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PayPal head 'to become Yahoo CEO'

New York, January 4, 2012

Yahoo is poised to name PayPal President Scott Thompson as its chief executive after firing former CEO Carol Bartz in September, website AllThingsD reported, citing sources close to the situation.

Former Web powerhouse Yahoo is undergoing a strategic review as it struggles to compete with newer heavyweights Google  and Facebook. It has been run by interim CEO and former chief financial officer Tim Morse since Bartz's departure.

Thompson has been running PayPal, the online payments unit of eBay, since early 2008, and was previously its chief technology officer. PayPal processed $29 billion in payments in the third quarter of 2011.

"It's probably a slight negative, because it makes the sale of the entire company to someone like Microsoft less likely," said Brett Harriss, an analyst at Gabelli & Co, which owns Yahoo shares. "He's certainly a competent manager and he's certainly been successful at PayPal."     

Both Yahoo and PayPal declined to comment on the AllThingsD report on Wednesday.     

Yahoo recently has been discussing slashing its stakes in China's Alibaba Group and its Japanese affiliate as part of a share deal worth about $17 billion, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Alibaba has also hired a Washington lobbying firm in a sign that the Chinese e-commerce company would be willing to make a bid for all of Yahoo in the event that talks to unwind their Asian partnership fail.      

Analysts said one of the first tasks for a new Yahoo CEO would likely be to oversee the sale of its Asian assets. - Reuters




Tags: Google | Yahoo | Paypal | facebook |

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