "extraordinary opportunity for our shareholders."
And while she's fully prepared to be peppered about what happens next for the company, and what her priorities will be ("Should we do a search deal? Should we divest of certain assets? Are there more cost-savings opportunities?"), she says addressing those issues on her first day on the job would be presumptuous at best.
She plans on taking a little time for a "deep dive" into the business, with a clear focus on "turning the company around. It's going to be challenging. I would not be here if I didn't think these objectives are achievable. I would not have taken the job," she says, if there wasn't a huge opportunity there.
She took issue with the year-long attacks against Yahoo and its board for squandering a $47 billion take-out offer from Microsoft [MSFT
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] and all the other missteps, and high profile executive departures that have severely depressed the company's stock as well as its rank and file:
"I feel that Yahoo has unfortunately been battered this past year," she says, and unfairly so. Indignantly, she proclaimed, "That's nonsense."
"This isn't about some little vision that I have," she said, "It's about a great big vision I have for the company."
There's enormous speculation now, and has been since her name was first floated last week as the likely CEO designee for Yahoo, that her arrival would signal a quick search deal with Microsoft. That was not addressed on the conference call tonight, but just about everyone I'm talking to fully expects the deal to happen, and that a partnership could be announced on or before January 27, the day Yahoo reports its quarterly earnings.
She seemed "in charge," fiery, and just short of belligerent. And that might be precisely the tone Yahoo needs to pull itself out of the deep hole prior management regimes have dug for the company.
But short of real results, and quickly, bluster like that runs the risk of becoming comical instead. Bostock and board think they have the right exec at the right time for Yahoo. Up until Bartz spoke, investors didn't seem so sure. Now that she has, and with shares up 5 percent since her conference call, it looks like investors are prepared to give Bartz a little bit of a honeymoon after all.
The earnings call and her outlook in a couple of weeks will be the next big main event. Unless a deal with Microsoft is announced first.
Her challenges are enormous, but she says she's ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work.
Separately, Yahoo announced that President Sue Decker would resign from the company, though she'll stay on to help with the Bartz transition. Decker's been a loyalist through the turmoil, hoping to get the CEO nod through the entire process. But as the search for Yang's replacement continued, and having missed out on the top job following Terry Semel's ouster, it was clear an ascension to the C-suite was not in the cards for Decker. My thoughts: Her departure is hardly a surprise. That she lasted this long is.
Questions? Comments?
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