Bartz Makes it Clear: Yahoo is not for Sale

It has been two weeks since she took over the reigns as Yahoo Inc’s CEO. Carol Bartz made it clear while announcing the fourth-quarter and full-year financial results that Yahoo is not for sale. She seems all set for the onerous task of revamping the business fundamentals of the web giant struggling against the upshot of global economic crisis. Working on the same lines she faces the challenge to dole out a new strategy to bring the company back to the drawing board.

Glimpses of her blueprint presented before investors on 27 Jan, 09, while unveiling the financial results clearly overwhelmed the Wall street anticipations. The results followed after months of diminishing returns and cost cutting which saw 10 % lay off of employees. In the recent quarters ended Dec 31 the company posted losses of $303.4-million, or 22 cents per share.

On the better half the full-year results could at least beat the Wall Street expectations. For investors expecting a complete disaster this was a relief. Expect for the few write downs and one-time charges for reconstruction in 2008, Yahoo’s profit increased to $238-million, or 17 cents per share. According to company’s Chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen Yahoo Inc. is thriving with $3.5-billion in cash and related securities at the end of this fiscal year.  The investors pushed up the shares nearly by 4% in after hours trading.

In the first quarterly conference Ms. Bartz was not ready to disclose, if any discussion were held between Yahoo and Microsoft. She also denied the grape wines about Yahoo’s tie-up with media giant Time Warner Inc.’s AOL business. Still anticipations remain about the company’s future with full-year financial guidance for 2009 still to be announced.