Yahoo Climbs as Fourth-Quarter Earnings Top Estimates

Just days after Carol Bartz, 60, took over in the month Jan 2009 as chief executive officer from Jerry Yang, who stepped down after Yahoo’s rejection of a $47.5 billion offer from Microsoft Corp. rankled investors last year, the company said it would freeze pay for many employees. Carol Bartz, in her first earnings conference call as chief executive officer, said she would consider offers to buy the company’s assets, while adding that she didn’t come to Yahoo with the intention of selling it. With the recession deepening, Yahoo is slashing costs. Yahoo! Inc., owner of the second most popular U.S. search engine, surged 7.9 percent in Nasdaq trading on Jan. 28 after fourth-quarter earnings beat analysts’ estimates, buoyed by job cuts and rising domestic sales. Excluding fees passed on to partner sites, sales were $1.38 billion, meeting projections. Yahoo rose 90 cents to $12.24 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares declined 48 percent last year. Fourth-quarter sales increased 2 percent to $1.34 billion in the U.S., Yahoo said. International sales declined 10 percent to $468 million. Yahoo’s worldwide revenue from search ads climbed 11 percent last quarter as users submitted more queries, Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said on the call. Sales of display advertising declined 2 percent, he said. Yahoo depends more heavily on display ads than search advertising, where Google leads, Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. said. VIA


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