Yahoo Inc . (NASDAQ: YHOO ) hired Carol Bartz in early 2009 to right the
struggling media giant. The hard-charging Bartz moved quickly, upending the
Yahoo org chart, imposing a near-secretive culture on the Silicon Valley company
and slashing 675 jobs or 5% of staffers on top of the 1,600 laid off the year
before she took the helm. The result? Yahoo is no better off than when Bartz
took over. Yahoo stock traded at $12.10 on January 13, 2009, when Bartz took
over. As of yesterday's close (before Wall Street cheered the CEO's firing
and bid up shares), YHOO was at $12.91 for a nearly 6% loss. The Dow is up about
23% by contrast in the same period. Revenue has also seen a slow decline
year-over-year from fiscal 2009 to 2010, with another projected slide for this
year too. Not surprisingly, Carol Bartz is out despite a year left on her
contract. But now the question on everyone's mind now is, "Can anyone save
Yahoo?" It is admittedly a difficult task. Yahoo stock had briefly traded for
over $40 a share in 2005 and by 2008 had slumped into single digits as low as $9
a share. That would have been bad enough, had YHOO not spurned what now appears
to be the deal of the century – a $31-per-share buyout offer from Microsoft
(NASDAQ: MSFT ), based on pre-Lehman Brothers valuations, that would have
totaled $44.6 billion. Related Article:
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