Yahoo! gets reorg, Rosensweig out, Susan Decker gets blessed

Filed under: Management, Yahoo! (YHOO)

A few weeks ago we were buzzing about a posting in which several Yahoo! insiders and outsiders were ranked with the probability they might succeed embattled CEO Terry Semel. The scuttlebutt amongst media insiders: Yahoo! is disorganized, without a unifying personality to lead the company, weak on strategy and thinly-staffed. First among the contenders to take over Terry’s job and charge forth with a new mission was CFO Susan Decker.

It seems as if the “bookies” were right. Tonight Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) got a reorganization. In the press release, the company announces it has divided itself into three sections: the Audience Group, the Advertiser & Publisher Group, and the Technology Group. What’s more, COO Dan Rosensweig is leaving the company in March (he was rumored to be a rival to Decker for the CEO spot). Decker will head the Advertiser & Publisher Group (i.e. where the money is), certainly a nod toward her potential to take over the “corner cube” from Semel.

Buzz started at 4 p.m. local time: there was an internal company-wide executive level webcast. Nothing says “someone is getting fired” like “internal company-wide executive-level webcast.” At least not in a web company! The response so far: “no surprise,” “no surprise” that Project Panama is being set as a priority for the new Technology group (and, from the same post, “If you can’t sum up a unit in 30 words maybe it’s not streamlined enough”), “where is Jeff Weiner, Yahoo!’s former golden boy?” and, from an insider, why not Britney Spears as CEO? [Or, at the very least, the head of the audience group, for which a search party has been launched.]

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Cramer has a heart: says Boston Scientific best call in FDA stent decision

Filed under: After the bell, Analyst reports, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Boston Scientific (BSX)

On tonight’s MAD MONEY show on CNBC, Cramer reviewed what the state of the stent market will be.

There is a meeting Thursday at the FDA where the FDA is going to make a recommendation or decision on stents and the approval of them. Cramer thinks that stents will stay and the FDA may either ask for more data or just make token comments.

Both Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX) & Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) have been down on the possibility that an FDA decision “could” go against them. Cramer said that BSX is the riskier of the two because it has more business leveraged, and JNJ has diversified mush of its operations. Cramer prefers BSX for a trade, but warned again that this has risks. BSX traded up almost 4% today to $16.56, but traded up another 0.9% to $16.70 after Cramer discussed this.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Best & Worst: Barry Diller, king of the overpaid

Filed under: IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), Expedia Inc (EXPE), Best and Worst 2006

hspace="4This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance’s Best & Worst of 2006. Vote for Barry Diller, or to check out the other overpaid CEOs.

I’m sorry, but I so totally win. What I mean to say is, Barry Diller so totally wins. He is the undisputed worldwide best freakin’ ever King of the Overpaid!

There are many reasons someone might see fit to award their company’s CEO a Whole Lot of Money. Perhaps that CEO oversaw a banner year for the company, with record profits and growth in sales and maybe the launch of a whole new enterprise. Maybe that CEO got named as Most Powerful this or Most Influential that. Maybe the CEO played less golf than any other CEO in the whole U.S. of A. Maybe — this company might award its CEO, say, $10 or $20 million in salary and bonuses and another $20 or $40 million in stock compensation. I mean, that would be a lot of money for a job well done, right?

Ha ha. Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAHA! That’s Barry Diller laughing at you. Because in one year, as CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI), during which by all accounts his company did a whole lotta nothing, he made: $295 million.

More than four times the next-most-highly-paid CEO for 2005. That doesn’t even count the stock options from Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), which he spun off during the year, which by one calculation has Diller clocking in at nearly $500 million.

What does IAC/InterActive do? Mostly, it owns the Home Shopping Network, with lots of other little properties like Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite, Citysearch, and LendingTree. Actually these are mostly really great companies but I think for pay like this Diller should at the very least be hosting the overnight cubic zirconia and Bedazzler marathon on HSN once a week.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Women on top: What does it take?Here’s advice from Barbara Corcoran, Bobbi Brown, Muriel Siebert and other high-profile female entrepreneurs.

10 times you can’t afford to skimpMoney isn’t everything, especially when it comes to your safety, your comfort or your time . . . and especially your life.

2nd Official Dissented Over Pequot InquiryAn investigator had serious misgivings about decisions being made on the case by senior S.E.C. officials.

Stock Investing