SEMEL OUT AT YAHOO!; STOCKS SOAR

Terry Semel, the former Warner Bros. co-CEO, who moved on to become chairman and CEO of Yahoo!, where he rode it on a roller-coaster ride for nearly five years, has quit the Internet company. Last year, as Yahoo!'s shares began slipping, Semel was stripped of his CEO title and was replaced by the company's co-founder, Jerry Yang. However, the stock price continued to drop even more precipitously under Yang, falling 32 percent since he took over to $19.18 on Thursday. The announcement of Semel's resignation came one day before the announcement that Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion (a 62-percent premium), an announcement that sent shares of the company soaring more than 45 percent in mid-morning trading on the Nasdaq to $27.75.



01/02/2008