Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock to step down
Yahoo’s undergoing more changes at its top, with a reshuffling of its board of directors.
Yahoo Board of Directors Chairman Roy Bostock announced plans to step down today.
(Credit: Duke University)
Yahoo’s chairman of the board, Roy Bostock, said that along with fellow board members Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern, and Gary Wilsonhe, he would not seek re-election this year.
Bostock added that to help fill the gap, the board has hired Alfred Amoroso and Maynard Webb Jr. to serve as independent directors. Amoroso was previously the president and CEO of Rovi. Webb previously served as CEO and currently serves as chairman of LiveOps.
Bostock’s plans for announcing his departure were reported earlier today by All Things Digital.
The shuffle comes at a tumultuous time for Yahoo. The Web giant fired CEO Carol Bartz in September, replacing her with Scott Thompson just last month. Weeks later, company co-founder Jerry Yang resigned from Yahoo’s board to “pursue other interests.” All the while, speculation has swirled about the company attempting to sell its 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan as part of a deal estimated to be valued at $17 billion. In Bostock’s letter, he referred to that effort as “active” but also filled with complexity.
Bostock joined Yahoo’s board in May 2003, becoming its chairman in January 2008–just weeks before the company received its first takeover offer from Microsoft, a deal Yahoo eventually turned down. The two companies went on to strike a search-and-advertising deal a year later.
More recently, Bostock–along with the rest of Yahoo’s board of directors–became the target of an open letter from investment adviser Third Point, which owns 5.1 percent of the company. The firm’s chief executive, Daniel Loeb, slammed the board, saying it has mismanaged the company, making “many mistakes.”
Yahoo’s stock closed up 1 cent, at $15.83, earlier today and is currently down to $15.80, or 0.19 percent, in after-hours trading.
Below is Bostock’s letter to shareholders, which the company published shortly after the stock market closed trading for the day:
