Does Carol Bartz have the magic touch? It’s either that or she inherited something less than a complete mess from Jerry Yang, anyway, because as Yahoo’s new CEO presided over her first earnings report, many of the numbers weren’t at all bad.
In the fourth quarter of 2008, Yahoo met projections by making $1.38 billion in net revenue. The company managed to earn $238 million in net income, or about $0.17 per share. Analysts only expected it to get $0.13 per share, and in the fourth quarter of 2007, Yahoo took in just $184 million in net income, so a lot of growth occurred.
Bartz stated as a result, “We have work to do, but I am excited by Yahoo’s opportunities, and encouraged by the tremendous innovation and momentum I’ve seen since joining the company as CEO.”
Shareholders seem excited, too. Following the announcement, Yahoo’s stock is up 7.76 percent compared to the Dow’s 1.65 percent and the Nasdaq’s 2.59 percent. This puts it at a two-week high, at least.
There could be some trouble in the future, though. Yahoo’s shareholders have long supported the idea of a search deal with Microsoft, and Bartz said, “This is not a company that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens.”
Henry Blodget also noted, “Deferred revenue dropped sharply, especially relative to last year. This suggests that bookings in the quarter were lower than revenue would suggest. This bodes poorly for future revenue.” And “[g]uidance calls for a drop of 10% of revenue year over year in Q1, which, as expected, is lousy. Worse for Yahoo employees: margin guidance is horrible. This makes it more likely that we’ll get another round of layoffs.”
So magic touch or not, Bartz will have to keep prodding the company for a while.
