Yahoo Japan: CEO change won't affect prospective sale of Yahoo Inc stake
Yahoo Japan has rejected claims that Yahoo’s latest change of leader will impact upon the potential sale of its share in the Japanese joint venture, as the troubled Web firm looks to streamline its business.
Yahoo just let its sixth CEO in seven years go, after Scott Thompson finally paid the price for his erroneous resume. Yahoo has been linked with selling its 33 percent share of the Japanese venture — run independently of Yahoo Inc. — since before Thompson came on board, and a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that it doesn’t expect the change to have any impact in future sale talks, or its day-to-day business.
The company is reported to be keen to shed its investment in Yahoo Japan and Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, both of which are successful in their own rights, to order to help smooth a potential sale of the company. However, talks to sell the stake in Yahoo Japan broke down earlier this year, with the Wall Street Journal indicating that the company’s insistence on structuring a tax-free transaction was to blame.
