Yahoo Shakeup: Chairman Out, 3 Other Directors Out

Yahoo, No. 2 in search, shook up its board of directors Tuesday, a month after recruiting new CEO Scott Thompson from eBay's PayPal unit.

Gone are Chairman Roy Bostock, a retired advertising executive, as well as three others, including Vyomesh Joshi, the top printers executive of Hewlett-Packard, who will retire from the board of the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company at the annual meeting.

The moves didn't affect Yahoo shares much in Wednesday trading. Around midday, the shares were at $15.77, down 6 cents.

Meanwhile, Yahoo elected two outsiders as directors Tuesday. They are Alfred Amoroso, former CEO of Rovi and a former top executive of IBM, and Maynard Webb Jr., former CEO of LiveOps and a former Senior VP and Chief Information Officer of Gateway, the PC maker acquired by Acer.

Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang quit last month.

In a letter to shareholders, Bostock said the developments will leave Yahoo with a majority of directors new to the board this year, which should provide a fresh set of perspectives and a diverse set of skills.

That could presage steps to divest Yahoo assets valued as high as $20 billion, such as sale of a 40 percent interest in China's Alibaba Group and a 20 percent stake in Yahoo Japan.

After personally firing CEO Carol Bartz last September, Bostock hired Goldman Sachs and Allen & Co. to provide financial advice to the board. In his shareholder letter, Bostock pointedly wrote that the company is in active discussions with our partners in Asia about restructuring.

Yahoo is an incredibly strong brand with formidable assets, Bostock wrote, echoing comments of Third Point Capital's principal, Daniel Loeb, who acquired a 5 percent stake in the company after Bartz's ouster.

Yahoo shares rose a penny to $15.83 Tuesday, giving the company a market value of $19.6 billion. Since September, the shares have gained 23 percent.