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BUSINESS A25
Wednesday 3 February
Yahoo to cut 1,700 workers as CEO tries to save her own job
MICHAEL LIEDTKE that could result in the sale In this Jan. 7, 2014, file photo, Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer speaks during the Inter-
AP Technology Writer of all the company’s Inter- national Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Yahoo reports financial earnings on Tuesday,
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — net operations. Analysts Feb. 2, 2016.
Yahoo is laying off about have speculated that Ve-
1,700 employees and rizon, AT&T and Comcast Associated Press
shedding some of its excess might be interested in buy-
baggage in a shake-up ing Yahoo’s main business, agement, already have disclose the size of Spring- developing mobile appli-
likely to determine whether despite years of deteriora- concluded that Mayer Owl’s Yahoo investment. cations and other services
CEO Marissa Mayer can tion. should be laid off, too. Yahoo’s stock dipped 25 designed to attract more
save her own job. Mayer expressed confi- Mayer, a former rising star cents to $28.81 in extend- traffic and advertisers.
The long-anticipated dence that her plan to run at Google who helped ed trading after details of The decline has persisted
purge, announced Tues- Yahoo as a smaller, more Google eclipse Yahoo, has Mayer’s latest turnaround while advertisers have
day, will jettison about 15 focused company “will given no indication she in- attempt came out. been steadily increas-
percent of Yahoo’s work- dramatically brighten our tends to leave. Yahoo’s revenue has been ing their digital market-
force along with an assort- future and improve our Even after the mass firings shrinking through most ing efforts. Most of that
ment of services that May- competitiveness, and at- are completed by the end of Mayer’s reign, even money has been flowing
er decided aren’t worth tractiveness to users, ad- of March, Yahoo will still though she has spent more to Google and Facebook
the time and money that vertisers, and partners.” have about 9,000 workers than $3 billion buying more — two companies once
the Internet company has This cost-cutting overhaul — three times the roughly than 40 companies, while far smaller than the now
been putting into them. might be Mayer’s last 3,000 people that Spring- bringing in new talent and 20-year-old Yahoo Inc.q
Mayer hopes to sell some chance to persuade rest- Owl believes the compa-
of Yahoo’s unwanted ser- less shareholders that she ny should be employing,
vices for about $1 billion, has figured out how to based on its steadily de-
though she didn’t identify revive the Internet com- clining revenue.
which ones. In an appar- pany’s growth after three- “We would like to see a
ent concession to some and-half years of futility. higher stock price, and we
shareholders, Mayer also Some of Yahoo’s most out- think Marissa and her cur-
said Yahoo’s board will mull spoken shareholders, such rent management team
“strategic alternatives” as SpringOwl Asset Man- have become a hindrance
to that,” said Eric Jackson,
Stocks sink, weighed down by SpringOwl’s managing
another drop in price of oil director. He declined to
KEN SWEET agement said its gauge of
AP Business Writer factory activity pointed to
NEW YORK (AP) — Another a contraction while Chi-
steep drop in the price of na’s official survey found
oil weighed on global mar- that manufacturing fell to
kets Tuesday. Investors re- its lowest level in more than
mained deeply concerned three years.
about the global economy Those reports have
following this week’s disap- weighed heavily on the
pointing Chinese and U.S. market, and have put in-
manufacturing data. vestors back in a selling
Energy stocks fell as oil mood after a brief reprieve
giants Exxon Mobil and last week. U.S. government
Chevron reported their bond prices rose as inves-
worst quarterly results in tors sought safety. q
more than a decade. In
the technology sector,
Google’s parent com-
pany, Alphabet, overtook
Apple as the world’s most
valuable publicly traded
company.
The Dow Jones industrial
average lost 295.64 points,
or 1.8 percent, to 16,153.54.
The Standard & Poor’s 500
index fell 36.35 points, or
1.9 percent, 1,903.03 and
the Nasdaq composite fell
103.42 points, or 2.2 per-
cent, to 4,516.95.
It’s a busy week on the
economic data front, par-
ticularly in the U.S., where
the week ends with month-
ly payroll figures. So far,
the numbers haven’t im-
pressed. On Monday, the
Institute for Supply Man-
