Friday, August 10, 2007

SJ Mercury News: Yahoo's Decker's stock buy seen as sign of confidence in firm

Here's some welcome news to Yahoo! shareholders. Let's hope other Yahoo! execs and directors follow her lead. Good move, Sue.

By Ari Levy
Bloomberg News
Article Launched: 08/10/2007 01:37:07 AM PDT

Yahoo President Susan Decker boosted her stake in the Internet company by 12 percent, a sign she may be optimistic about growth prospects.

Decker, 44, purchased 47,000 Yahoo shares for $1.1 million last week, according to a filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That brings her ownership to about 425,000 shares, or $10.1 million, based on Bloomberg data.

Sunnyvale-based Yahoo named Decker president June 18 in a management shake-up that brought in co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive to replace Terry Semel. The company, which has lost market share in Internet search to Mountain View-based Google, is investing in new advertising software and upgrading its mobile-phone and video services.

"Usually, the buying and selling of stock by management is part of the normal landscape of business," New York-based JPMorgan Chase analyst Imran Khan, who rates the shares "overweight," said in a report Thursday. "However, we believe that this isolated incidence is evidence of increasing management confidence in company performance."

Yahoo spokeswoman Joanna Stevens declined to comment.

The company reported last month that second-quarter profit fell 2.3 percent as Google extended its lead in Internet search and new rivals took market share in online advertising. Yang said in a conference call after the July 17 report that he would spend the next 100 days developing a long-term strategy.

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