Yahoo! stock slips as new chief mulls strategy
Yahoo! stock price slid Thursday on word that freshly-appointed chief Marissa Mayer could overhaul the struggling Internet pioneer's strategy to regain its faded glory. Mayer is re-evaluating Yahoo's plans, including a promise that billions of dollars from the sale of part of its stake in Alibaba Group in China would be channeled to stockholders, probably by buying back shares, according to paperwork filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. "Ms Mayer is engaging in a review of the company's business strategy," Yahoo! said in the filing. The review may lead to changes to "previously announced plans for returning to shareholders substantially all of the after-tax cash proceeds of the initial share repurchase" under the terms of a deal inked with Alibaba in May, according to the SEC paperwork. "In short, Mayer may keep the cash to bolster the books or she may use it for deals or other purposes," Jon Ogg wrote in a blog post at investment website 24/7 Wall St. "This is how a new CEO can manage to irk shareholders who are wanting some payback for their patience." Yahoo! shares dropped 3.56 percent to $15.44 in after-market trading. In May, Yahoo! raided its archrival in its latest quest for resurrection, hiring Mayer when she was a key Google executive to start Tuesday as the struggling Internet pioneer's new chief. Mayer -- one of Google's first employees -- is now arguably the most prominent woman in Silicon Valley and a rare female CEO at one of America's largest firms. Yahoo! has been trying to reinvent itself as a "premier digital media" company since the once-flowering Internet search service found itself withering in Google's shadow. As the company strived for a new identity, it saw an exodus of talent that commenced during a failed bid by technology giant Microsoft to buy Yahoo! four years ago for about $45 billion. Yahoo! has been cutting jobs in a purge aimed at becoming a "smaller, nimbler, more profitable" company.
