Yahoo report could include staff cuts
When Yahoo delivers its fourth-quarter earnings performance Tuesday, Wall Street doesn’t want just numbers, it wants a glimpse at the road map of the Net company’s future.
Yahoo’s recent past has been tumultuous. Caught between rising powers Facebook and Google, the Silicon Valley company has struggled to keep pace in the dynamic online and mobile advertising and media market. To that end, Yahoo’s share of global digital ad revenue is expected to have fallen 2% to $3.37 billion in 2015, according to eMarketer.
After activist investors rebelled against Yahoo’s planned spinoff of its 15% stake in Chinese Web behemoth Alibaba, Chairman Maynard Webb and CEO Marissa Mayer in December halted that plan and said they would instead consider selling the core Yahoo Net business. Since then, there have been reports employee layoffs have begun. Those cuts could amount to 15% of the company’s 11,000 or so employees, The Wall Street Jour
nal reported Monday, according to persons close to the issue. Last week, Yahoo closed its operations in Mexico and Argentina.
Yahoo shares were down 1.4% Monday to $29.09 and are approaching a 52-week low.
Since Mayer arrived in 2012, revenues have fallen more than 10% and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) have fallen more than 40%, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Internet equity analyst Robert Peck said.
“We’d describe the company as a failed turnaround,” he told USA TODAY.