Yahoo! Inc. to Name PayPal Exec New CEO: Report

Yahoo! Inc. will name a new CEO after Carol Bartz was fired in 2011, according to a report. PayPal President Scott Thompson will be named Yahoo's new, AllThingsD is reporting, citing unidentified sources close to the situation.

Thompson has been president of PayPal, the online payments processing company, since 2008 after previously serving the company as its chief technology officer. According to AllThingsD, Yahoo and PayPal refused to comment on the story. PayPal, owned by eBay, processed $29 billion in payments in the third quarter of 2011, according to records.

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) has struggled in recent years and Bartz was fired in September after the company's board gave up on her leadership efforts. Yahoo's chief financial officer Tim Morse has been serving as the company's acting CEO since Bartz was fired. Yahoo's stock was trading down 1.57 percent, or 25 cents a share, to $16.03 in premarket trading on the news.

The future direction of Yahoo has been the focus of consistent speculation at the end of 2011 as the company's Web site has lost traffic and advertising revenue to the likes of Google and Facebook, the world's largest social network.

In November, Miscosofpresidt Corp. signed a nondisclosure agreement to gain a seat in negotiations should Yahoo choose to sell any or all of its business. Previously, Microsoft had tried to buy Yahoo in 2008 before walking away from the deal.

The hiring of Thompson would give Yahoo an experienced executive with online technology and monetization, yet it's unclear whether shareholders believe he has the experience to compete with Google and Facebook, entirely different businesses than PayPal.

Yet AllThingsD reports that Thompson is the leading candidate to become Yahoo's CEO, saying the announcement could come as soon as today.