Yahoo Shares Rise After Dissidents Oust CEO Thompson

Shares of Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), the No. 3 search engine, rose nearly 3 percent Monday after dissident shareholder Daniel Loeb knocked out the CEO and took control of the company.

By the close, Yahoo shares rose 31 cents to $15.50 after touching $15.77 earlier. The 52-week high for the embattled Sunnyvale, Calif., search engine and media giant is $16.99.

On Sunday, Yahoo announced the firing of CEO Scott Thompson, 54, after only five months in office, after Loeb's Third Point Capital found that he'd provided misleading education information to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Besides Thompson, who claimed a false degree in computer sciences, Loeb also found Yahoo director Patti Hart similarly embellished her resume, claiming degrees in accounting. Hart, 56, CEO of Interactive Gaming Technologies (NYSE: IGT), quit Yahoo last week.

In a deal announced Sunday, Thompson will be succeeded as interim CEO by executive vice president Ross Levinsohn, 48, who is also a veteran of companies including Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NYSE: NWSA).

As well, Loeb and two of his nominees, New York business executive Harry Wilson, a Republican who narrowly lost the 2010 race for New York State Comptroller; and Michael Wolf, a hedge fund manager, will be elected to the board on Wednesday.

Management nominees will withdraw. The company's new chairman will be Fred Amoroso, 61, CEO of private Rovi but formerly an executive with International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), the No. 2 computer company.

Third Point Capital, which owns 5.8 percent of Yahoo shares, also had won allies including Capital Research and Management, the Los Angeles-based mutual funds complex, which owns about 11 percent of the company.

Levinsohn becomes Yahoo's fifth boss in three years.

A statement by Yahoo didn't mention any strategic shifts by the company, such as how it will rebuild market share or deal with strategic investments in foreign companies, including China's Alibaba Group (Pink: ALBCF) and Yahoo Japan (Tokyo: 4689), as well as its technology partnership with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company.

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, is now the No. 2 product, followed by Yahoo. Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), the No. 1 search engine, remains firmly in the lead with a 65 percent share in March, market researcher ComScore reported.

Yahoo's market value is $18.9 billion.